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Brexit, i.e. the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, is a major event in European and global politics. It has been debated from a multitude of social, economic, and cultural angles. This paper offers a cognitive linguistic perspective on Brexit, and investigates its metaphoric conceptualization on the first days after the 2016 referendum. That period seems especially important as, arguably, it was then that for many UK citizens, Brexit suddenly became more than just a hypothetical possibility. The investigation is quantitative and follows Socio-cognitive discourse studies principles. It registers frequencies of source-domain use in UK online media, and traces preferences as to general source-domain semantics. The findings strongly suggest the presence of negative source-domain preferences. This negative metaphoric construal comes in stark contrast with the 3-year par between the Leave and Remain stances in the UK. To explain that discrepancy, the paper argues in support of the importance of 'levels' in source-domain use. Admittedly, throughout Lakovian works (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999), conceptual metaphoric transfer has been argued to take place at what Rosch et al. postulate as basic-level categorization (1973). However, as the present paper suggests, Rosch's 'levels' in prototypology can be seen as functioning through conceptual metonymy. That, in its turn, combined with the all-pervasive cognitive mechanism of spreading activation (first introduced into linguistics by de Beaugrande and Dressler in 1981) suggests all semantic levels can be co-activated in the process of metaphorization, regardless of which level is currently being highlighted and drawn on. As a consequence, different semantic levels are believed here to have the potential to co-influence inferences and connotations resulting from conceptual metaphorization. Thus, the approach adopted in the present study also has the potential to explain why it has been so difficult for scholars to pinpoint and formulate metaphoric transfers. Importantly, the 'levels' proposed here should be differentiated from, although not interpreted as contradicting, the metaphor-relevant levels specified in Kövecses (2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents a significant association between the exposure of an individual or area to the UK government's austerity-induced welfare reforms begun in 2010, and the following: the subsequent rise in support for the UK Independence Party, an important correlate of Leave support in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership; broader individual-level measures of political dissatisfaction; and direct measures of support for Leave. Leveraging data from all UK electoral contests since 2000, along with detailed, individual-level panel data, the findings suggest that the EU referendum could have resulted in a Remain victory had it not been for austerity. (JEL D72, F15, F60, H53, I38) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, Mary Louise Pratt published a hugely influential paper in Profession where she took to task misconceptions about multilingualism and language learning apparent in the USA in the wake of 9/11 and consequent counter-terrorism measures. She argued that a new public idea about language was necessary in order to ensure unity and security. This article argues that in the aftermath of Brexit, the UK also needs to develop a new public idea about language to ensure a future that is prosperous, socially, culturally and economically. To do so, it first challenges a number of prevalent myths about language learning and multilingualism in the UK through a review of scholarship, media articles and reports which focus on languages and multilingualism since 2013. It then suggests that interest in the Anglosphere has meant that the value of English is now artificially inflated and that the value of other languages is underplayed. We argue that this turn to the Anglosphere and to (English) monolingualism should be challenged through proposing a new public idea about language for post-Brexit UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brexit vote in 2016 caused consternation in higher education circles. Financial and reputational questions were raised concerning: the number of students from EU countries coming to study in the UK; the ability of the sector to retain and recruit staff from the EU; the threats to research funding; and the ability of UK students to study abroad. This paper tracks developments since then. Much remains uncertain and the picture has been complicated by the impact of Covid-19. Though enrolments of EU citizens for the 2021–22 academic year have fallen dramatically, this has been more than offset by larger numbers of UK entrants and entrants from non-EU countries. The main immediate threat is to research funding, partly because of restricted access to EU programmes and partly because of constrained government spending. The longer-term threat is to the sector's relationship with European academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews the implications of the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) for the control of subsidies. Controls will be less strict than under the EU state aid regime but tighter than with no deal and WTO rules. A subsidy control authority will be established by the UK which will oversee the application of broad principles set out in the TCA. A well-designed authority would help to prevent a repeat of the UK experience in the 1970s and 1980s, when subsidies were detrimental to economic performance. Regrettably, however, the government has decided to adopt a politicized approach to subsidy policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic and Brexit were separate yet inter‐related developments which affected the British National Health Service (NHS). The UK's