UK Decision Research Articles

British defense policy against ISIL in Iraq and Syria under David Cameron 2014-2016

The purposes of this research to investigate how the UK's decision to engage militarily against ISIL, under Operation Shader, aligns with the principles of neoclassical realism. This research employs a qualitative methodology. The qualitative descriptive approach employed is one of data analysis. This approach is not limited to the presentation of numerical or statistical data. Instead, it focuses on the interpretation and description of the phenomenon under investigation, employing a narrative format. This approach prioritizes the collection of empirical evidence derived from observational studies, interviews, and the analysis of various documents. The results are how UK and US continues to defend itself against ISIL's presence and movements and seeks new strategies to drive them out of the international system.

Analysis of British Foreign Policy Forming the Australia, United Kingdom, and United States (AUKUS) Security Alliance in 2021

Security has become a significant issue in international relations because it involves aspects of territorial protection, peacekeeping, economic stability, and other elements that influence the lives of countries worldwide. In international relations, security involves a deep understanding of threats, conflicts, and strategies to maintain peace and stability at regional and global levels. This research aims to analyze state behavior in the context of security cooperation, focusing on the UK's participation in the AUKUS security alliance formed in 2021. The UK's decision to join AUKUS was driven by two main factors, namely national role conceptions and role prescriptions. This research pays special attention to the uniqueness of Britain's participation in this alliance, considering its geographical position in the North Atlantic region, not in the Indo-Pacific region, which is the main focus of AUKUS. This analysis will provide valuable insight for the Indonesian Government in addressing security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region related to forming the AUKUS alliance. By understanding the motivational factors driving UK participation, this research can contribute to formulating more effective policies addressing regional and global security challenges.

The Global Impact of Brexit Uncertainty

ABSTRACTWe propose a text‐based method for measuring the cross‐border propagation of large shocks at the firm level. We apply this method to estimate the expected costs, benefits, and risks of Brexit and find widespread reverberations in listed firms in 81 countries. International (i.e., non‐U.K.) firms most exposed to Brexit uncertainty (the second moment) lost significant market value and reduced hiring and investment. International firms also overwhelmingly expected negative first‐moment impacts from the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union (EU), particularly related to regulation, asset prices, and labor market impacts of Brexit.

Recent metaphors of Brexit in the British press

In the referendum of 23 June 2016, the UK's decision to leave the EU in the course of a Brexit was very close, with 51.9% (Leave) versus 48.1% (Remain). A year after the final withdrawal from the European Union, disillusionment seems to have spread in Great Britain. The focus of previous linguistic studies is mostly on the language used during the Leave and Remain campaigns. Charteris–Black (2019) is the first book-length study to provide a systematic description of the plethora of metaphors of Brexit. His analysis is based on the evaluation of a variety of data published in connection with the Brexit referendum, ranging from newspaper articles to social media posts and cartoons: [ . . . ] once we look under the surface we find that understanding the metaphors of the Brexit debate provides rich insight into the profoundly moral outlooks that influenced both those who sought to leave the European Union and those who wished to remain in it. Members of the public, opinion formers and politicians relied on metaphor as a way of framing political issues and creating persuasive stories and allegories. Understanding these better helps us to understand not only what divided the two sides but also what both sides held in common: a belief and desire that they could improve their country. (Charteris–Black, 2019: 2)

EFFECTS OF THE BREXIT PROCESS ON EDUCATIONAL MOBILITY: NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS FROM ERASMUS TO TURING

