Maria Dede (presenter) and Sandra Kröger: Economic integration, sovereignty, and democracy: How British business assess the trade relationship with the EU and its trade-offs

Chair: Dirk Leuffen

Abstract: The Brexit campaign claimed that by leaving the EU, the UK would ‘take back control’, not least by regaining control of immigration, freeing itself from unnecessary red tape and unnecessary regulation, and being able to pursue its own trade deals. The campaign’s promise was that a free global Britain would be able to overcome Dani Rodrik’s trilemma and reconcile globalisation, sovereignty, and democracy. Rodrik (2011) argues that between these three aims, states can only ever achieve two. States can restrict democracy in the interest of minimizing international transaction costs. They can limit globalization in order to build democratic legitimacy. Or they can globalize democracy and lose national sovereignty. The UK is now exposed to the fact that there is a tension between these three aims, and that economic integration has admittedly been weakened. This paper presents new data on how UK businesses assess the gains and losses of having left the Single Market, and which would be their preferred trade model as a result.

Vita: Maria Dede is a postdoctoral research associate for the Horizon2020 project “Differentiation: Clustering Excellence” (DiCE) focusing on experts’ views on future scenarios of Differentiated Integration in the EU as well as on the effect of Brexit on the EU and the UK. She teaches in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Exeter (UoE) where she completed her PhD in Philosophy in 2021.

Sandra Kröger is Associate Professor at the University of Exeter. She is the Director of the Centre for European Studies and chairs the ECPR Research Network on Differentiated Integration in the EU. Her research focuses on the EU, democracy, including digital democracy, and smartphones.