Internationalized at work and localistic at home: The ‘split’ Europeanization behind Brexit

This paper looks at the results of the referendum on the United Kingdom membership to the European Union in order to test the link between the internationalization of the local economy and the openness of the local society as factors associated with the Leave vote (Brexit). The paper compares a number of alternative explanations put forward in the public debate after the referendum. The empirical analysis suggests that the outcome of the referendum can be linked to an increasing tension between the ever increasing internationalization of local firms and the ‘localistic’ attitude of their employees. Brexit can be seen as the result of a process of ‘split Europeanization’ whereby Euroscepticism is triggered by the increasing mismatch between internationalized economies (and corporate economic interests) and localistic societies (and workers’ attitudes and cultural preferences).