state‐funded health sector had historically relied on migrant labour and depended on a migration infrastructure designed to solve its nursing labour shortages. The analysis of primary qualitative and secondary quantitative data shows that the NHS migration infrastructure increased its orientation towards Asia to compensate for the effects of Brexit. The paper reveals how the persistent use of temporary visas along with conditional contractual arrangements has led to various exclusions for migrant nurses and midwives. These data also demonstrate how international travel restrictions associated with COVID‐19 created temporary obstacles for nurses' inflows. Alongside Brexit, this has also resulted in an increase in outflows amongst EU health workers. The article identifies the development of migrant support infrastructure amongst Filipino and Indian nurses as a major COVID‐19 linked innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on multisited qualitative research in Italy and the UK, this paper documents the dark side of onward migration and the experiences faced by Italian‐Bangladeshis in the UK after the Brexit referendum. The findings show that compared to their position in Italy, Italian‐Bangladeshis experienced a downgrading in symbolic, identity‐related, and, specifically, socio‐economic and cultural aspects in the UK society. The paper also uncovers the potential strategies that Italian‐Bangladeshis intend to adopt in case they lose the special rights provided to them by EU citizenship after Brexit. Since the majority of them have moved to the United Kingdom to build a future for their children, they find themselves forced to further reconfigure their strategies and reactivate different degrees of mobility in order to avoid the loss of social rights (access to welfare, the status of citizens) and material resources (housing and better working conditions) that they have long assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the historic role of Britain's major public service broadcaster, the BBC, in reporting the European Union. To do this it combines a content analysis of two datasets of BBC broadcast and online coverage from 2007 and 2012 with a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with former and current senior BBC editors and journalists. The research finds that BBC coverage in the pre-referendum period was closely tied to major events – such as summits – and elite party conflict. These patterns in coverage were primarily a consequence of the lack of traditional news values inherent in most EU stories and the impact of the wider political and media landscape. The consequence of these patterns in coverage was to present audiences with a restricted, negative and largely conflictual picture of Britain's relationship with the EU which is likely to have fuelled rather than inhibited the growth of Euroscepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Forest Products Model was applied to forecast the effect of Brexit on the global forest products industry to 2030 under two scenarios: an optimistic and pessimistic future storyline regarding the potential economic effect of Brexit. The forecasts integrated a range of gross domestic product growth rates using an average of the optimistic and pessimistic projections from recent reports. According to the results, Brexit caused a sustained modest decline in UK demand for wood products through 2030. The consumption of sawnwood in Britain was 1.0-2.1% lower by 2030, 2.9-6.1% lower for wood-based panels and 1.9-4.1% lower for paper and paperboard. With Brexit, the UK net trade deficit in sawnwood decreased by 4.8-9.9% by 2030, 4.4-9.1% for wood-based panel and 5.5-10.8% for paper and paperboard. The effects on industrial roundwood consumption and production within the UK were negligible. Both scenarios had a modest adverse effect on the global market for wood products. The consequences of Brexit were mostly within Europe and driven predominantly by reduced consumption within the UK itself. While the effect was greater under the pessimistic scenario, the overall impact on the global wood products industry was small, and it had no discernable effect on prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision of the UK to leave the European Union created uncertainty for European citizens resident in the UK for the period 2016–2019. This paper studies the effects of this uncertainty on their mental health. Using data from a large household panel and a difference‐in‐differences framework, we find no evidence for a decline in mental health or life satisfaction for various definitions of EU citizens relative to multiple control groups. These findings are robust to the specific mental health measure. We corroborate this finding by looking at various channels plausibly linking Brexit and European citizens' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom (UK) and Japan have conducted unprecedented military exercises as each other's closest security partners in Asia and Europe, respectively. Despite publicly avowed closeness, these military exercises were not predicated on formal alliance commitments or deterrence of common adversaries underpinned by shared threat perceptions. Addressing this puzzle, a hitherto-overlooked perspective of mutual strategic reassurance for trusted partners is proposed here. This paper derives hypotheses from existing – but relatively under-developed – literatures on military exercises and reassurances that locate the drivers of reassurance in the needs and weaknesses of the other. What stems from this starting premise is an importance placed on high-level diplomacy and adjusting military deployments to allay each other's strategic concerns. These hypotheses are tested by presenting original interview data supplemented with discourse analysis of both primary and secondary sources. The findings suggest that effusive diplomatic language vowing politico-strategic support