Reconfigurating European states in crisis, the case of the post Brexit state

Abstract

Following comparative studies on statehood in Europe (including the book I edited with Desmond King, "Reconfiguration European states in crisis"), this seminar interprets, and attempts to explain the dynamics governing the reconfiguration of the British State in the wake of Brexit and the covid crisis. These dynamics have operated against a decade-long backdrop of austerity and then the explosion of the Covid-19 pandemic. Leaving the European Union (EU) raised a number of existential questions for the United Kingdom. The presentation will  first briefly describe the consequences of Brexit on the institutions, government, and policies of the United Kingdom, with the latter’s exit from the EU leading to the country’s “de-Europeanization” — or at the very least, to another kind of Europeanization. Secondly, this process has produced a re-nationalization of political  authority, with power increasingly being centralized in England to the detriment of other territories and the judicial system as a whole. Ultimately, Brexit poses a challenge to the British conception of statehood and opens the door to conservative political entrepreneurs who are keen to propose another model: a State that is centralized, English, neoliberal, and globalized.