Support For Brexit Research Articles

Cognitive underpinnings of nationalistic ideology in the context of Brexit

Nationalistic identities often play an influential role in citizens' voting behavior and political engagement. Nationalistic ideologies tend to have firm categories and rules for what belongs to and represents the national culture. In a sample of 332 UK citizens, we tested whether strict categorization of stimuli and rules in objective cognitive tasks would be evident in strongly nationalistic individuals. Using voting behavior and attitudes from the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum, we found that a flexible representation of national identity and culture was linked to cognitive flexibility in the ideologically neutral Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Remote Associates Test, and to self-reported flexibility under uncertainty. Path analysis revealed that subjective and objective cognitive inflexibility predicted heightened authoritarianism, nationalism, conservatism, and system justification, and these in turn were predictive of support for Brexit and opposition to immigration, the European Union, and free movement of labor. This model accounted for 47.6% of the variance in support for Brexit. Path analysis models were also predictive of participants' sense of personal attachment to the United Kingdom, signifying that individual differences in cognitive flexibility may contribute toward ideological thinking styles that shape both nationalistic attitudes and personal sense of nationalistic identity. These findings further suggest that emotionally neutral "cold" cognitive information processing-and not just "hot" emotional cognition-may play a key role in ideological behavior and identity.

Populist referendum: Was ‘Brexit’ an expression of nativist and anti-elitist sentiment?

Was the outcome of the United Kingdom’s ‘Brexit’ referendum to leave the European Union a visible and consequential manifestation of right-wing populism? After all, skepticism in the UK towards the EU predates the recent rise of European right wing populism. Original survey data show, however, that the interaction of nativist sentiment and anti-elitist attitudes, the cocktail of right-wing populism, led to widespread support for Brexit, even while controlling for other factors. Although hostility to immigrants was an important factor, nativists were particularly prone to vote ‘leave’; if they also did not trust political elites, a crucial element of populism. Further underscoring this explanation is the conditional effect of anti-elite sentiment. The relationship between anti-elite sentiment and support for leaving the EU only exists among those with high nativist sentiment; among those low in nativist sentiment, anti-elite feelings did not increase support for Brexit.

Populism as Identity Politics

Populists combine anti-elitism with a conviction that they hold a superior vision of what it means to be a true citizen of their nation. We expected support for populism to be associated with national collective narcissism—an unrealistic belief in the greatness of the national group, which should increase in response to perceived in-group disadvantage. In Study 1 (Polish participants; n = 1,007), national collective narcissism predicted support for the populist Law and Justice party. In the experimental Study 2 (British participants; n = 497), perceived long-term in-group disadvantage led to greater support for Brexit and this relationship was accounted for by national collective narcissism. In Study 3 (American participants; n = 403), group relative deprivation predicted support for Donald Trump and this relationship was accounted for by national collective narcissism. These associations were present even when we controlled for conventional national identification. We discuss implications of the link between collective narcissism and support for populism.

Examining the role of positive and negative intergroup contact and anti-immigrant prejudice in Brexit.

This study examined the interplay of anti-immigrant prejudice and intergroup contact experience on voting intentions within Britain's 2016 referendum on its membership in the European Union. In the days before the referendum, we asked more than 400 British people how they planned to vote. We measured a number of demographic factors expected to predict voting intentions as well as individuals' prejudice towards and intergroup contact experience (positive and negative) with EU immigrants. Anti-immigrant prejudice was a strong correlate of support for Brexit. Negative intergroup contact experience was associated with higher anti-immigrant prejudice and, in turn, increased support for 'Leave'. Positive intergroup contact, on the other hand, seemed to play a reparative role, predicting lower prejudice and increasing support for 'Remain'.

Discourse theory in populism research

Abstract ‘Populism’ constitutes one of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary politics and academia. The concept is used to describe a series of heterogeneous phenomena: on the one hand, Donald Trump, BREXIT supporters and the European Far Right in government or in opposition; on the other, Bernie Sanders, the so-called Pink Tide of left-wing populist governments in Latin America and inclusionary populisms in the European South. Recent developments have undoubtedly generated significant research material and a new impetus to the scope and impact of populism research. However, major challenges have also been created, requiring urgent attention. This paper discusses three such challenges (reflexivity, definition, typology) from a discursive perspective. Starting from a double hermeneutic focus on the interaction between academic theorization and political orientation, it highlights the importance of discourse theory in populism research and concludes by formulating a crucial theoretico-political dilemma populism researchers are increasingly facing today.

