Populism Brexit and The Manufactured Crisis of British Neoliberalism

Review of International Political Economy
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Populism, Brexit, and the manufactured crisis of

British neoliberalism
James D. G. Wood & Valentina Ausserladscheider
To cite this article: James D. G. Wood & Valentina Ausserladscheider (2020): Populism, Brexit,
and the manufactured crisis of British neoliberalism, Review of International Political Economy,
DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2020.1786435
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REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1786435
Populism, Brexit, and the manufactured crisis

of British neoliberalism
James D. G. Wooda and Valentina Ausserladscheiderb
a
Department of Politics & International Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK;
b
Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
ABSTRACT
The recent rise of populism has threatened to undermine the stability of inter-
national economic integration. Using the case of Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the
European Union, we challenge prevailing accounts explaining populism as political
response to neoliberalism’s negative impact on voters. This conceptualisation does
not sufficiently explain voter support for populist political actors advocating the fur-
ther entrenchment of neoliberal policymaking. Using a descriptive analysis, we
develop a constitutive theory explaining how the antagonistic ‘people’ vs. ‘elite’
relationship at the core of populism has been mobilised by opposing British polit-
ical actors as a discursive frame to generate voter support for their own policies.
We show how the Liberal Economic Nationalist and Democratic Socialist policy
paradigms used the 2016 referendum to challenge Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal
growth model by framing it as being detrimental to ‘the people’ and benefiting
‘the elite’. Conversely, their respective export-oriented neoliberal growth model or
socialist policies are framed as resolving these issues through their prospective ben-
efits to ‘the people’. Therefore, we argue that focusing on the deployment of the
populist frame offers a compelling means for the field of International Political
Economy to conceptualise how global populism emerges to challenge the stability
of international economic integration.
KEYWORDS
Populism; policy paradigm; crisis; neoliberalism; Brexit; constructivism; growth model
Introduction
The recent rise of populism has challenged the various processes of regional and
global economic integration that have intensified since the 1970s; a key concern for
the field of International Political Economy (IPE) (Best et al., 2017). Although there
are various conceptions of what populism is, many definitions focus on a core
antagonistic relationship between ‘the people’ and a corrupt or incompetent ‘elite’
(Canovan, 1999; Laclau, 2005; Mudde, 2004). This article challenges prevailing
accounts of the rise in populism that has come to dominate Britain’s political
CONTACT James D. G. Wood jdw82@cam.ac.uk Trinity Hall, Cambridge, CB2 1TJ, UK.
Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1786435.
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content
of the article.
ß 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. D. G. WOOD AND V. AUSSERLADSCHEIDER
economy, which culminated in the 2016 vote to leave the political and economic
project of the European Union (EU) (hereafter referred to as ‘Brexit’). These
accounts argue that populist politicians in Britain appealed to a long-standing
‘general will of the people’ by advocating anti-EU policies to mitigate the negative
consequences of globalisation, such as the cultural challenges from increased immi-
gration (e.g. Inglehart & Norris, 2016) and the adverse distributional consequences
from international trade (e.g. Rodrik, 2018). Alternatively, Hopkin and Blyth
(2019) argue these key policies of globalisation are only smaller components of the
wider neoliberal economic policy paradigm. Subsequently, populism is considered a
response to voter demands for greater state intervention in the British economy to
challenge the market-based policies of neoliberalism, which have increased social
and economic insecurity (Hopkin & Blyth, 2019).
We contest that these accounts fail to adequately conceptualise what constitutes as
populism in the case of Brexit. First, for a decade prior to the 2016 referendum, less
than 10 per cent of the British public believed the EU was a pressing political issue,
which increased dramatically to over 50 per cent shortly after the referendum was
announced (The Economist, 2018). This demonstrates that leaving the EU cannot be
considered a long-standing voter demand that populist politicians adopted to appeal
to voters. Rather, it suggests the referendum itself may be considered the referential
moment where leaving the EU became a significant issue for British voters. Second,
whilst British populist political actors on the left, such as Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour
Party, advocate increased state intervention in the economy to challenge neoliberal-
ism, there are mainstream populist political actors in the Conservative Party support-
ing policies congruent with neoliberalism, such as less state intervention in the
British economy from the EU to increase exports to non-EU states (e.g. Rosamond,
2019). Therefore, although populism may not be reduced to a demand for increased
state intervention, what these populist political actors have in common is that they
both present a challenge to Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model. However,
there has been little examination as to how different populist actors have challenged
Britain’s specific neoliberal growth model in the context of Brexit, which is where
this paper makes an empirical contribution.
Major shifts in economic policy paradigms occur rarely, and require the policies
associated with the dominant paradigm to be framed negatively by political actors
to the voting public (Hay, 2004). This provides a suggestive link to the logic-based
conceptions of populism, which argue that the elite/people relationship may be
used as a discursive frame by political actors looking to generate voter support for
their own policies (Aslanidis, 2016; Moffitt, 2015). Here, a current policy can be
problematised by political actors by framing it as being detrimental to ‘the people’
whilst benefiting an ‘elite’; alternatively, a political actor may use the converse
framing to highlight the benefits of their policies to voters as ‘the people’
(Aslanidis, 2016; Moffitt, 2015). Although various populist political actors have
sought to challenge Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model, there has been
little examination of how they have used the populist discursive frame to present
their alternative economic policies to the voting public in the aftermath of EU ref-
erendum. Therefore, to address this issue, this paper explores how, and to what
extent, is it possible for the populist discursive frame to be mobilised by opposing
political actors to challenge Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model within
the specific context of Brexit?
REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY 3
This research question is explored using a descriptive case study analysis com-
paring the political communications of two competing and conflicting post-Brexit
visions: The Liberal Economic Nationalists and the Democratic Socialists. These
were selected as they are deeply embedded in the Conservative and Labour parties,
and their core policies have been identified as challenges to Britain’s debt-driven
neoliberal growth model from opposite ends of the political spectrum, whereas
other centrist political actors look to largely reproduce Britain’s current neoliberal
growth model (Hunt & Stanley, 2019; Rosamond, 2019; Watts & Bale, 2019). The
identification of any commonalities in the use of the populist discursive frame by
such opposing political actors potentially allows for a more generalisable claim to
be made about what constitutes as populism across a wider set of cases (cf.
Prezeworski & Teune, 1970; Gerring, 2012). We use an inductive ‘explaining out-
come’ process tracing approach (e.g. Beach & Pedersen, 2013) to develop a consti-
tutive theory (cf. Wendt, 1998) to explain how both paradigms have used the elite/
people antagonistic relationship as a discursive framing device to challenge neo-
liberalism in the case of post-Brexit Britain. Although our examination is descrip-
tive, it is also analytical, as it is couched in the theoretical frameworks of the
growth model literature (e.g. Stockhammer, 2016), Hall’s (1993) institutionalist pol-
icy paradigm approach, Hay’s (2016) conception of the construction of economic
crises, as well as the work of Aslanidis (2016) and Moffitt (2015), which consider
the elite/people antagonistic relationship as a rhetorical framing device that can
produce a crisis narrative.
The results of this analysis explain how both the Liberal Economic Nationalists
and the Democratic Socialists used the populist discursive frame to challenge
Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model and present their own policies as
stronger alternatives. As the Liberal Economic Nationalists advocate for increased
international trade, they use the populist frame to critique the EU for limiting
Britain’s autonomy to negotiate trade deals with non-EU nations. Subsequently,
Brexit provides an opportunity for British neoliberalism to be reoriented, via a pro-
cess of punctuated evolution, around an export-driven growth model based on an
anticipated increase in non-EU trade. Alternatively, rather than focus their atten-
tions on the EU, the Democratic Socialists directly critique market-based neoliberal
policies that benefit the elitist ‘few’ at the expense of ‘the many’. Subsequently, to
rebalance inequalities in favour of ‘the many’, they propose a post-Brexit full para-
digm shift towards socialism, with greater state autonomy to nationalise industries
and limit market activity. Our descriptive analysis suggests it is the shared deploy-
ment of the populist discursive frame by opposing political actors that constitutes
as populism in the case of Brexit: Despite their opposition, these actors both use
the discursive frame to construct a political challenge to Britain’s debt-driven neo-
liberal growth model and generate voter support for their own economic policies.
We argue that this offers a compelling means for the field of IPE to understand
what constitutes as the phenomenon of global populism more broadly, how it
emerged in specific cases, as well as how it challenges the processes of international
economic integration.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the first section provides a
survey of relevant literature on the links between populism, economic policy para-
digms, and Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model. The second section
describes the method deployed by this analysis. The third section outlines the
competing Liberal Economic Nationalist and Social Democrat economic policy

