Regional Integration and Brexit: Between Economic Nationalism and Economic Internationalism (Published)
The broad objective of this paper is to examine the theoretical justification for the exit of Britain from the European Union in 2016. It agrees that despite the fact that a nation can hardly exist in isolation, it may opt out from an integrating system when the wellbeing of its nationhood is threatened or jettisoned for supra-territorial interest. In furthering this objective, the paper employs the content analysis method to determine whether the duo of economic nationalism and economic internationalism underscore albeit, theoretically, the action of Britain to exit the European Union after the referendum in June, 2016. Part of the findings of the paper show that issues of immigration, underemployment, tax evasion and high support levy for the European Union were chief in undermining the economic prosperity of the Britain and hence the call for referendum. The paper amongst others recommends that the United Kingdom can open its trade policy unilaterally to all countries after exiting the EU, implement deregulation policy at home and negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU.
Keywords: Brexit, European Union., Globalization, Regional Integration, economic internationalism, economic nationalism