Not infrequently, I’m taken by the notion that the easiest way to understand the renegotiation and referendum is by thinking about how different actors can best use it to their long term advantage. The substance of the issues isn’t really the point, but rather the opportunity offered to improve one’s position, both absolutely and relatively. […]
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For most people observing – including myself – the existence of two major groupings on the Leave side of the referendum wasn’t really an issue. Arron Banks’ Leave.EU hasn’t looked nearly as serious a proposition as Vote Leave, either in terms of ideological breadth or of general respectability (however you’d like to define that). Vote […]
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One of the staples of academic understanding of the EU is the notion of the two-level game. The idea – first articulated by Robert Putnam – is simply that there are situations where you can only understand an actor’s intentions and actions in one game/interaction if you also accept that these intentions and actions are shaped by […]
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Nordic countries generally have a good rep. Whether it’s their pop music or their high level of social and political development, they tend to get looked up at. But just as there’s a Ylvis for every ABBA, so too is there a David Cameron for every Francis Fukuyama. Cameron doesn’t want a ‘Norwegian option’ for […]
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A (sadly) consistent theme of British policy towards the EU has been widespread ignorance. I recall being told in my undergraduate EU law module a story of the first British judge, Alexander Mackenzie Stuart, setting off in 1973 to Luxembourg with the firm intention of trying to establish the supremacy of EC law, apparently unaware […]
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So here we are, phase two of Dave’s renegotiation-and-referendum gambit. The preliminaries have been dealt with and now we have the groups likely to form the official campaigns launched. I’ve talked elsewhere about the group formation and the issues associated with that, and that’s certainly been much of the focus of attention so far in […]
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