Religion and Euroscepticism in Brexit Britain


Book Description

Religion has a significant effect on how Europeans feel about the European Union (EU) and has had an important impact on how people voted in the UK’s ‘Brexit referendum’. This book provides a clear and accessible quantitative study of how religion affects Euroscepticism and political behaviour. It examines how religion has affected support for EU membership since the UK joined the European Economic Community, through to the announcement of the Brexit referendum in 2013, to the referendum itself in 2016. It also explores how religion continues to affect attitudes towards the EU post-Brexit. The volume provides valuable insights into why the UK voted to leave the EU. Furthermore, it highlights how religion affects the way that citizens throughout Europe assess the benefits, costs and values associated with EU membership, and how this may influence public opinion regarding European integration in the future. This timely book will be of important interest to academics and students focusing on religion and public attitudes, contemporary European and British politics as well as think tanks, interest groups and those with an interest in understanding Brexit.




After Brexit?


Book Description

The political, social and cultural dimensions of European unity are going through a period of unsettling change and challenge. Whatever direction it takes, Brexit marks a crossroad from which there is no easy return to the way things were before. How do the churches of Europe make sense of what is happening, and how should they respond? Is the unity between them, the focus for a century of ecumenical endeavour, a strength on which they can draw, or does that unity itself face new threats? "After Brexit" is a vital resource for all those interested in these questions, bringing together contributions from scholars and church leaders. It reviews the role of the churches in European integration as a post-war project, analyses the current political and social landscape, and identifies key issues for the future of ecumenism in Europe. [Nach dem Brexit? Europäische Einheit und die Einheit der europäischen Kirchen] Die politischen, sozialen und kulturellen Dimensionen der europäischen Integration erleben eine Zeit tiefgreifender Veränderungen und Herausforderungen. In jeder Hinsicht ist der Brexit eine Weichenstellung, die eine Rückkehr zu früheren Verhältnissen nahezu unmöglich macht. Wie sollen die Kirchen in Europa diese Entwicklungen interpretieren und wie darauf reagieren? Ist die Einheit zwischen den Kirchen – die den Fokus auf die ökumenische Zusammenarbeit legt – ein Plus, von dem sie zehren können, oder wird diese Einheit erneut in Frage gestellt? "After Brexit" ist eine reichhaltige Ressource für alle, die sich für diese Fragen interessieren, und beinhaltet Beiträge von Akademikern und Kirchenleitenden. Das Buch hinterfragt die Rolle der Kirchen bei der europäischen Integration als einem Nachkriegsprojekt, analysiert die aktuelle politische und soziale Situation und identifiziert Schlüsselthemen für die Zukunft der Ökumene in Europa.




Praying on Brexit? Unpicking the Effect of Religion on Support for European Union Integration and Membership


Book Description

This article examines how religious affiliation shapes support for European Union membership. While previous research has shown that Protestants are typically more eurosceptic than Catholics, little is known about the nature of this relationship: specifically, whether religion affects one's utilitarian assessments of the costs and benefits of membership, or one's affective attachment to the EU. Using the 2016 British Election Study Referendum Panel, this article shows that religious affiliation influences both sets of attitudes, suggesting that the values and shared history associated with one's religion shapes how a voter perceives the performance of the EU in delivering its policy objectives, and its operation as a legitimate institution. Moreover, some findings from previous research are challenged: Protestants are not as unified in their scepticism of the EU as is widely assumed, and the positive relationship between Catholicism and support for EU integration is not apparent in the UK.




The Biblical Case for Brexit


Book Description

Why Britain should leave the European Union and return to its historic Christian foundations.




The Political Theology of European Integration


Book Description

This book traces the connections between diverging postwar European integration policies and intra-Christian divisions to argue that supranational integration originates from Roman Catholic internationalism, and that resistance to integration, conversely, is based in Protestantism. Royce supports this thesis through a rigorously supported historical narrative, arguing that sixteenth-century theological conflicts generated seventeenth-century constitutional solutions, which ultimately effected the political choices both for and against integration during the twentieth century. Beginning with a survey of all ecclesiastical laws of seventeen West European countries and concluding with a full discussion of the Brexit vote and emerging alternatives to the EU, this examination of the political theology surrounding the European Union will appeal to all scholars of EU politics, modern theology, religious sociology, and contemporary European history.