for each other, reinforced by ground-breaking military exercises mutually reassured UK concerns about retaining post-Brexit global standing and Japan's apprehension over its dire geo-strategic context. While not quite deterrence or alliance, these military exercises enabled the UK and Japan to transform their predominantly trade-based relationship into a more defence-oriented one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a sociological model of the conditions of possibility of the UK's decision to withdraw from the European Union in 2016. Drawing on the conceptual tools of Pierre Bourdieu and those inspired by him, it synthesises and goes beyond the partial and fragmentary accounts offered so far to offer a more comprehensive narrative implicating the interrelation of multiple fields, with agents' evolving strategies within the different fields being the major fulcra. To be specific, the conditions of possibility for the referendum result were provided by mutations within the global field of nation states ricocheting through the UK's political field, ethno-racial field and class structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Language & Representation / Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación is the property of Universitat Jaume I and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Brexit, i.e. the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), is a major event not only in European but also in global politics. Its effect is still to be witnessed and its future impact is debated from a variety of angles – social, economic, cultural, ethnic, religious, etc. The present paper offers a cognitive linguistic perspective on the phenomenon. It aims to investigate the conceptual metaphorization of Brexit on the first days after the 2016 referendum. That period seems of special importance as, arguably, it was then that for many UK citizens, Brexit suddenly became part of reality and not just a hypothetical possibility. The paper presents data on the dynamics of employing different source domains on each of the first 4 days after the referendum. The main objective is to isolate regularities and tendencies in how the selected culturally-significant source domains help structure the concept. The analysis of the dataset of English-language EU online media texts appearing on the first 4 post-referendum days reveals that the most prominent source domains in the metaphoric conceptualization of brexit are divorce, a natural disaster and part of a journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union has never been more realistic and upto- date since joining the European Communities (EC) as it is today. The UK is facing a unique situation. At present, this depends solely on the capabilities of European and British government officials, who negotiate the terms of withdrawal and future cooperation between the two entities. The main goal of this paper is based on the British - Slovak trade relations development analysis to figure out their impact within the Brexit consequences on the future Slovak economy and its current status in international economic relations. The paper also provides a basic overview of Brexit process and its possible impact on the EU's further functioning. Basic data will be drawn from generally accepted institutions, evaluating the UK and Slovak trade and economic performance. To accomplish this goal, methods such as analysis and comparison to illustrate the UK-Slovak foreign trade development, synthesis and logical deduction to discuss the Brexit impact on Slovak economic environment in the future are to be used; data from scientific and professional publications, periodical and non-periodical press. The paper presents the results of an empirical analysis, which showed that because of the size of economic relations between Slovakia and the United Kingdom and the number of goods and services being exported to the UK, the «hard» Brexit will be very unfavourable for Slovak foreign trade due to the possible tariffs being imposed. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that it can cause a significant weakening and slowdown in the Slovak economy. Either way, the upcoming Brexit process, that is the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union, would have a major impact not only on British, European but also on the world economy. The impact of Brexit on Slovakia's economy will not only be in reducing the possible growth of the economy, but also in employment and price increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a small and simple theoretical DSGE model in order to conduct some exercises in comparative dynamics of shocks that can be associated with Brexit. We do so by comparing two policy environments, one where a flexible macroprudential regulation (FMR) is in place and one, where this is not the case. This enables us to evaluate whether and to what extent FMR helps to mitigate the Brexit related shocks. We conclude that FMR would indeed be helpful, although in quantitative terms only slightly so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 23rd June 2016 referendum on UK's prolonged participation in the European Union sowed seeds of another political turmoil and economic instability when 51.9% of the voters voted to leave the European bloc. The uncertainty surrounding the British withdrawal from EU finally ended on 31st Jan 2020, as the UK withdrew from the EU and was granted the third country status. This historic event has been dubbed as "Brexit". This paper examines the impact of Brexit on the financial sector of UK since the announcement of its possible exit from the EU. Further, the paper reviews the operation of banking and financial services in pre-Brexit era and brings out the challenges looming over the industry after the end of the transition period on 31st December, 2020. Finally, the paper explores the pros and cons of Brexit on financial entities operating in