Although a growing body of scholarship seeks to understand the motivations behind the ‘Brexit’ vote – including that which centralises explorations of racism, nationalism and post-colonialism – ...little consideration has been given to the ways in which ‘post-race’ racisms underpin the narratives of Leave voters. This article draws on data generated through 13 semi-structured interviews to examine the subtle and subterranean ways in which xeno-racism is articulated in the accounts of some Leave voters in the Greater Manchester city of Salford: a city that saw a higher percentage of the electorate (56.8%) vote to leave the EU than the national average (51.9%). Whilst restricting immigration was a key motivator of Leave voters in our research, interviewees vehemently rejected accusations of racism. Instead, couching their views in seemingly non-racial ways, they framed their concerns about immigration as a ‘legitimate’ response to a victimised whiteness. Thus, in discussing our data, we argue that far from living in a ‘post-racial’ epoch, racisms continue to thrive through new modes of articulation. These new racisms emerge from the shadows at key times, such as the EU Referendum, and refashion themselves in ways that are considered more palatable than the older (explicit) racisms of past.
Political campaign slogans, such as ‘Take back control of our country’ (United Kingdom Independence Party) and ‘The Netherlands ours again’ (Dutch Party for Freedom), indicate that right‐wing ...populism appeals to the belief that the country is ‘ours’, and therefore, ‘we’ have the exclusive right to determine what happens. We examined this sense of ownership of the country (i.e. collective psychological ownership CPO) with the related determination right in relation to exclusionary attitudes and voting behaviour. Among Dutch (Study 1, N = 572) and British (Study 2, N = 495) participants, we found that CPO explained anti‐immigrant and anti‐EU attitudes, and these attitudes in turn accounted for voting ‘leave’ in the 2016 Brexit referendum in the British sample (Study 2). Additionally, CPO was more strongly related to negative immigrant attitudes among right‐wing Dutch participants, whereas it was more strongly related to negative EU attitudes and voting ‘leave’ among left‐wing British participants. CPO contributes to the understanding of critical contemporary social attitudes and political behaviour.
PurposeThis paper aims to explore the value of geographic diversification in the context of deglobalization, drawing evidence from a quasi-natural experiment – the Brexit referendum that took place ...on 23 June 2016 in the UK.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies an event study methodology to estimate the impact of the Brexit vote on a cross-section of firms with varying levels of geographic diversification – undiversified UK firms, UK firms with significant operations in the European Union (EU) and globally diversified UK firms. This study deploys a Heckman two-stage regression approach to address sample selection bias.FindingsThis study finds that undiversified UK firms experienced negative cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) around the Brexit referendum. The value of UK firms with majority sales within the UK declined by 0.9 percentage points, on average, in the three days centred on the Brexit referendum. In contrast, UK firms that are globally diversified, with the majority of sales within the EU are unaffected, while diversified firms in the rest of the world generated positive CARs of 1.8 percentage points over the same period. These results are robust to firm characteristics, selection bias and alternative measures of CARs and diversification.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is subject to some limitations that open avenues for future work. There are a few available proxies of diversification and further work on developing other proxies is much needed. Further work may also examine the long-term impact of diversification on UK firms. This study considered Brexit as a quasi-natural experiment, and this study could be applied to other deglobalization events like COVID-19 and can enhance the generalizability of diversification strategy in the deglobalized world. Findings may stimulate future work to explore how another form of diversification – product diversification has affected firm returns around Brexit. Finally, this study has focused on the UK as its base case. It may be interesting to corroborate the findings by exploring the impact of Brexit on European firms, who hitherto Brexit, had some operations in the UK.Practical implicationsThis work offers some insights for policymakers and regulators around the impact of deglobalization on local firms. Findings suggest that these trends significantly negatively impact the most vulnerable firms (smaller firms with less global reach), while their larger counterparts with significant global reach might be insulated. This finding is important for determining the nature of support needed by different firms in times of deglobalization. The work also offers insights to managers of firms operating in countries where there are real prospects of deglobalization. Specifically, the work highlights the importance of geographic diversification when free movement of goods, services and people is restricted.Originality/valueThis study shows that a certain group of globally diversified firms earned significantly higher returns from the prospect of the UK leaving the EU, thereby highlighting the value of geographic diversification in a time of deglobalization.