Amaç: Bu çalışmada Birleşik Krallık’ın (BK) Avrupa Birliği’nden (AB) ayrılma kararıyla birlikte AB’nin sınırlarını kıta sınırına çekerek ekonomik, sosyal ve politik açıdan daralma etkisi yaratan Brexit sürecinin genel olarak AB bağlantılı göçlere özelde ise Erasmus hareketliliğine olan etkileri ele alınmıştır. Erasmus Programı’nın nitelikli aktörlerinden biri olan BK’nın süreçten çekilmesinin etkileri yanında bu sürecin başlangıçta Türkiye’nin Erasmus hareketliliğini nasıl etkilediği ve gelecekte nasıl etkileyebileceğinin araştırılması çalışmanın amacını oluşturmaktadır. Yöntem: Bu çalışmada nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden durum çalışması deseni kullanılmıştır. Veri toplama aracı olarak ise resmi istatistiklere dayalı dokümanlardan yararlanılmıştır. Çalışma kapsamında üç farklı veri grubu kullanılmaktadır. Bunlar: (i) Avrupa Komisyonu yıllık raporlarından elde edilen 2014-2019 yıllarına ait BK’nın Erasmus öğrenci ve personel hareketliliği verileri, (ii) Ulusal Ajans ve Avrupa Komisyonu yıllık raporlarından elde edilen 2004-2019 yıllarına ait Türkiye’nin Erasmus öğrenci ve personel hareketliliği verileri ve (iii) BK’nın resmi internet sayfasından (Turing Scheme) elde edilen Turing Programı’nın işleyiş şemasına yönelik istatistiki verilerdir. Bulgular: AB bağlantılı hareketliliklerde önemli bir yeri olan Erasmus Programı, Brexit süreci boyunca tartışılan konulardan biridir. BK’nın programdan çekilmiş olmasının diğer program ülkeleri ve ülkemiz için bir kayıp olacağı açıktır. Her ne kadar BK ve Türkiye arasında çok yoğun bir hareketlilik olmasa da Brexit sonrası gündeme getirilen Turing Programı’nda Türkiye’ye verilen kontenjanların Erasmus’un çok gerisinde kalmış olması, Türkiye’nin bu süreçte ihmal edildiğini ve beklentilerin ülkemiz açısından karşılanamadığını göstermektedir.Özgünlük: Birçok ülke Erasmus hareketliliğinin hem eğitim sistemine hem de ülke ekonomisine yaptığı katkılardan yararlanabilmek için kıyasıya rekabet halindedir. Türkiye’nin de önemli aktörlerinden biri olduğu bu hareketlilikte ülkeler arasında yaşanan politik krizlerin ülkemiz üzerindeki olası sonuçlarının tartışılması oldukça kritik bir konudur. Özellikle ulusal literatür incelendiğinde Brexit sürecinin daha çok siyasi, ekonomik faktörler ve göç (sığınmacılar, serbest dolaşım) konusu üzerinden değerlendirildiği fakat sürecin eğitim hareketliliği üzerinde yaratacağı tehditlerin ve fırsatların gözden kaçırıldığı görülmektedir. Nitekim bu çalışmayla Brexit ve eğitim hareketliliği ile ilgili literatüre farklı bir bakış açısı kazandırılabilir.

Indifference or hostility? Anti-Scottishness in a post-Brexit England

ABSTRACT The UK's decision to leave the EU was partly influenced by a desire to reduce immigration. This followed a period of increased Euroscepticism, and an ‘othering’ of those of a different background, nationality or religion, and ultimately the EU itself. Post-Brexit, this has been linked to a rise in hate crime in England, and the referendum decision has been characterised as an expression of a strengthened English identity. Hostility towards those perceived as ‘foreigners’ or ‘others’ seems also to have affected people from the other nations within the British Isles, with speculation that Brexit might lead to the break-up of the UK. Here, we focus on Scots living or who have lived in England and, while their experiences are mixed, it appears that some hostility towards Scots (and indifference to Scotland) has grown. We speculate that this and additional political tensions may, eventually, bring about the end of the union.

The Effects of BREXIT on the UK's Economic, Social and Legal System

BREXIT is the term used to refer to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. The effects of Brexit on the UK economy have been felt since the referendum on June 23rd, 2016, when the majority of the UK’s population voted to leave the European Union. In the years since the referendum and after the official withdrawal from the EU (as of 31st January 2020 and during the transition period which ended on 31st December 2020), the UK economy has experienced a variety of both positive and negative effects, all affecting the British economic, social and legal system. Some critics say that in the end, it resulted a very particular idea of sovereignty over economic good sense. Others say that the UK's decision to leave the European Union is an act of economic self-harm. The truth is inevitably somewhere in between.