the EU and the third countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether the UK can maintain its insolvency and restructuring pre-eminence post Brexit i. e. after Britain's departure from the European Union (EU). In the past 20 years or so, the UK is said to have become the insolvency and restructuring capital of Europe or in less politically correct terms, the bankruptcy brothel of Europe. In part, this is because of the European Insolvency Regulation which provides for automatic recognition of insolvency proceedings opened in a EU Member State in the other EU Member States. Such proceedings may make provision for the discharge of debts and the restructuring of financial obligations.The specific insolvency law regime is part of a more general European Private International Law framework. With Brexit, the UK has now left this framework without any negotiated replacement agreement, a so-called 'skinny' Brexit. The loss of the ability to deal with insolvencies and corporate restructurings through a single process, with automatic recognition across the EU, may make it more complex, lengthy and expensive to resolve cross-border cases. It gives rise to the prospect of parallel proceedings in different jurisdictions. The paper also addresses how any disadvantages associated with the 'skinny' Brexit may be alleviated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do British Pluralist traditions need to be re-imagined to address the issues at the heart of the Brexit vote? This paper will use qualitative research about why Britain voted for Brexit to examine this question. The paper interrogates the question that we require a more decentred local government at a community level in order for people to feel both represented, and able to participate. Firstly, it will analyse the values, attitudes and beliefs of Leave voters who participated in the study, and situate them in terms of the affective assemblages of symbolic meaning, ideas, beliefs, values and emotion through which they imagined themselves and their community. It will examine the 'deep story' (Boler and Davis, in Emotion Space Soc 27:75–85, 2018) through which participants affective responses are situated into inherited historical cultures and traditions, exploring where participants located themselves in relation to others and their particular cultures and traditions. In the final part of the paper, I consider what this means for British pluralist traditions at a local and community level in a post-Brexit polity. I find that the Leave vote signals and symbolises a turn to the traditional Nation State as the political space that can protect and care for individuals who long for control over their worlds. This is potentially at odds with their expressed desire stronger democratic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the attitude of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland towards European integration before and after the referendum on 23 June, in which the citizens of Great Britain voted to leave the full membership of the European Commonwealth. The paper points out that Great Britain had certain reservations about the realization of the plan for European integration, and it underlines the complexity of Great Britain's attitude towards European integration, which can be most clearly shown through the analysis of its traditional geographical and cultural isolationism, but also through integration, before and after its accession to the European Community in 1973. In the end, it is concluded that Brexit surprised the ruling elite in both Great Britain and the EU and it is emphasized that it is a historical event of first-class importance for the country itself, which produces numerous economic and geopolitical consequences for Europe and the whole world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from six rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS), between 2004 and 2016, to examine attitudes towards European integration across countries. Using both individual responses and country-level variables, we analyse factors influencing Euroscepticism; how these factors are changing over time; and whether they may signal a latent potential for Brexit-like outcomes in different countries. Controlling for a unique combination of demographic, political and macroeconomic factors, we find individuals with higher levels of income and education, and those with more left-leaning political views to be more supportive of European integration, while those who are older and right-leaning to be less supportive. Using predicted values from our empirical analysis, we find median voters' attitudes diverging across European countries over time, with an increasing number of countries moving closer to the threshold values observed among voters in the United Kingdom in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the pervasive socio-political implications of the refugee crisis in the language and narrative structure of the interactive fiction of Little Amal: The Walk. Hermeneutics and semiotic compositional elements contribute to the on-going meaningful interaction between the interlocutors within the context of the successive narrations in the story. In this paper, we investigate the multimodal semiotic elements in conjunction with the cultural and political implications intended. The study contributes to interactive fiction through the modelled methodological framework. Using the Four-Legged Stool hermeneutical approach (Mburu 2019) and a hybrid of two approaches, namely, Visual Grammar (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2006) and Semiotic Elements (Machin and Laden 2018), the study pursues approaching Little Amal to delve into its hidden implications. The study adapts Mburu’s approach to become a three-legged stool, where the language and the narrative structures support the cultural, theological, and biblical interpretation of the narrative, hence the political