English Nationalism, Euroscepticism and the Anglosphere


Book Description

This book analyses the elite project behind Brexit, and considers its framework within the political traditions of English nationalism. Far from being 'Little Englanders', Brexiteers sought to lessen the rupture of leaving the European Union by suggesting a return to alliances with true friends and traditional allies in the Anglosphere.




Brexit


Book Description

In June 2016, the United Kingdom shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union. As this book reveals, the historic vote for Brexit marked the culmination of trends in domestic politics and in the UK's relationship with the EU that have been building over many years. Drawing on a wealth of survey evidence collected over more than ten years, this book explains why most people decided to ignore much of the national and international community and vote for Brexit. Drawing on past research on voting in major referendums in Europe and elsewhere, a team of leading academic experts analyse changes in the UK's party system that were catalysts for the referendum vote, including the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the dynamics of public opinion during an unforgettable and divisive referendum campaign, the factors that influenced how people voted and the likely economic and political impact of this historic decision.




Euroscepticism as a Transnational and Pan-European Phenomenon


Book Description

As the EU enters an increasingly uncertain phase after the 2016 Brexit referendum, Euroscepticism continues to become an increasingly embedded phenomenon within party systems, non-party groups and within the media. Yet, academic literature has paid little attention to the emergence of, and increased development of, transnational and pan-European networks of EU opposition. As the ‘gap’ between Europe’s mainstream political elites and an increasingly sceptical public has widened, pan-European spheres of opposition towards the EU have developed and evolved. The volume sets out to explain how such an innately contradictory phenomenon as transnational Euroscepticism has emerged. It draws on a variety of perspectives and case studies in a number of spheres – the European Parliament, political parties, the media, civil society and public opinion. Examining to what extent the pan-European dimension of Euroscepticism is becoming increasingly influential, it argues that opposition to European integration has for too long been viewed somewhat narrowly, through the paradigm of national party politics. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and professionals in EU politics, European studies, political parties, and more broadly to comparative politics and international relations.




Brexit and British Politics


Book Description

Brexit has changed everything - from our government, to our economy and principal trading relationship, to the organization of our state. This watershed moment, which surprised most observers and mobilized previously apathetic sections of the electorate, is already transforming British politics in profound and lasting ways. In this incisive book, leading analysts of UK and EU politics Geoffrey Evans and Anand Menon step back from the immediacy and hyperbole of the Referendum to explain what happened on 23 June 2016, and why. Brexit, they argue, was the product of both long-term dissatisfaction with the EU and a gradual breakdown in the relationship between parties and voters that spawned detachment, disinterest and disenchantment. Exploring its subsequent impact on the June 2017 General Election, they reveal the extent to which Brexit has shattered the contemporary equilibrium of British politics. These reverberations will continue to be felt for a very long time and could pose a real danger to the health of British democracy if the government fails to deliver on the promises linked to Brexit.




Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law


Book Description

Has Hobbesian moral and political theory been fundamentally misinterpreted by most of his readers? Since the criticism of John Bramhall, Hobbes has generally been regarded as advancing a moral and political theory that is antithetical to classical natural law theory. Kody W. Cooper challenges this traditional interpretation of Hobbes in Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law. Hobbes affirms two essential theses of classical natural law theory: the capacity of practical reason to grasp intelligible goods or reasons for action and the legally binding character of the practical requirements essential to the pursuit of human flourishing. Hobbes’s novel contribution lies principally in his formulation of a thin theory of the good. This book seeks to prove that Hobbes has more in common with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of natural law philosophy than has been recognized. According to Cooper, Hobbes affirms a realistic philosophy as well as biblical revelation as the ground of his philosophical-theological anthropology and his moral and civil science. In addition, Cooper contends that Hobbes's thought, although transformative in important ways, also has important structural continuities with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of practical reason, theology, social ontology, and law. What emerges from this study is a nuanced assessment of Hobbes’s place in the natural law tradition as a formulator of natural law liberalism. This book will appeal to political theorists and philosophers and be of particular interest to Hobbes scholars and natural law theorists.