paradigms in post-Brexit Britain. The fourth section describes how they have chal-
lenged British and European neoliberalism using the populist discursive frame. The
final section explains how these policy paradigms discursively provided solutions to
their problematisations of neoliberalism in-line with their own specific policies.
Populism, policy paradigms, and Britain’s debt-driven growth model

Whilst populism is not a new phenomenon (e.g. Ionescu & Gellner, 1969), it has
become an increasingly popular research area in recent years due to its observed
rise since the 2008 GFC (Best et al., 2017; Christensen & Hearson, 2019, p. 1079).
More specifically, populism has been credited with driving anti-EU sentiment in
Britain, resulting in the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU (Inglehart & Norris,
2016). Although there are various ways of understanding populism, at its core it is
widely considered to examine the antagonistic relationship between ‘the people’
and some other, usually considered (but not reduced to) ‘the elite’ (Canovan, 1999;
Laclau, 2005; Mudde, 2004).
There are two broad and contrasting categories in which this relationship can
be deployed analytically and empirically: either through content-based or logic-
based approaches (Da Silva & Brito Vieira, 2018). Content-based approaches sug-
gest populist political actors look to generate popular support by appealing to the
‘general will’ of potential voters. Here, populist politicians seek to elicit support
through advocating (or challenging) a specific set of policies that are beneficial (or
detrimental) to ‘the people’ whilst being detrimental (or beneficial) to some other
(Mudde, 2004). Such approaches often focus on economic policies to generate pol-
itical support for populist actors (Gidron & Hall, 2017).
Economic policies are derived from a wider set of economic ideas based on
‘socially and politically constructed interpretations’ of how the economy should run
(Clift, 2014, p. 158); as well as defining ‘its constitutive elements and “proper” (and
therefore, “improper”) interrelations’ (Blyth, 2002, p. 11). Economic ideas can be
collated into a broader macroeconomic policy paradigm, which is considered an
interpretative ‘framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of
[economic] policy and the kind of instruments that can be used to attain them, but
also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing’ (Hall, 1993,
p. 279). As such, economic paradigms provide a lens by which political actors view
‘the economy as well as their own role within it’ (Hall, 1993, p. 279).
The prevailing accounts of the post-GFC rise in populism in Britain consider it
a backlash against the economic ideas of globalisation and neoliberalism. The glo-
balisation view argues that populism in Britain is a political response to voter dis-
satisfaction with the inequalities caused by international trade and the cultural
problems associated with migration from the EU (Hopkin, 2017; Inglehart &
Norris, 2016). Competition from imports, as well as the offshoring of production,
have been associated with higher levels of inequality due to rising unemployment
and downward pressure on wages (Rodrik, 2018). This has led to populist politi-
cians advocating economic nationalist policies to protect domestic firms and work-
ers from external competition (Ausserladscheider, 2019). However, increased trade
flows have been shown to reduce income inequality in Britain (e.g. Wood, 2020),
suggesting that this is not the main driver of public dissatisfaction with the EU.
High levels of inequality between countries drives migration flows, with workers
from lower income states, such as Eastern Europe, moving to higher income states,
such as Britain, to earn superior wages (e.g. Milanovic, 2011). The flow of EU
migrants into Britain has spurred the rise of multiculturalism, which has been
identified as a challenge to national identities (Inglehart & Norris, 2016). However,
empirical evidence shows pro-Brexit supporters are not significantly concerned
about the cultural effects of EU migration (Rolfe et al., 2018). Although EU migra-
tion is thought to have created a more competitive labour market (e.g. Rodrik,
2018), econometric evidence demonstrates it has not significantly impacted the
wages (e.g. Manacorda et al., 2012) or employment rates (e.g. Dustmann et al.,
2005) for British workers. Despite this, there remains a perception that EU migra-
tion is an economic threat to British workers (Rolfe et al., 2018). As such, political
actors have been able to generate popular support in Britain by advocating for
greater self-determination over immigration policies (Farrell & Newman, 2017,
p. 239).
The globalisation view has been critiqued for having too narrow of a focus, as it
fails to sufficiently account for the wider policies associated with neoliberalism in
Britain, for which globalisation is only a smaller constitutive part (Hopkin & Blyth,
2019). Although a much-contested term (e.g. Mudge, 2008), in contrast to the
withdrawal of the state under ‘laissez-faire’ liberalism, neoliberalism may be consid-
ered a set of economic ideas based around a constructed ‘competitive order’
enforced by the state, with a primary objective of establishing a stable monetary
framework to maintain a low inflation environment (Friedman, 1951; Hall, 1993, p.
286; Hay, 2004, p. 513). Whilst the globalisation policies of free trade and free cap-
ital mobility are central to neoliberalism, it also emphasises labour market flexibil-
ity; the reliance on the market as an efficient allocation mechanism; the state as a