Taking back control? Investigating the role of immigration in the 2016 vote for Brexit

The 2016 referendum marked a watershed moment in the history of the United Kingdom. The public vote to leave the European Union (EU)—for a ‘Brexit’—brought an end to the country’s membership of the EU and set it on a fundamentally different course. Recent academic research on the vote for Brexit points to the importance of immigration as a key driver, although how immigration influenced the vote remains unclear. In this article, we draw on aggregate-level data and individual-level survey data from the British Election Study (BES) to explore how immigration shaped public support for Brexit. Our findings suggest that, specifically, increases in the rate of immigration at the local level and sentiments regarding control over immigration were key predictors of the vote for Brexit, even after accounting for factors stressed by established theories of Eurosceptic voting. Our findings suggest that a large reservoir of support for leaving the EU, and perhaps anti-immigration populism more widely, will remain in Britain, so long as immigration remains a salient issue.

Brexit and Trade: Between Facts and Irrelevance

This paper examines four claims made by Brexit supporters regarding the United Kingdom’s post-exit arrangement on trade with the EU. It reviews the nature and importance of UK-EU trade links and the possible impact on the UK of leaving the EU customs union. It argues that all four of the claims are based on incongruous arguments which are either logically inconsistent or ignore the extent of the commitment required by trade agreements that tackle regulatory barriers, not just tariffs and border restrictions. We demonstrate that the attractiveness of the UK market will progressively decline as the UK enters into additional bilateral agreements. We conclude by analysing the implications for the UK of “taking back control” of its trade policy.

Brexit: The Economics of International Disintegration

This paper reviews the literature on the likely economic consequences of Brexit and considers the lessons of the Brexit vote for the future of European and global integration. Brexit will make the United Kingdom poorer because it will lead to new barriers to trade and migration between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Plausible estimates put the costs to the United Kingdom at between 1 and 10 percent of income per capita. Other European Union countries will also suffer economically, but their estimated losses are much smaller. Support for Brexit came from a coalition of less-educated, older, less economically successful and more socially conservative voters. Why these voters rejected the European Union is poorly understood, but will play an important role in determining whether Brexit proves to be merely a diversion on the path to greater international integration or a sign that globalization has reached its limits.

National, Transnational, International

National, Transnational, International Russ Castronovo (bio) In the wake of the US presidential election of 2016, it is worth pondering the fate and future of the transnational turn in literary studies. The slogan to "Make America Great Again" does not acknowledge the extent to which this nativist nostalgia is wrapped around larger global developments and crises from Brexit to the rise of ISIS and the flood of refugees from the Syrian conflict zone. Still, President Donald Trump's captious take on everything from NATO agreements to the Paris climate accords invites us to ask: has the aesthetic and political potential of transnationalism already passed us by? We might be tempted to pose this question in spite of the evidence gleaned from a quick sampling of conference themes, edited collections such as the one that first brought together the contributors to this special forum in College Literature, and academic journals, including one expressly devoted to transnational American studies. If a transnational turn has influenced the directions of literary studies, it can also seem like the rest of the world has not veered away from nationalism, especially its popular manifestations. For many observers, 2016 was a year in which the horizon and promise of the transnationalism with respect to the movement of people and ideas had been scaled back, often it seems, out of fear and resentment. [End Page 515] The anxiety over the porousness of national borders that stoked support for Brexit, the resurgence of European nationalisms that rallied voters to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France, and, perhaps most spectacularly, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States have all cast a gloom over transnational imaginaries. Time magazine recently provided the Cassandra-like prediction that "an even larger crisis is coming. The popular fury convulsing Europe and the U.S. may well spill over into the rest of the world" (May 11, 2017). The global sensibilities associated with transnational aesthetics seem diminished by the insistent rhetoric of national crisis. In the United States alone, talk of a border wall and executive orders banning travel from predominantly Muslim countries, even if these plans never come to fruition, indicate that this drumbeat will likely continue for years to come. Still, it would be a mistake to think of returning to a simpler map of bounded nation-states like the finite game board of Risk inspired by the Napoleonic Wars. Transnationalism has not burnt itself out nor has it been eclipsed by the talk of making America great again. After all, nowhere was this presidential campaign slogan echoed by sympathetic curricular cries to make American literature, painting, or film great again. Perhaps, as a cynic might point out, the steady hold of canonical thinking makes such a gesture unnecessary in fields that, whatever their openness to new approaches and texts, by and large remain organized around national traditions. From this vantage, the election of a Republican businessman as US president is hardly exceptional in a country that has long been inventing some version of "America first" every generation. Then again, a more sanguine observer might seek to reassure us that American literature and art, precisely because each is aesthetic, are already hardwired with non-national sensibilities. Each perspective is just true enough to indicate the extent to which the nation as a juridical, administrative, moral, even sports-related term (think of the importance of national units to global competitions such as World Cup soccer or the Olympics) persists as a meaningful formation within transnationalism. As Yogita Goyal writes in her introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Transnational American Literature, "Because transnational frames do not argue for the demise of nations, but for a rethinking of them, they can help counteract triumphalist discourses of globalism" (2017, 7). At a moment of nationalist resurgence, we might also insist on a converse formulation: "Just because a race-baiting nationalist has been elected president does not mean [End Page 516] that transnationalism is suddenly obsolescent or irrelevant. Instead, the present conjuncture provides an opportunity for rethinking transnationalism and for considering why it might be an ever more crucial resource for progressive politics and cultural transformation at a moment...