implication in any literary text, especially the interactive ones. The study results confirm that Britain invades both ‘first- and third-world’ cultures, linking it to Brexit and British superiority over the world. The Walk, reveals how Brexit can be viewed as a British nostalgia for the lost empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, the UK left the EU internal market and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) started to be applied in the mutual trade between the UK and the EU. Although under this agreement trade without tariffs and quantitative restrictions has been maintained, costs in mutual trade increased due to introducing non-tariff barriers to trade. The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether these changes led in the short term to the diversion of trade flows towards other trading partners from both the EU and the UK points of view. To meet this goal, an analysis of trade flows was carried out from the point of view of the EU, as well as the UK. In the case of the EU, changes in trade with the UK were compared with changes in trade with the remaining countries of the world. In the case of the UK, changes in trade with the EU were compared with changes in trade with the rest of the world. The main finding is that since the TCA started to be applied, neither from the point of view of the UK nor from the point of view of the EU, there has been a diversion of trade to other trading partners. Thanks to the TCA, which goes beyond traditional free trade agreements, it was possible to avert the expected negative trade effects of the UK's withdrawal from the EU in the short term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho de la Seguridad Social, Laborum is the property of Ediciones Laborum S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, is arguably the most important political, social, and economic phenomenon in British post‐WWII history. This paper analyses parliamentary debates from December 2018 concerning the European Withdrawal Act, focusing on the epistemic modality of Member of Parliaments' (MP) statements, to investigate the ontology of Brexit. Epistemic modality refers to linguistic devices that allow modification with regards to confidence, truthfulness, and probability, and enables investigation of MPs' commitments. Commitments are a part of their status function declaration, which create institutional reality. Analysis of such commitments permits inference about the institutional reality of Brexit. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/90RRWApg0rQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zbornik Radova Pravnog Fakulteta u Nisu is the property of Law Faculty in Nis and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the perspectives of SMEs on Brexit and skill shortages using crosssectional data of 2,969 SMEs from a UK Government's Small Business survey for 2016. The logistic regression with clustered standard errors is applied to analyse the association between SMEs considering Brexit as a major business obstacle and the probability of SMEs identifying skill shortages in their businesses. The results show that firms with a shortage of managerial skills/expertise have a 6.5% higher probability to report that Brexit will affect their businesses, followed by difficulties in staff recruitment (4.5%) and shortage of skills within external labour markets (3.8%). Policy recommendations are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic economics considers that Brexit will have a great impact on EUs economy after its finalization. This study introduces a new model (RIV‐2) and a new mathematical approach to quantify and measure the Brexit's impact on EU and UK. Five representative economic indicators were put into analysis during a specific time period. The analysis in the paper points out the elements and the dimension of the economic destructuration in UK and EU economies due to the Brexit. Moreover, the forecasting procedures applied in the paper lead to the same economic conclusions. The correlated analyses realized in connection to UK and EU economies point out the future better economic performance of the EU economy compared to UK economy on short and medium terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing sector in the UK is currently undergoing a significant supply chain transformation and managers are re-evaluating supply chain location decisions to minimise the disruptions caused by Brexit. This entails manufacturing offshoring and back-shoring once again being considered as strategic decisions and companies ought to make informed choices with respect to where they source or manufacture their products. This paper aims to contribute to an improved understanding of the back-shoring phenomenon in the UK. Eight case studies of back-shoring have been analysed and compared using a theoretically informed framework. The results show that back-shoring can stem from both misjudgements of previous offshoring decisions as well as changes in the demand pattern in the home country. Unlike offshoring decisions being mainly cost-oriented, strategic shift aimed at increasing the value perceived by the customer has a pivotal role in the back-shoring decision. Furthermore, skill shortage is the main barrier for the implementation of back-shoring strategies in the UK and requires companies' attention prior to its repatriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Foro Internacional is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Do voters update their perceptions of party positions? How certain do voters feel about their perceptions? We argue that perceptual updating and perceptual certainty depend on how divided or unified political parties are in their policy positions. We argue that voters do not accurately update their perceptions and that they become less certain about their perceptions when divided parties shift positions. For unified parties, we