facilitator, rather than a substitute, for market mechanisms; the use of private
finance and market mechanisms to provide public goods; and the retrenchment of
the welfare state (Hay, 2004).
There is not one single ‘variety’ of neoliberalism, and the post-Keynesian litera-
ture has identified two neoliberal growth models oriented around either consump-
tion, supported by rising household indebtedness (‘debt-driven growth’), or
generating export surpluses (‘export-driven growth’) (Stockhammer, 2016, p. 365).
The deep structures of all advanced capitalist economies are fundamentally the
same in (i.e. all states have the potential to be debt or export-driven), but the emer-
gence of a specific growth model within a state is due to the activation of a par-
ticular policy set by political actors (Baccaro & Pontusson, 2016, pp. 200–201).
Rather than being an export-driven neoliberal state, such as Germany, British neo-
liberalism is oriented around a domestic consumption-focused debt-driven growth
model, which has been reproduced by a variety of political actors since the 1980s
(Hay, 2013; Stockhammer, 2016).
Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model has been associated with various
social, economic and political problems that contributed to the 2008 GFC (Hay,
2013). However, the post-crisis era in Britain has seen an entrenchment of neo-
liberal policies, including government ‘austerity’ spending cuts, which have exagger-
ated pre-existing inequalities, economic insecurities and other social problems
(Blyth, 2013). Subsequently, Hopkin and Blyth (2019) argue the rise in populist
sentiment in Britain is a result of challenger parties appealing to a public demand
for increased state intervention in the economy, to protect voters from the eco-
nomic insecurities associated with neoliberalism.
Although these prevailing globalisation and neoliberal accounts highlight some
of the main drivers of political dissatisfaction in Britain, we argue that they fail to
adequately explain what constitutes as populism in the specific case of Brexit.
Between 2005 and mid-2015, just before the 2016 referendum was announced, less
than 10 per cent of the British public believed the EU was an important political
issue (The Economist, 2018). Therefore, leaving the EU cannot be considered a
position politicians adopted to appeal to a ‘general will of the people’. Interestingly,
after the referendum was announced in mid-2015, this figure increased dramatic-
ally to over 50 per cent, which suggests the referendum campaigns established the
EU as a significant issue for British voters. However, there has been little explan-
ation of how the negative consequences of neoliberalism came to be associated
with Britain’s membership of the EU by different political actors.
There are various competing political groups looking to reshape Britain’s polit-
ical economy after Brexit that have been identified as populist (Hay, 2020, p. 15;
Hunt & Stanley, 2019, p. 482). Although Hopkin and Blyth (2019) consider popu-
lism a challenge to neoliberalism, some of the alternative economic policy ideas
advocated by populist political actors are actually congruent with neoliberalism,
such as pro-liberal groups advocating increased international trade and less state
intervention (e.g. Rosamond, 2019). Each post-Brexit political group advocates con-
flicting economic policies, but what they do have in common is that they each pre-
sent a challenge to Britain’s current debt-driven neoliberal growth model (Hay
et al., 2019; Murphy, 2019; Rosamond, 2019). Therefore, rather than considering
populism a challenge to neoliberalism as a whole (e.g. Hopkin & Blyth, 2019), this
suggests that populism in the British case may be considered a challenge to
Britain’s specific debt-driven neoliberal growth model.
Here there is a link to arguments regarding the institutional change of macro-
economic policy paradigms. No policy paradigm is perfect, and policy anomalies
(i.e. social, economic or political issues) emerge as challenges and contradictions to
the dominant paradigm (Hall, 1993). Normal policymaking looks to mitigate
emerging anomalies through first-order incremental changes made to current poli-
cies, as well as second-order changes through the introduction of new policy
instruments (Hall, 1993 p. 280). The inability of normal policymaking to overcome
policy anomalies leads them to accumulate, resulting in more severe policy failures
that create a space for new policy ideas to gain influence, initiating a contest
between competing economic policy paradigms (Hall, 1993 p. 280). Therefore, the
accumulation of policy anomalies, coupled with the inability of the paradigm to
cope with such anomalies, demands a radical third-order paradigm shift in the
overarching macroeconomic policy discourse (Hall, 1993). However, substantial
intra-paradigm policy changes can occur without a third-order paradigm shift
through a process of punctuated evolution, which explains the wide variety of poli-
cies adopted by various British governments since the 1980s that fall under the
same neoliberal policy paradigm (Carstensen & Matthijs, 2018).
Changes in economic policy paradigms occur rarely and are often associated
with periods of crisis, understood as a moment of necessary intervention in the
economy (Hay, 2016). Here, a narrative is constructed by political actors to pro-
vide individuals with an interpretative framework that allows them to evaluate
how poorly the economy is performing by attributing policy anomalies directly to