ПРОБЛЕМА ОГРАНИЧЕНИЯ ТРУДОВОЙ МИГРАЦИИ КАК ОСНОВНАЯ ПРИЧИНА БРЕКЗИТА

The article is devoted to the problem of the renegotiation of the UK membership conditions in the EU in connection with the British Prime-Minister D. Cameron’s decision made in 2013 to hold a referendum on the topic of the British membership in the EU (June 23, 2016). This event is widely known as Brexit voting. There is also a brief history of the British society’s attitudes to immigration problem and their influence on transformation of the British electoral system. While scrutinizing the causes of the Leave campaign victory at the referendum, the author covers in details the progress of the renegotiation of the British status in the EU at summits during 2015–2016. The research highlights views and attitudes of 27 EU member states on the British plan of the EU reforms. Special attention is paid to the debates between leaders of the European states about the change of such basic principles as the freedom of labor movement around Europe and the movement of all member states to a closer union, mainly in British interests. The author underlines that the most difficult point of the renegotiations for the British Prime-Minister was the obtainment of these changes. The Greek problem, the migration problem and the EU existential crisis are given as main reasons that helped D. Cameron to get the UK “special status” in the EU after many disputes and delays in Brussels. The article shows the impact of the European states leaders’ attitudes and the influence of the aggravating immigration problem in Britain on organization of two campaigns in the British society in the light of the forthcoming referendum. The author also scrutinizes the path of agitation campaign before the referendum. The results of different public opinion polls made by the leading British sociological agencies such as Ipsos MORI, ComRes, NatCat are also widely used in the research. They help to monitor the dynamics of public preferences and attitudes to the EU, to its rules and practices, to the migration problem and to expectations among British politicians of the future possible economic dilapidation of the UK in the case of Brexit. The study stresses that the Leave campaign used the discussion of the immigration problem during the last two weeks of agitation before the referendum because it was the most apprehensible, worrying and important problem for ordinary British. The author attempts to answer the question whether the immigration problem was the key one for the victory of the Brexit supporters’ views at the UK referendum.&nbsp

The 2016 Referendum, Brexit and the Left Behind: An Aggregate‐level Analysis of the Result

AbstractWhy did Britain vote for Brexit? What was the relative importance of factors such as education, age, immigration and ethnic diversity? And to what extent did the pattern of public support for Brexit across the country match the pattern of public support in earlier years for eurosceptic parties, notably the UK Independence Party (UKIP)? In this article we draw on aggregate‐level data to conduct an initial exploration of the 2016 referendum vote. First, we find that turnout was generally higher in more pro‐Leave areas. Second, we find that public support for Leave closely mapped past support for UKIP. And third, we find that support for Leave was more polarised along education lines than support for UKIP ever was. The implication of this finding is that support for euroscepticism has both widened and narrowed—it is now more widespread across Britain but it is also more socially distinctive.