Brexit and emergent politics: Introduction to the special issue

2017

Brexit and the election of Donald Trump both seem to originate from a deep dissatisfaction with globalization and what it seemingly represents. The growing discontent against the rapid growth of global goods, services, capital and labor began during the third wave of globalization in 1979/80. This cumulated into a full-blown backlash against globalization in the aftermath of the 2007/08 global financial and economic crisis. The then combustible mix of historic disruptions to the flow of capital in the USA (and partly the UK) and the unchecked growing income gaps in the West erupted when the global immigration crisis began to unfold.

It is difficult to overstate the impact that the 2016 decision by the United Kingdom (UK) to leave the European Union (EU) has and will have on the country’s politics and society. The referendum held that year became an opportunity for the crystallisation of various discontents and disaffections—not all of them directly linked to the EU itself—and opened up a substantial rupture within the underlying assumptions of British statecraft. In particular, the self-image of British politics as being driven by pragmatism has hindered—and will continue to hinder—the ability of politicians and society to work a way through these challenges.

2018

The neoliberal agenda has polarised societies and in consequence, the choices facing the UK electorate range from neoliberalism to left wing socialism. Empirical evidence already exists on the measurable effect of the increasing dominance of the neoliberal wing of the Conservative party, indicating the continuation of laissez faire, migration control, increasing inequality, a low tax low wage economy, stagnating income and deteriorating public services. The competing ideology will result in the nationalisation of the utilities and the railway system, the regulation of capital, necessitating some element of control to prevent flight, the deregulation of labour, increased taxation, particularly on corporations to repair the damage to infrastructure and public services, and provisions enacted to improve wealth distribution. Both these alternatives should be unappealing to the majority of the electorate. However, allied to the “first past the post†electoral system, in a post Brexit ...

Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2021

When history books about Brexit are written a key question asked will be ‘how did it happen?’ How did a country renowned for stable governments, pragmatism and diplomacy produce a chaotic outcome so harmful to its economic interests and international standing? This article examines the factors that produced Brexit by analysing its political and historical context, the main campaign groups and their communication strategies. Drawing on the work of Verdery (1999), Maskovsky and Bjork-James (2020) and other anthropologists, I suggest we need to look beyond conventional political science concepts and consider Brexit in terms of ‘enchantment’, ‘angry politics’ and ‘technopopulism’. I conclude that while Brexit provides a window for analysing fault lines in contemporary Britain, it also highlights problems in the EU, its austerity politics and democratic deficit.

Britain's vote to leave the EU is part of a tectonic shift in Western politics. An alliance of socialists and conservatives rejected the status quo of remote bureaucracy, mass immigration, and multiculturalism in favor of more self-government and the protection of settled ways of life. A similar realignment is underway in European countries such as Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, and France, where it could see anti-EU parties force similar referenda or even seize power altogether. Support for anti-establishment candidates in the USA reflects similar trends, Thus we are seeing a parallel process in both Europe and North America—a reordering of politics that cannot be mapped according to the old categories of left versus right because they are part of the same liberal logic that is now in question. Indeed, from the 1990s onward both the center-left and the center-right tended to fuse economic with social liberalism, notably financial and trade liberalization coupled with a raft of equality legislation in support of abstract ideals such as diversity and inclusivity. In neither case did mainstream parties consider how the privileging of minority interests might affect the rest of the economy or the majority of society. Following the 2008 global credit crash and repeated civic breakdown (including urban riots from Los Angeles via London and Paris to Malmo), questions of ethics and culture, which the hitherto hegemonic socioeconomic liberalism had seemingly settled, have returned to the fore of politics: substantive rather than merely procedural justice; the common good instead of purely private profit or public utility; shared cultural bonds based not on individual entitlement claims but on more mutualist, reciprocal models of contribution and reward. Such questions are part of a new debate that can be described as “post-liberal”—greater economic egalitarianism and an updated version of social (small “c”) conservatism.

Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 2018

In this paper we develop a conceptual and methodological approach that psychologists and other social scientists can employ to study emergence. We consider relevant social psychological approaches and conclude that, for the most part, social psychology has tended to focus on processes of normalisation following disruptions, rather than examining emergence in itself. An exception to this is G.H. Mead, whose work we draw on to theorise emergence with a focus on contemporary 'affective politics'. In the second part of the paper, we use focus group data on the EU referendum in the UK to empirically illustrate our theoretical points. We discuss in particular three axes for exploring the emergent politics of Brexit: political values, political authority, and the authority of affect. We conclude our discussion by reflecting on some of the theoretical and political implications of our analysis. Introduction: an emerging social psychology for an emergent politics This special issue asks: what conceptual and methodological tools can social psychologists employ or develop to better understand the emerging political realities associated with Brexit? This focus on emergence implies that the ordered universe of the political status quo has been disrupted and that something new is at play in the passage of politics. Several analysts, for example, have framed this change in terms of a manifold of implications associated with the disruption of the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism (Davies, 2016; Streeck, 2017). Illustrative examples of this disruption, across Europe and the West more generally, are a growing sense of political disenchantment alongside a crisis of legitimacy of institutions of governance (such as the European Union but also national governance institutions); the rise of populism from both the left (e.g. Syriza in Greece) and the right (e.g. National Front in France) of the political spectrum, which has unsettled the consensual technocratic politics under neoliberalism; the rise of authoritarianism and nationalism which further challenge the hegemony of the liberal consensus (e.g. Donald Trump's 'America First' policy). Existing analytical tools in social psychology and the social sciences (such as the distinction between the political left and right), appear insufficient to explain these emerging political formations. In this paper, we aim to approach both Brexit and a social psychology of Brexit as emergent forms. We begin the paper with some theoretical suggestions about how a future social psychology might better engage with questions of emergence with a focus on contemporary 'affective politics'. In the second part of the paper, we draw upon focus group data on the EU referendum in the UK to illustrate political values, sources of authority and affective forms of communication are shaping the emergent politics of Brexit.

DergiPark (Istanbul University), 2018

The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit, 2018