You (Br)exit, I stay: The effect of the Brexit vote on internal migration

The profound divisions that emerged around the UK's decision to leave the European Union have stimulated a heated debate on whether the referendum, by exposing intolerance and exacerbating societal tensions, has affected individuals' choices. The UK is one of the most mobile societies in Europe, and internal migration plays a key role in national well-being and in the efficient functioning of the labour and housing markets. In this article, we examine the consequences of polarizing politics on individuals' propensity to migrate internally. We show that, in the aftermath of the vote, individuals were less inclined to move when they were aligned with the Brexit preferences of their district. As ‘Remainers’ found themselves on the losing side, they were more likely than ‘Leavers’ to value the alignment to their district, given their ‘misalignment’ to the country. We also show that, when they do move, non-aligned individuals tend to relocate to a district to which they can then feel (re)aligned.

The Language Game of Europe: Politics, Identity and the Divided

The paper discusses the psychoanalytic interpretative possibilities for understanding Europe's reluctance to accept the UK's decision to leave the union. It develops an interpretation based on Lucan’s concept of 'Name of the Father' to inquire whether the 'European identity' is in fact a neurotic identity, marked by a blocked presence of the primary Lacanian psychoanalytic signifier and the resultant erratic and ineffective policy which can be considered as a group equivalent of the neurotic symptoms that, in psychoanalysis, are treated as primary individual symptoms. This perspective aims to test the limits of the debate over whether psych diagnostics can be applied to political collectives as well as to individuals, and attempts to do so by drawing parallels between the behavior of individual people, on the one hand, and institutions, on the other.

From Black Wednesday to Brexit: Macroeconomic shocks and correlations of equity returns in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom

AbstractThis paper investigates whether macroeconomic shocks, such as the UK's referendum decision to leave the European Union (“Brexit”), the 2008 Financial Crisis, the 1992 ERM Crisis (“Black Wednesday”), and the 1987 stock market crash (“Black Monday”), had a positive impact on portfolio risk diversification. We estimate weekly dynamic conditional correlations and then optimal sectoral portfolio allocations between 1973 and 2019. Our results show that correlations of equity returns increased as a consequence of economic integration among European countries from the mid‐1980s until the late 2000s, and decreased in the United Kingdom after Black Wednesday and the Brexit referendum. We tested the existence of a correlation change‐point on June 27, 2016 by applying Wied et al. (2012)'s [Econometric Theory, 28(3), 570–589] correlation structural break test, which we modified to account for dynamic conditional correlations. Application of this test confirms that the referendum date was a break‐point in nearly all UK manufacturing industries. The failure of Lehman Brothers and the 1987 stock market crash were also identified as structural breaks in equity correlations. Moreover, our findings suggest that the Brexit vote may constitute a long‐term trend reversal of the convergence of equity return correlations in European markets, akin to Black Wednesday, rather than a shock like the 1987 and 2008 financial crises, which merely intensified a historical upward trend in correlations of European equity returns.

Geopolitical disruptions and the manufacturing location decision in multinational company supply chains: a Delphi study on Brexit