Aliaksandr Lukashenka pushed through an overhaul of Belarus’s constitution as a response to the protests against the official results of the 2020 presidential election. The goal was to address the ...desire for change among the population without reacting to the demand for snap elections. With the February 2022 constitutional plebiscite on the most far-ranging changes to Belarus’s constitution since 1994, Lukashenka further entrenched himself in power. The results of our online survey suggest that the constitutional changes do not meet the broad societal demand for political change and, in particular, for constraints on presidential power. Despite the persistence of the political conflict, we also show that Lukashenka’s supporters and opponents are not irreconcilably polarized in every policy domain. Finally, our results suggest that regime supporters have stronger anti-democratic preferences than opposition supporters when it comes to future political participation of the two camps, making the effects of affective polarization highly asymmetrical.
This Article provides an overview of the referendum proposals advanced in Australia in recent decades, offering observations as to their democratic and political contexts, having regard to the work ...of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee's 2019 'Inquiry into Nationhood, National Identity and Democracy'. It considers one of the major recommendations made by the Committee, namely a need for a greater level of engagement and consultation through such devices as 'deliberative exercises' and explores the meaning of the term 'deliberative'. The Article then discusses how we might maximise the deliberative quality of any constitutional referendum process, before concluding with a proposal for change that would see constitutional referendums augmented with a system of deliberative assemblies to be held in each State and Territory.
The Chilean people overwhelmingly rejected the draft constitution in the referendum held on September 4. How did it come to that? And what will happen now? A few first impressions on a result that ...seemed impossible a few months ago.
The Papuan Armed Criminal Group (KKB) has been a hereditary problem for the Indonesian government. Their demand to secede from the Republic of Indonesia was the main reason why this group was formed. ...Because the Government has not responded to the demands of the KKB, it led this group to carry out acts of terror against the society in Papua. One of the cases that have recently attracted media attention is the KKB’s attack that killed several workers in Beoga, Puncak district, Papua. The study aims to analyze and evaluate the settlement of terrorism cases carried out by KKB. This normative legal research relied on secondary data. The results of the study indicate that in international law, the context of referendum exists only in the context of decolonization and non-self-governing territory. The government's move by considering the KKB as a separatist terrorist group and not accepting KKB's demands for a referendum or mediation is one of the right steps. Acts of terrorism cannot be tolerated even though they are related to human rights because it is regulated in legislation
Using volunteer writing for Mass Observation, we explore how British citizens decided whether to leave the EU. The 2016 referendum was the biggest decision made by the British electorate in decades, ...but involved limited voter analysis. Many citizens did not have strong views about EU membership in early 2016. The campaigns did not help to firm up their views, not least because so much information appeared to be in dispute. Voters, often characterised as polarised, were reluctant and uncertain. Many citizens took their duty to decide seriously, but were driven more by hunch than careful analysis. In 2016, voters reacted against elites they did not trust at least as much as they embraced the ideas of trusted elites. This contrasts with the 1975 Referendum on the Common Market, when the vote was driven by elite endorsement. In low-trust contexts, voters use cues from elites as negative rather than positive stimulus.
Even though the opinion polling before the British referendum on membership of the European Union showed a narrow gap between the two sides, the actual result—a vote to leave—on the morning of 24 ...June 2016 came as a surprise to many. Yet in truth both the referendum and its outcome had deep roots in British politics. In this article we cast an eye over the history of Britain's relationship with the EU, which has long been marked by a mixture of awkwardness and successful influence. We trace the origins of the referendum in long-run tensions between, and within, the political parties, and in the lukewarm public support for European integration. We also examine more contingent, short-term factors relating to the referendum campaign itself. We conclude by commenting on the divisions exposed by the vote along lines of geography, education, class and wealth, and suggest that reconciling these with the continuing tensions in the party landscape make a clean and speedy exit from the EU unlikely.
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