the economic ideas of the dominant paradigm (Hay, 2016, p. 531). As such, the
narrative around these policy anomalies is constructed in a way that places the
dominant paradigm ‘in crisis’ and is what creates the crisis itself (Hay, 2016, p.
531). Subsequently, challengers to a dominant set of economic ideas attempt to
construct a ‘crisis’ of the prevailing policy set by framing key policy anomalies as
problems inherent to the paradigm’s ‘internal pathologies’ (Hay, 2004, p. 505).
Although the creation and narration of a ‘crisis’ is necessary for a paradigm shift
to occur, there has been little examination of how populism may be considered a
constitutive element in a constructed crisis of Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal
growth model.
Here there is a suggestive link to the logic-based approaches that conceptualise
populism as a rhetorical discursive frame (Aslanidis, 2016). Such formulations of
populism argue that populist political actors attempt to generate political support
by describing policy problems and proposing solutions using the oppositional logic
of the elite/people relationship. This constructed meaning provides a way for popu-
list political actors to frame a social, economic or political problem as being detri-
mental to ‘the people’ and caused by a corrupt or incompetent elite, or a specific
‘other’ (Aslanidis, 2016, p. 99). Subsequently, the solution to this problem is either
framed in terms of changing an existing policy to benefit ‘the people’ instead of the
‘elite/other’, removing that policy or by returning governing power to ‘the people’
from the elite (Aslanidis, 2016, p. 99). Although this populist discursive frame has
been identified as a means of constructing a crisis narrative as well as initiating a
moment of crisis (e.g. Moffitt, 2015), there has been little examination of how this
relates to a challenge of British neoliberalism in the specific case of Brexit.
Therefore, this paper explores how is it possible for the populist discursive frame
to be mobilised by opposing political actors to challenge Britain’s debt-driven neo-
liberal growth model within the specific context of Brexit?
Method and data collection

To examine this research question, we deploy a descriptive analysis based on a sin-
gle case study, supported by the use of an inductive process tracing approach. We
look to develop a constitutive theory that accounts ‘for the properties of things by
reference to the structures in virtue of which they exist’ (Wendt, 1998, p. 105). As
applied to our case, this means examining how interests are initially constituted
and then reconstituted by the use of the populist frame within the context of
Brexit. To explore this, we describe events before the Brexit vote and use an
inductive process tracing approach to identify and explain the role of the populist
frame in elite actors’ challenge to Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model;
how it mobilises different interests in and through the process of constructing this
challenge; as well as how the frame supports a definition of the problems of neo-
liberalism and who is attributed blame for these problems (e.g. Hay, 2016).
Although process tracing often supports the identification or development of
underlying causal mechanisms, it is widely used in conjunction with more descrip-
tive methods that explain an event, outcome or phenomenon (Bennett, 2010;
Collier, 2011; Trampusch & Palier, 2016). As such, we use an inductive ‘explaining
outcome’ process tracing approach to develop a descriptive explanation ‘of a
specific outcome in a single case’ that ultimately performs an illustrative and

exploratory function (Beach & Pedersen, 2013, p. 18; George & Bennett, 2005;
Gerring, 2016). Although we look to develop a description of the nature of popu-
lism in the British case, as we are developing a constitutive theory, the analysis
may provide insights into a wider range of cases (cf. Gerring, 2012) that have been
considered populist. Such exploratory single case studies have provided many
important break throughs in political science, with many such analyses now con-
sidered seminal in the canon (e.g. Dahl, 1961; Hall, 1993; Lijphart, 1968).
Whilst our methods are descriptive, we use an analytical process tracing
approach (e.g. George & Bennett, 2005), as our analysis is couched in the specific
theoretical frameworks of the growth model literature (e.g. Stockhammer, 2016),
Hall’s (1993) policy paradigm approach, Hay’s (2016) conception of the social con-
struction of crisis, as well as the discursive frame and crisis narrative of populism
(e.g. Aslanidis, 2016; Moffitt, 2015). However, our analysis does not use deductive
reasoning and we are not theory testing, as none of these theoretical frameworks
provide an explanation as to how it is possible for populism to be used as a rhet-
orical framing device to challenge the dominance of Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal
growth model within the specific temporal and national context of Brexit.
Therefore, and to be clear, we do not claim to explain why populism emerged in
the context of Brexit or whether Brexit was caused by the deployment of the popu-
list frame. Rather, we deploy a descriptive case method to account for what consti-
tutes as populism in the case of Brexit, as well as how its ‘elements are composed
and organized so that it has the properties that it does’ (Wendt, 1998, p. 112).
To develop our explanation, we use evidence gathered via empirical research
that focuses on the discourse of elite political actors, as they look to influence voter
expectations about how the economy should operate (Seabrooke, 2007; Widmaier
et al., 2007). Therefore, we seek to identify if and how elite political actors use the
populist frame in their discourse, and whether there has been ‘a sufficient intersub-
jective consensus about the legitimacy of change among the broader population’
which can be evaluated through voting outcomes (Widmaier et al., 2007, p. 749).
Empirical data was collected from secondary unsolicited documents, taking the
form of textual information or discursive communications. Textual document data
was collected from a wide range of sources including academic journals, books,
thinktank publications, party manifestos, newspaper articles or other public dis-
courses such as Twitter messages from politicians or public intellectuals (see appen-
dix A in the supplemental material for a full list of documents used in
this analysis).
The data was analysed using the Atlas.ti software to systematically code each
document in relation to how any challenge to the ‘status quo’ was described.
Through this systematic coding we operationalise our conception of the populist
frame, which occurs whenever elites from Britain or the EU are described in
opposition to ‘the people’s’ welfare in the broadest sense. After having established
the list of codes, we categorized these thematically into ‘Liberal Economic
Nationalists’, ‘Democratic Socialists’, and ‘anti-status quo’. These categories were
used to conceptualise in what way the crisis construction and solution is similar
and different across the competing policy paradigms. A full list of categorised codes
under each category can be found in appendix B in the supplemental material.
Competing economic policy paradigms in post-referendum Britain

