Actors and processes of the BrExit negotiations: from the British referendum to the European Council

• Grant number: 17/15445-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2017
• End date: September 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Janina Onuki
• Grantee: Murilo Motta
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to study the two levels of the negotiation processes regarding Britain's exit of the European Union (BrExit), namely: the first level, which involved the decision for the exit through a popular referendum that took place in June 2016, in which we will analyse the positioning of key-sectors of the British civil society -- specifically the major newspapers, "think tanks" and twitter messages -- in order to understand its motivations and goals with this event; and the second level, which involves the first steps of the negotiations between the British government and the European Council, so that we can analyse how the bureaucratic process takes place -- through speeches and official pronouncements from the main leaders of the opposition and from the two Conservative Prime Ministers involved -- and, especially, if the civil's society positioning had any impact on the terms of such negotiations. Therefore, our approach to the subject will follow the Constructivist Theory (WENDT, "Social Theory of International Politics"), as we try to understand the interests of the British population that lead to this historical process of "desintegration" were formed, through the methodology of discourse analysis, seeking the identification of the main subjects involved and to set out the scopes of theses negotiation processes. Side by side to this more specific analysis, the BrExit, as a historical fact, will also be framed to the main integration theories in International Relations, that usually take the European Union as a model of integration (ROSAMOND, "Theories of European Integration"; CAMERON, "The European Union as a Model for Regional Integration"; DOMÍNGUEZ & ROY, "The European Union and Regional Integration"), while we will start from the hypotesis of the non-integration of Brittan to the EU as a fact due to a historical process. (AU)