The Strategic Context of the British Referenda on Continued Membership in the EC/EU
The main research objective of this article is to explain the motives behind the British political elite’s decision to hold nationwide referenda on continued membership in the EC/EU in 1975 and 2016. In order to do so, the author applies her own analytical framework using a theoretical model of dic...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institute of International Relations Prague
2017-06-01
|
| Series: | Czech Journal of International Relations |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://cjir.iir.cz/index.php/cjir/article/view/199 |
| Summary: | The main research objective of this article is to explain the motives behind
the British political elite’s decision to hold nationwide referenda on
continued membership in the EC/EU in 1975 and 2016. In order to do so,
the author applies her own analytical framework using a theoretical model
of dichotomous logics of appropriateness and consequentiality. The article
demonstrates the primacy of domestic parameters during the convening of
these referenda. In both cases, decisions came at a moment when the party
system was no longer able to accommodate EC/EU-related tensions within
the governing parties. In this context, the research points to a
strategisation and an instrumentalisation of the European agenda on
behalf of domestic intra-party politics. The author concludes that while the
official rhetoric accompanying the political elite’s decisions to hold both
referenda on continued membership in the EC/EU operated with the
normative logic of appropriateness, the real basis of these decisions lay in
the utilitarian logic of consequentiality.
|
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0323-1844 2570-9429 |