Although there are several post-Brexit visions of Britain’s political economy, our
analysis focuses on two specific competing and conflicting economic policy para-
digms: The Liberal Economic Nationalists and the Democratic Socialists. Britain’s
modern Liberal Economic Nationalist policy paradigm is advocated by an influen-
tial group of politicians in the Conservative Party, such as Michael Gove, Iain
Duncan-Smith, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, who have each held key positions in
the pre-and-post Brexit Conservative governments, as well as Chief Advisor
Dominic Cummings, who orchestrated the Vote Leave campaign. The Liberal
Economic Nationalist policy paradigm is oriented around promoting systems of
free trade with a specific focus on increasing British exports, which will improve
the economic performance of the state, allowing it to achieve other objectives and
improve the material well-being of citizens (cf. Helleiner, 2002). Therefore, rather
than proposing a full paradigm shift away from neoliberalism, the Liberal
Economic Nationalists look to change Britain’s growth model from being debt-
driven to export-driven via a punctuated evolution of the neoliberal pol-
icy paradigm.
Being a key import market within the EU has allowed Britain to consume goods
and services to drive its consumption-focused neoliberal growth model, but it has
had a sustained trade deficit and an increasingly deteriorating balance of payments
position since it joined the trading bloc in 1975 (ONS, 2020). Although Britain has
had a long-standing trade deficit with the EU, it has developed an export-driven
trade surplus with non-EU countries that stood at £36bn in 2018 (House of
Commons, 2020). Britain’s positive trade balance with non-EU states highlights the
main Liberal Economic Nationalist critique of the EU, which is that it operates as a
supranational regulator limiting Britain’s economic policy autonomy (Gove, 2016).
EU regulations require all international trade agreements between EU member
states and non-EU states to be negotiated through the EU (Duncan-Smith, 2017).
As such, the Liberal Economic Nationalists argue that the EU constrains Britain’s
ability to negotiate terms of export-oriented trade with non-EU economies that are
more favourable to its own interests, rather than the interests of other large EU
states, such as Germany or France, or the EU as a whole (Economists for Brexit,
2016a). Furthermore, the EU is thought to hinder the international competitiveness
of British exports through its strict policies on product standards and labour mar-
ket regulation (Economists for Brexit, 2016a).
The Liberal Economic Nationalists extend this critique to almost all aspects of
law and regulation under the EU, which they argue places constraints on British
sovereignty (Gove, 2016). Therefore, leaving the EU will allow Britain to ‘take back
control’ over its policymaking (Johnson, 2016). Beyond trade, the Liberal Economic
Nationalists suggest the UK government should be able to control immigration to
complement British labour market conditions (Economists for Brexit, 2016a, p. 20).
The emphasis on policymaking autonomy is prized by the Liberal Economic
Nationalist position, as leaving the EU provides an opportunity for Britain to
escape costly ‘EU protectionism’, ‘Brussels red tape’, and its ‘over-burdensome
regulation’, which will potentially increase trade with non-EU states and allow
Britain to develop its economy in-line with its national interest (Economists for
Brexit, 2016a, p. 14).
Several key Conservative figures advocate increased export-oriented trade with

key emerging economics, such as China, and India, as well as large established
economies, such as the USA (Gove, 2016; Duncan-Smith, 2017; Johnson, 2020).
The potential gains from non-EU exports have seen each of Gove (2020), Duncan-
Smith (2020) and Johnson (2020) explicitly state that the British government will
walk away from trade negotiations with the EU if terms favourable to the British
national interest are not met. As such, they strongly advocate for a ‘no deal’ Brexit
if necessary, which will see Britain engage with global trade on WTO terms
(Duncan-Smith, 2020). Leaving the EU is a core strategy of the Liberal Economic
Nationalist’s ‘Global Britain’ agenda, which places the British state at the heart of
international affairs and trade (Hunt, 2019; Truss, 2020a). Thus, reorienting
Britain’s economy around an export-driven neoliberal growth model.
Britain pursued a similar form of liberal economic nationalism in the nineteenth
century to become the global hegemon and ‘have almost a monopoly of the trade
of the world’ (Semmel, 1993, p. 66). Prime Minister Boris Johnson (2020, 1:03) has
regularly invoked the role of trade in developing the British national interest, stat-
ing that ‘the UK rose to greatness because of our championing of global free trade’.
This view has also been publicly championed by the International Trade Secretary,
Liz Truss (2020b), as well Conservative-supporting newspapers, such as the
Telegraph (e.g. Hannan, 2020). Therefore, the modern Liberal Economic
Nationalist paradigm evokes a projected nostalgia of British Exceptionalism based
on Britain’s historical legacy as the world’s leading trading economy before World
War One, albeit without sufficiently acknowledging the colonialism or war machin-
ery that made it possible (e.g. O’Brien & Pigman, 1992). They also gloss over how
British elites primarily gained from trade, as the UK’s dominance over the inter-
national system was only possible by making ‘the British people’ bear the costs of
economic adjustment through wage suppression and unemployment (Eichengreen
& Temin, 2000).
In contrast, the Democratic Socialist policy paradigm advocates policies that
replace neoliberalism with socialism in Britain, and is politically represented by the
Corbynite wing of the Labour Party. Since the 2008 GFC, Labour Party MPs have
been increasingly divided into two main factions: New Labour Blairites, a centrist
group advocating restrained neoliberal policies whilst remaining in a reformed EU,
and an Old Labour group, led by long-standing Socialist Jeremy Corbyn, who became
party leader after Ed Miliband lost the 2015 General Election (Dorey & Denham,
2016). Once elected, Corbyn appointed several Socialist Labour MPs to prominent
front-bench positions, such as John McDonnell as shadow treasurer, Diane Abbott as
shadow home secretary, and Rebecca Long-Bailey as shadow business secretary.
The Democratic Socialists take a reductionist view of politics, arguing that all
social and political relations are grounded in the antagonistic Marxist capital/labour
economic base. Subsequently, the main policy prescriptions of the Democratic
Socialist paradigm focus on increasing material living standards for workers at the
expense of ‘elitist’ capital interests. In a Marxist sense, this is achieved through the
increased state ownership of ‘large corporations and financial institutions’ (Blakeley,
2019a, paragraph 10). The 2019 Labour Party Manifesto advocated nationalising a
wide range of industries, such as water companies, the ‘Big Six’ energy providers and
their suppliers, broadband services, railways and bus service operators, as well as the
Post Office. The 2019 manifesto also sought to increase employee ownership of
private firms by legally mandating large companies to introduce Inclusive Ownership

