Voting for Your Pocketbook, but against Your Pocketbook? A Study of Brexit at the Local Level

In explaining the outcome of the 2016 EU referendum in the United Kingdom, can theories emphasizing the importance of economic factors be reconciled with the fact that many people appeared to vote against their economic self-interest? This article approaches this puzzle through case study research t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Politics & society 2022-03, Vol.50 (1), p.3-43
Main Authors: Gartzou-Katsouyanni, Kira, Kiefel, Max, Olivas Osuna, Javier José
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
Community
Deindustrialization
Discontent
Discounting
Discourses
Economic decline
Economic factors
Economic impact
EU membership
Local authorities
Local knowledge
Narratives
Optimism
Political behavior
Referendums
Research transfer
Resilience
Self interest
Uncertainty
Voter behavior
Voting
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In explaining the outcome of the 2016 EU referendum in the United Kingdom, can theories emphasizing the importance of economic factors be reconciled with the fact that many people appeared to vote against their economic self-interest? This article approaches this puzzle through case study research that draws on fieldwork and a process of reciprocal knowledge exchange with local communities in five local authorities in England and Wales. It argues that the Leave vote can be attributed partly to political discontent associated with trajectories of relative economic decline and deindustrialization. Building on the growing literature about the role of narratives and discourses in navigating uncertainty, it contends that these localized economic experiences, interpreted through local-level narratives, paved the way for local-level discourses of resilience and nationwide optimistic messaging about the economic impacts of Brexit to resonate. Local and national-level discourses discounting the potential economic costs of leaving the European Union played a crucial role in giving precise, somewhat paradoxical, political content to the sense of discontent. The article contributes to the growing focus on place and community in understanding political behavior and invites further research on local discourses linking macro-level trajectories and micro-level voting decisions.
ISSN:0032-3292
1552-7514
DOI:10.1177/0032329221992198