expect voters to accurately update party positions and become more certain about their perceptions. We test our arguments in the context of the European integration issue in the UK. Using original newspaper data on British parties' messages on European integration and five waves of the British Election Study (2014–2016), we find evidence in support of our arguments. The paper has important implications for research on party position-taking and its consequences on voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 31 January 2020, the UK left the European Union after 47 years of membership. This paper uses the conceptual distinction between integrative and distributive bargaining to compare the EU's and the UK's approaches in the negotiations that led to the Withdrawal Agreement, setting out the terms of the UK's exit, and the Political Declaration on the framework for the future EU–UK relationship. While it would be rational to expect both parties to adopt integrative approaches given the nature of the issues, the long history of cooperation, and the parties' mutual interest in maintaining a close relationship in the future, the comparison demonstrates that it was mainly the EU that leaned towards the integrative end of the negotiating spectrum, with extensive internal consultations, a willingness to engage in open and interest-based discussions aimed at problem-solving, and high levels of transparency, whereas the UK leaned further to the distributive end, reflecting less engagement and consultation with domestic constituents, a focus on pre-determined positions that need defending, and lower levels of transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'environment' is a fully devolved concern in UK governance, though the comparative dynamics of devolved environmental governance remain poorly understood. The potential for the repatriation of significant environmental powers from the EU to devolved administrations through Brexit means that the nature of devolved environmental policy-making is increasingly coming under the spotlight. This paper enhances collective understanding about the nature of devolved environmental government and governance by adopting a comparative approach across the devolved nations of the UK. Based upon interviews and policy publications it analyses a number of key policy-making and institutional variables in relation to responses to an international environmental regime. In both Wales and Scotland evidence was found of environmental policy-making, policy-innovation and institution-building that diverged from the UK. Wales, in particular, evidenced how 'the environment' appears to be seen as a dynamic space for policy and institutional innovation. These findings highlight how the devolved-scale of governance might be particularly fruitful for environmental policy-innovation when the means, motive and opportunity are evident. It also highlights how key conditions are evident to ensure that devolved agencies may be empowered to undertake radically divergent approaches and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contexto Internacional is the property of Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Relacoes Internacionais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we employ the World Input–Output Database to develop a multi-sector inter-country model that allows us to identify the channels through which the trade 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, we found that Brexit could be risky and costly not only for the UK but also for many EU countries. Furthermore, 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: the UK and EU27 would lose, at worst, the 0.28 and 0.5 percent of value-added, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a defence of ambivalence as a response to the political polarisation of our era using multiple languages to present its case from psychology to sociology, political science, philosophy and critical theory. It suggests that the Brexit story can be told in a different key, whereby the politics that have led to entrenching 'leave' and 'remain' identities overlay a harder to assess ambivalence about the EU both in the UK and in the EU, a dynamic referred to as the 'Machiavelli Trap.' Accordingly, we ought to ground the future relationship in the recognition of the 'Brexit paradox' (you can leave and therefore you shouldn't), and its implications for the core principles that have shaped the Brexit debate and negotiations. In the end, the paper offers a plea for a politics that allows citizens to tune into their constructive ambivalence about the fundamental tension between control and cooperation which pervades both Brexit, EU and global politics at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a number of postponements, Britain's ratification of the withdrawal agreement has finally initiated the transitional period, during which the negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union will be finalized. Brexit has and will continue to affect the structure and relationships between EU member states. With a history of positive perceptions towards the EU and its institutions, Romania continues to believe in the rhetoric launched by Brussels. However, the implications of Brexit with regards to Romania are plenty - commercial, economic, political and geostrategic. In order to understand how the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union affects Romania, this paper attempts to thematically analyse a series of interviews with Romanian experts and elites. The interviews discuss the historical and political context of Brexit, and how Brexit affects Romania and Romanian citizens? attitudes towards the Union. Recent statistics show that more than 400.000 Romanians reside in the UK and as such, one of the core matters raised in this paper concerns the status of Romanians in the UK post- Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting with a reduced form derived from standard urban economics theory, this paper estimates the possible job-shortfall across UK and EU regions using a time-space dynamic panel data model with a spatial moving average random effects structure of the disturbances. The paper provides a logical rational for the presence of spatial and temporal dependencies involving the endogenous variable, leading to estimates based on a state-of-the-art dynamic spatial generalized moments estimator proposed by Baltagi et al. (Reg Sci Urban Econ, 2018. 