Brexit and the New Globalization

This chapter first analyzes the development of globalization in response to multiple shocks, the 2008 financial crisis, the Covid pandemic, and the Ukraine war. Geopolitics, industrial policy, and deep technological transformation transformed the globalization paradigm. In the UK, differences in global strategy among Brexit supporters, retreat from globalization on the one hand and enhanced global engagement on the other, came as a result of strains in British society. The outcome was shaped by long run influences in political psychology, economic orientation and political language, with the UK seeing international politics as a question of balancing rather than of integration.