PurposeThis study investigates the impact of geopolitical disruptions on the manufacturing supply chain (SC) location decision of managers in UK multinational firms. The context of study is the UK manufacturing sector and its response to the UK's decision to leave the European Union (EU), or Brexit.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts an abductive, theory elaboration approach and expands on Dunning's eclectic paradigm of international production. A Delphi study over four iterative rounds is conducted to gather and assess insights into manufacturing SC location issues related to Brexit. The panel consisted of 30 experts and managers from a range of key industries, consultancies, governmental organisations, and academia. The Delphi findings are triangulated using a focus group with 38 participants.FindingsThe findings indicate that the majority of companies planned or have relocated production facilities from the UK to the EU, and distribution centres (DCs) from the EU to the UK. This was because of market-seeking advantages (being close to major centres of demand, ease of access to local and international markets) and efficiency-seeking advantages (costs related to expected delays at ports, tariff and non-tariff barriers). Ownership and internalisation advantages, also suggested by the eclectic paradigm, did not play a role in the location decision.Originality/valueThe study elaborates on the OLI framework by showing that policy-related uncertainty is a primary influencing factor in the manufacturing location decision, outweighing the importance of uncertainty as an influencer of governance mode choices. The authors find that during geopolitical disruptions managers make location decisions in tight time-frames with incomplete and imperfect information, in situations of high perceived uncertainty. The study elaborates on the eclectic paradigm by explaining how managerial cognition and bounded rationality influence the manufacturing location decision-making process.

Negotiating Brexit: The Cultural Sources of British Hard Bargaining

AbstractThough the UK is weaker than the EU on key metrics of bargaining power, the British approach to the first phase of the Brexit negotiations has been characterized by hard bargaining. Efforts to explain this puzzle have focused on constraints at the domestic level, but have not engaged with the cultural sources of bargaining style highlighted by constructivist scholars. Drawing on a series of interviews, this article suggests a number of cultural factors have influenced the UK's decision to adopt a hard bargaining strategy, including the country's majoritarian institutional culture, its weak socialization into the EU, overstated perceptions of its own capabilities, the prevailing conservative political ideology, and a longstanding preference for ‘divide and rule’ diplomatic strategies. Our findings suggest not only that the UK's choice of negotiating strategy is sub‐optimal but also that theories of bargaining need to pay attention to cultural factors predisposing actors to particular strategies.

Back to a Sovereign Future?: Constitutional Pluralism after Brexit

AbstractTo the extent that the UK's decision to withdraw from the EU can be interpreted as a reassertion of the classic ideas of Westphalian sovereign statehood, it questions the relevance of constitutional pluralism as a resolutely ‘post-sovereign’ model of relations between state administrations and their supranational counterparts. This contribution will therefore examine the usefulness and relevance of the idea of constitutional pluralism after Brexit. It looks at the various features and relationships affected by the Brexit process analysing the relevance of constitutional pluralism to each relationship pre- and post-Brexit, concluding that, whereas Brexit clearly affects the different relationships involved, constitutional pluralism can and will remain relevant to EU/UK relations as well as within the EU, well into the future.

Will a No‐deal Brexit Disturb the EU‐UK Agri‐food Trade?

SummaryThe UK's decision to leave the European Union (EU) marks a turning point in the history of the EU. We analyse the impacts of an exit with no deal on agri‐food trade using the temporary customs duties on imports announced by the British government. We focus on three product groups highly traded between the EU and the UK: wine, cheese and meat preparations. First, we show that a no‐deal Brexit will put pressure on EU food producers exporting to the UK, Ireland being the most exposed. Second, impacts differ across products. The EU is a key wine supplier to the UK, but the expected removal of import tariffs may permit New World suppliers to grab market shares. The UK is also highly dependent on the EU for its imports of cheese. In the case of a no‐deal, EU producers will face increased competition from third country producers of cheese varieties without geographical indications. The EU exports of meat preparations seem the most affected by a no‐deal Brexit. In addition to the strong position of some non‐EU suppliers on the British market, which will continue to enjoy a preferential market access, the UK's tariffs on meat products imported from the EU will rise sharply.

Tariffs, Domestic Import Substitution and Trade Diversion in Input-Output Production Networks: How to Deal with Brexit

This paper challenges and complements existing studies on the economic impact of Brexit providing a discussion of the UK's decision to leave the EU and how it will affect international trade networks and value-added. Using the World Input-Output Database, we develop a multi-sector inter-country model that allows us to identify the channels through which the economic effects of Brexit would propagate. The inclusion of global value chains and indirect Brexit effects in the model leads to estimates that diverge with the results of the main literature. Indeed, our findings suggest that Brexit could be risky and costly not only for the UK but also for many EU countries. Furthermore, building on the Dietzenbacher and Lahr (2013) method of hypothetical expansion, we develop a second model and present the first empirical analysis on the consequences of domestic import substitution and trade diversion policies in Input-Output schemes. We found that allowing sectors and countries to partly substitute foreign products, leads to significantly lower losses for both macro-regions. In the second model, the UK and EU27 would lose, at worst, the 0.05 and 0.5 percent of value-added, respectively.