Funds (IOFs) (Labour Party, 2019). This built upon Labour’s (2017) previous pledges
to establish more ‘democratic’ ownership structures for firms.
The free movement of capital is also of particular concern to the Democratic
Socialist policy paradigm. The threat of capital flight has potentially negative effects
on employment and wage bargaining, as unfavourable domestic economic conditions
in the UK could see firms relocate to countries with lower wages or employment
standards, leading to increased competition for jobs. Constraints on capital move-
ment would also be coupled with increased regulation on Britain’s dominant financial
sector (e.g. Labour Party, 2017, 2019), which would reduce inequality and economic
instability (Blakeley, 2019b) This would also limit the influence of the financial sector
over policymaking, which has been much derided by the Labour Party (2017) and
public intellectuals on the Left (Blakeley, 2019b). The policies of nationalisation and
restrictive capital movement closely resemble the positions adopted by various post-
war Labour parties until the transformation into ‘New Labour’ under Blair in 1997.
Therefore, the Democratic Socialist policy paradigm evokes a projected nostalgia of
the post-war British Labour movement, based on a historical legacy of the ‘golden
era’ of capitalism from the 1940s until joining the EU in 1975, when workers were
collectivised, which saw a dramatic improvement in their material living standards
and a reduction in income inequality. However, there is an under-appreciation of the
rise in household indebtedness to support improvements in living standards under
the Keynesian policy paradigm in Britain (Sparkes & Wood, 2020).
The Democratic Socialists tend to have a negative view of the EU, as it is viewed
as a set of neoliberal institutions providing ‘an obstacle to the socialist transform-
ation of the UK’ (Blakeley, 2019a, paragraph 2). Corbyn voted against joining the
European Economic Community in 1975 and has consistently criticised the EU
since then, stating in 1993 that the ‘great danger to the cause of socialism in this
country or any other country of the imposition of a bankers’ Europe on the people
of this country’ (Lee, 2019, paragraph 9). In 2009, Corbyn also stated that the EU
‘project has always been to create a huge free-market Europe, with ever-limiting
powers for national parliaments’ (Moseley, 2016, paragraph 11). Furthermore,
when asked during the 2015 Labour leadership campaign whether he would vote to
remain in the EU, he responded: ‘I would advocate a No vote if we are going to
get an imposition of free market policies across Europe’, before describing the EU
‘as a business free-for-all’ (Moseley, 2016, paragraph 13).
Despite Corbyn’s clear personal anti-EU stance, as party leader he repeatedly
stated that the Labour Party supported remaining in the EU in the build-up to the
2016 referendum. In direct contradiction to his leadership campaign, Corbyn
(2016) publicly stated that he voted ‘remain’ in the referendum, placing an
emphasis on reforming EU institutions to create a ‘Europe that is based on social
justice and good, rather than solely on free-market economics’ (Moseley, 2016,
paragraph 23). This view has been consistently supported by key New Labour fig-
ures in the party, as well as the cross-party reformist group ‘Another Europe is
Possible’, supported by Labour MPs and MEPs. The Democratic Socialists were
criticised for maintaining an obtuse stance on Brexit in a bid to attract both
Remain and Leave voters, but supported a second referendum as official party pol-
icy in the 2019 General Election. Therefore, rather than use the post-referendum
policy space to challenge European neoliberalism via Britain’s membership of the
EU, the Democratic Socialists look to initiate a paradigm shift away from neo-
liberalism towards socialism, which would allow them to attempt to reform neo-
liberal European institutions.
Populism, Brexit and the manufactured crisis of British neoliberalism

