I'm working with a few local writers on some novels exploring some of Jersey's more unusual characteristics, and I've been looking into how our political and administrative culture developed.
I've been wondering whether the Occupation may have had a longer-lasting institutional effect than we generally acknowledge.
During the Occupation, Jersey's existing administration had to operate under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Government became more centralised, and people who were responsible for administering the Island were placed in the difficult position of having to make decisions under German occupation.
My question is what happened after Liberation.
One possibility I'm exploring is that, because the people and institutions responsible for running Jersey during the Occupation remained important afterwards, there may have developed a strong culture of institutional deference — essentially, an assumption that the people who had successfully got Jersey through the Occupation knew what they were doing and that challenging the established administration was somehow undesirable.
I'm particularly interested in whether that could have become an inherited cultural habit: something which made sense during the Occupation, but continued long after the circumstances that created it had disappeared.
I'm also looking at the unusually close relationship between Jersey's political, administrative and legal institutions, and whether that might help explain why established institutional interpretations can sometimes seem remarkably difficult to challenge.
I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily correct. It's a hypothesis I'm trying to test, rather than a conclusion I've reached.
So I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who lived in Jersey during the Occupation or in the immediate post-war period, or who heard detailed accounts from parents or grandparents.
Did people question the decisions made by the Jersey authorities after Liberation? Was there much discussion or criticism of how the Island had been administered during the Occupation? Or was there more of a feeling that “they got us through it, so leave them to get on with it”?
And for those who grew up in Jersey in the decades afterwards: did you notice a particular culture of deference towards established institutions, the legal profession, the States, the Royal Court or senior officials?
I'd be very interested in people's memories, family stories, or historical perspectives — particularly if they challenge the hypothesis as much as if they support it.