Reflections on Law and Impact in the Light of Brexit

Discusses the issues raised by impact activity during the process of the UK's decision to withdraw from the EU - including, e.g. the tactics and objectives of the Leave campaign; the experience of being a legal engaged in public debate; professional, institutional and sectoral lessons about support for impact work; and the debate about academic neutrality.

Volatility spillovers between European financial markets: evidence since the Brexit

In the light of the big rumour around another potential financial crisis: the UK's decision to exit the European Union, this paper presents an analysis of volatility spillover effects around Brexit meltdown time. A number of European countries such as Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden are taken into consideration. The analysis contains period from January 2010 until November 2016. This capture the European severing debt crisis, Greek crisis, China's 'Black Monday' crash and Brexit referendum outcome shock. The analysis covers the Diebold and Yilmaz (2009) spillover index, constructed in a VAR framework, to assess spillovers across stock markets returns, multivariate CCC GARCH and Cholesky variance decomposition model. The analysis shows there is no evidence for Europe and the UE to bring other global financial crises, however this paper explains reasons and potential consequences of the Brexit.

Brexit and Uncertainty: Insights from the Decision Maker Panel

AbstractThe UK's decision to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum created substantial uncertainty for UK businesses. The nature of this uncertainty is different from that of a typical uncertainty shock because of its length, breadth and political complexity. Consequently, a new firm‐level survey, the Decision Maker Panel (DMP), was created to investigate this, finding three key results. First, Brexit was reported to be one of the top three sources of uncertainty for around 40 per cent of UK businesses in the two years after the vote in the June 2016 referendum, and this proportion increased further in Autumn 2018. Hence, Brexit provided both a major and persistent uncertainty shock. Second, uncertainty has been higher in industries that are more dependent on trade with the EU and on EU migrant labour. Third, the uncertainties around Brexit are primarily about the impact on businesses over the longer term rather than shorter term, including uncertainty about the timing of any transition arrangements and around the nature of Brexit.

Regulation of medicines, biotechnology devices and healthcare products

On 20 November 2017 the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced their intention to relocate from London to Amsterdam due to the UK's decision to leave the European Union. It is nearly 12-months to the day since this announcement, and, other than the movement of a major regulatory headquarters, the UK is no closer to knowing what impact Brexit is likely to have on the regulation of medicines and healthcare products in the UK.

Brexit and the UK‐Africa Caribbean and Pacific Aid Relationship

AbstractDebates about Brexit draw on powerful discursive mechanisms that have important implications for the UK–Africa, Caribbean and Pacific aid relationship. Some of these narratives can be characterized in the following ways: first, that Brexit is an opportunity to recreate a Global Britain after a period of EU membership that saw the UK neglect its former partners, particularly the Commonwealth. Second, the costs of EU membership are profligate and these funds could be better utilized by the national government. Third the Brexit ‘divorce bill’ is a penalty exacted by the EU for the UK's decision to leave. This article explores these claims via the EU‐ACP relationship, and proposes three counter arguments. First, the discourse of ‘neglect’ overlooks the external relationships the UK has maintained through EU membership. Second, these relationships have provided ‘value for money’ for the UK. Third, these contributions represent a significant proportion of the Brexit ‘divorce bill’ and are on‐going financial commitments that the UK was central in establishing. The article then reviews the potential impact of Brexit on UK aid, arguing that rather than reinvigorating Global Britain Brexit threatens to undermine the UK's position in global development, current levels of aid and longstanding commitments to eradicate poverty.