David Cameron committed the Conservatives to holding an in/out EU referendum
in the 2015 General Election party manifesto, largely to hold off a backbench rebel-
lion. Subsequently, Cameron’s 2015 election victory sparked the beginning of the
Remain and Vote Leave campaigns, and the announcement of the referendum
coincided with a sharp increase in the percentage of voters believing the EU was
one of the most important issues facing the country (The Economist, 2018). Prior
to the referendum announcement, the Liberal Economic Nationalist and Social
Democratic paradigms were advocated by marginal factions of their respective par-
ties, but both gained political traction since then. Therefore, we argue the
announcement of the referendum represents the referential moment where the
Liberal Economic Nationalist and Democratic Socialist challenges to Britain’s debt-
driven neoliberal growth model emerged prominently in the national discourse,
both of which remain present in Britain’s modern political economy.
Our analysis demonstrates that the Liberal Economic Nationalist policy para-
digm challenges Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model by explicitly framing
the EU as a threat to various actors, institutions and ideals, such as firms, market
competition, innovation, exports, consumers, employees and investors. The main
critiques of the EU outlined by the Liberal Economic Nationalist paradigm is that
it hinders export-based trade agreements with non-EU economies and increases
regulation on domestic businesses. Our analysis shows that this discourse is often
framed using the populist logic of the antagonistic people/elite relationship. Here,
the actions of the EU are commonly presented as threats to the welfare of ‘the peo-
ple’, where the EU’s excessive regulation and restrictions on trade increases prices,
reducing consumer welfare, whilst hindering businesses and market competition,
thus limiting the potential for economic growth.
We provide three clear examples demonstrating how communications from the
Liberal Economic Nationalist paradigm use the populist discursive frame to chal-
lenge the EU. The first is from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA, 2018, p. 21),
who problematise the EU by stating:
Membership of the European Union stifles prosperity just as it prevents the UK governing
itself … it prevents the UK from entering into its own free trade agreements (FTAs) with
countries outside the EU … This increases the prices paid by consumers and … In short, it
makes us poorer’
From this quote it is clear that the IEA (2018) are explicitly using the populist
frame to highlight how the corrupting influence of the EU as an elitist institution
is making ‘us’ (the British people) poorer by limiting Britain’s autonomy to engage
with non-EU free trade.
A second example is provided by the ‘Economists for Brexit’ (2016a, p. 3)
group, who critique the EU in stating:
Democratic governments can be ejected and learn when the people reject their policies,
whereas the EU ‘government’ cannot be ejected, and is unresponsive to its failures and to
criticism from the public – most of all UK public opinion. It has made many mistakes in
economic policy, whether in launching the ill-fated euro, in dealing with the eurozone
crisis, responding to migration, regulating businesses, or in choosing its overall socio-
economic priorities; and it shows little, if any, sign of self-correction.
Similarly to the IEA (2018), the ‘Economists for Brexit’ (2016a) clearly employ a
populist logic by describing the EU as a corrupt and incompetent elite in oppos-
ition to interests of the British people.
A final example can be seen in Michael Gove’s (2016, paragraph 17) speech
where he declared his support for the Vote Leave campaign:
The EU is built to keep power and control with the elites rather than the people … Every
single day, every single minister is told: ’Yes Minister, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s
against EU rules’. I know it. My colleagues in government know it. And the British people
ought to know it too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas
that matter.
This quote provides a final clear example of how the corrupting elites of the EU
are harming the British people, by marginalising the ability of their government to
enact the policies they demand. These three examples clearly demonstrate how the
populist discursive frame has been used by those supporting the Liberal Economic
Nationalist policy paradigm to problematise and challenge Britain’s debt-driven
neoliberal growth model through the country’s membership of the EU, as it hin-
ders the possibility of an export-oriented growth model emerging.
Rather than actively pushing to remain in the EU or explicitly back Brexit, since
the referendum the Democratic Socialists deployed the antagonistic populist elite/
people logic to explicitly critique British neoliberalism. According to Blakeley, a key
intellectual figure within Labour, the party’s strategy was to develop ‘a populist
movement that could win over pro-Brexit voters not by accommodating anti-
immigrant views, but by making an economic argument for overturning the status
quo’ (Mueller, 2019, paragraph 26), which in terms of economic policy is neoliberal-
ism. This view is embedded in the discourse of the Labour Party, and can be seen in
the political communications of key Labour figures, such as Diane Abbott (2016,
paragraph 13), who argued that increasing public support for Corbyn’s socialism was
‘a reflection of millions of people wanting to move beyond neoliberalism’.
The main Labour slogan for the 2017 and 2019 General Elections was ‘For the
Many, not the Few’, which is a clear transposition of the people/elite populist frame
(Labour Party, 2017, 2019). We provide several examples clearly demonstrating how
communications from the Democratic Socialist paradigm use the populist discursive
frame to challenge British neoliberalism. The first example is from Jeremy Corbyn’s
(2017a, paragraph 51) speech to the 2017 Labour Party Conference:
Ten years after the global financial crash the Tories still believe in the same dogmatic
mantra – Deregulate, privatise, cut taxes for the wealthy, weaken rights at work, delivering
profits for a few, and debt for the many. Nothing has changed.
Here, the populist frame is explicitly used to problematise several key neoliberal
policies by highlighting that it benefits the few by ‘delivering profits’ for them, at
the expense of ‘the many’ who are indebted. In the same speech, Corbyn (2017a,
paragraph 15) contrasted the profits of ‘the few’ with wage reductions for ‘the peo-
ple’ in highlighting that the Conservatives oversaw ‘The longest fall in people’s pay
since record began’.
The second example is from Corbyn’s (2018, 0:21–0:39) speech to the 2018
Labour North Regional Party Conference:
Neoliberalism is the ideology that destroyed British industry, across the Midlands and the
North. It’s the ideology that ruins communities and ruins lives, and it’s the ideology that
this government is still absolutely wedded to, as they continue to wreak havoc with
incessant cuts and total indifference to the lives of working people.
The Democratic Socialists explicitly use the populist frame in this example to
describe how the neoliberal policies of the Conservatives have harmed the lives of
‘working people’ outside of London through the collapse of manufacturing jobs
and government spending reductions from ‘austerity’ cuts.
Finally, in a 2018 speech to Labour’s European sister parties, Corbyn (in Stone,
2018, paragraph 7) used the populist frame to highlight the Democratic Socialist
critique of neoliberalism:
the broken neoliberal model, which has failed working class people, fuelled inequality and
insecurity, and sucked wealth away from the majority to an elite few at the top
These quotes provide clear examples of how the populist frame is deployed by
the Democratic Socialists to describe how neoliberalism benefits a corrupt wealthy
and corporate elite, whilst harming ‘the people’ by increasing economic insecurity
and inequality.
The discourse of Jeremy Corbyn (2019a, paragraphs 1–2) and the Labour Party
(2017, 2018, 2019) has regularly challenged neoliberalism using the populist discur-
sive frame by pledging to deliver politics ‘for the many not the few’. The populist
frame has also been used by Corbyn (2019a, paragraphs 1–2) to highlight how the
Labour Party was ‘founded for and by the working people’ and not ‘the very rich-
est’ of society. Such a sentiment has also been regularly echoed by Shadow-
Chancellor John McDonnell (2017, p. 3), who, for example, stated: ‘We are being
held back by the failures, not only of this Tory government, but of a system rigged
for the benefit of the richest’. Corbyn’s (2019b, paragraph 1) Labour have repeat-
edly used the populist frame to highlight the ‘grotesque inequality and poverty’
produced and reproduced under Neoliberalism, as this was central to both the
2017 and 2019 manifestos (Labour Party, 2017, 2019). Although the Labour Party
has been historically cast as a populist party, due their emphasis on social class (i.e.
elite/capital versus people/worker), we have highlighted how the populism of the
modern Corbyn-led Labour Party is constituted by their consistent use of the elite/
people discursive frame to challenge neoliberal policymaking.
Solving the crisis of Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model