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2018.04.013). Given reliable interregional trade estimates, the simulations are based on a linear predictor which utilizes different regional interdependency matrices according to assumptions about interregional trade post-Brexit. The results indicate that heightened barriers to trade will evidently cause job-shortfalls both in the UK and across the EU, but it is also shown that there is a considerable amount of asymmetry in the outcomes across regions and sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the shortcomings in the UK government's Brexit negotiation strategy which reflected Prime Minister Theresa May's weak political leadership which focused on securing the short-term political survival of her government amidst turbulent and fractious domestic politics, over negotiations with the EU27. Brexit negotiations were poorly planned, and the UK government was woefully unprepared. Brexit also threatened a serious re-opening of old wounds in Northern Ireland, as debate grows around the prospect of a united Ireland inside the EU. UK politics is in turmoil and in a chronic crisis. What route the Brexit saga takes next is uncertain. But the crossroads is approaching – either the UK leaves by 31 January 2020 with no deal or passes the deal the Boris Johnson has negotiated with the EU27. The Brexit process has revealed the weakness of Westminster's insular politics seemingly incapable of running a modern economy and society. Westminster's politics are becoming more not less dysfunctional. The phenomenon of British exceptionalism towards the EU is set to take a new dramatic turn, while the UK's chaotic political divisions will not disappear any time in the foreseeable future. The result of the 12 December 2019 General Election may even complicate the Brexit Conundrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit, i.e. the withdrawal of the uk from the eu, is an event, which, regardless of its course and destination, has had a lasting impact on international politics. This paper offers a cognitive linguistic perspective on Brexit and investigates its conceptual metaphorizations on the first days after the uk referendum. The paper compares data from uk and non-uk eu media. The perspective adopted is that of Socio-Cognitive Studies in combination with quantitative analysis. The findings suggest there are significant differences between uk source domains and continental eu ones, e.g. overall metaphor use throughout the period is more pronounced in the uk sub-dataset; in the uk sub-dataset, divorce metaphorizations characterize either a 'break-up' between 'two Britains' or an uk-eu 'break-up'; journey, disaster and war are more frequently used in the uk, while mechanical failure is more prominent in the continental sub-dataset. Overall, a preference for inanimate source domains characterizes both sub-datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the European Parliament (EP) elections seen as a tool for migrant political participation. When migrating for work, EU migrants do not always consider naturalization as an optimal arrangement, being satisfied with rights connected with their EU citizenship. Therefore, in terms of voting strategies, they often limit their voting rights to those connected with the institutions of their country of birth. However, the particular political context might create additional motivation for participation in EP elections. I would argue that such a particular situation did occur in the United Kingdom in May 2019, when many EU migrants decided to exercise their right to vote in EP elections. Furthermore, many of them were then denied this right, which has been attributed by some to the lack of efficiency on part of British institutions. The paper will look at the institution of the European Parliament elections, analyzing both the normative justification of the formal arrangements and the empirical dimension of 2019 EP Elections in the United Kingdom in the context of the ongoing processes of Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union has always been tumultuous and problematic, and European integration has always been a controversial topic in the UK's contemporary politics. However, current research on the Brexit referendum's news discourse hardly addresses this topic directly. Therefore, this paper analyses the discursive construction of the UK versus the EU during the campaign coverage of the Brexit referendum in major British broadsheets. To do so, a corpus of four major British broadsheets along ideological lines (left-right) and Brexit stance (Leave-Remain) was analysed by applying a mixed method approach of Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (Discursive News Values Analysis along with some Corpus Linguistic tools and techniques). The way news values were adopted in the campaign coverage of the British broadsheets shows a certain continuation of historical discourses around the relationship of the entities. The results show that news values during the campaign coverage were adopted by the pro-leave outlets to construct a highly negative and elite-associated image of the EU in contrast to the UK, while the pro-remain broadsheets mostly focused on a limited, practical and economic argument in favour of the EU, maintaining and highlighting the importance of UK independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]