Although both the Liberal Economic Nationalists and Democratic Socialists have
challenged Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model, they have also used the
elite/people relationship to discursively frame their policy paradigms as viable alter-
natives. Rather than advocating for a full paradigm shift, the Liberal Economic
Nationalists promote a punctuated evolution of neoliberal policymaking, away from
Britain’s current debt-driven focus and towards an export-driven neoliberal growth
model. The Liberal Economic Nationalists argue this will be achieved by leaving
the EU, which will provide Britain with greater policy autonomy to negotiate trade
deals with non-EU states, allowing the UK to increase its exports. The emphasis on
policy autonomy is observed in a statement made by Prime Minster Boris

Johnson’s spokesperson: ‘The UK’s primary objective in the negotiations is to
ensure we restore our economic and political independence on January 1 2021’
(Parker & Brunsden, 2020, paragraph 3).
The focus on non-EU trade is observed in comments from key Liberal
Economic Nationalist political actors, such as Michael Gove, who stated that trade
barriers will be introduced on the EU after Britain has left the trading bloc to
encourage non-EU trade (O’Carroll, 2020). A clear example of how policy auton-
omy is required to develop international trade deals is promoted to voters using
the populist frame can be observed in another quote from Gove (quoted in
Maddox, 2016, paragraph 4, 18):
I am not asking the British people to have faith in me, I am asking them to have faith in
themselves. I am asking the British people to take back control from those [EU]
organisations which are distant and elitist … . With trade it is really important that we take
back control.
Here, Gove clearly uses the populist discursive frame to highlight how the
British people will be able to ‘take back control’ from ‘distant’ EU elites, which will
improve Britain’s ability to trade favourably with other nations.
The IEA (2018, p. 18) provide another example of how the benefits of the
export-driven neoliberal growth model are promoted using the populist frame:
We seek a UK economy which employs people in good jobs, where they are able to
succeed based on the merits of their ideas and their hard work. An economic system based
on competition as opposed to cronyism will maximise wealth creation and lead to more
money in the pockets of UK consumers, and more money for essential services.
This IEA statement clearly uses the populist frame to illustrate how once the
corrupt state interventionism of the EU is removed, the British people will benefit
from the export-driven growth model by having better jobs and higher material liv-
ing standards.
The Economists for Brexit group echo the same message put forward by Gove
and the IEA by describing their solution to neoliberalism in a populist frame:
‘[Brexit] will allow the British people to enjoy the long term benefits of becoming a
self-governing country once again with the political freedom we have always
demanded’ (Economists for Brexit, 2016a, p. 3) and ‘Brexit is a major reform that
is disruptive of existing market relationships; it is no surprise that once again the
British and international establishment and their serving economists oppose it’
(Economists for Brexit, 2016b, p. 9). These quotes highlight how the Liberal
Economic Nationalists present leaving the EU as an opportunity to initiate a punc-
tuated evolution of neoliberal policymaking in Britain, as the shift towards an
export-driven growth model will provide independence from ‘corrupt’ EU elites,
thus improving the quality of life for ‘the British people’ via increased trade
opportunities.
The Democratic Socialists challenge who benefits from neoliberalism using the
elite/people populist frame and their proposed solutions are also mobilised with a
similar framing. The core of the 2017 and 2019 Labour campaigns has been on
how Socialist-style policies can facilitate ‘rebuilding Britain for the many not the
few’, a common theme in Corbyn’s political discourse (Leith, 2018, paragraph 9).
For example, Corbyn (2017b) tweeted a clear use of the populist frame to link
Labour’s Socialist solutions to his problematisation of neoliberalism: ‘The neo-

liberal economic model is broken but we can, and will, build an economy
#ForTheMany, not the few.’ Corbyn stated this again in his 2017 party conference
speech, where he outlines ‘what’s needed to replace the broken model forged by
Margaret Thatcher many years ago’ (Corbyn, 2017a, paragraph 55). Such state-
ments are regularly reinforced by the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who,
for example, summarised Labour’s alternative economic policies by stating: ‘We
present here the foundations of a country built for the many not the few’
(McDonnell, 2017, p. 3).
The populist frame can also be observed in the Labour Party’s (2017) proposed
industrial strategy, which looks to replace Britain’s financialised economy that
regained prominence under neoliberalism with a return to a manufacturing base.
The beneficiaries of Britain’s financialised economy are framed as being an elite
group of London financiers, supported by a corrupt ‘political class’ (Labour Party,
2017; Blakeley, 2018, paragraph 7). Corbyn (2018, paragraph 1) used the populist
frame to describe this, highlighting how his Labour Party ‘will make finance the
servants of industry instead of the masters of us all’. These dynamics are summar-
ised clearly in a populist frame by Grace Blakeley (2018, paragraph 11):
We should accept that financial globalisation has created many more losers than winners,
and that many people are right to be angry about the economic changes of the last 40
years. Accepting and addressing these issues is the only way to build a post-Brexit
economy that benefits, to coin a phrase, the many, not the few.
The populist discursive frame can also be observed Labour’s discourse regarding
the public ownership of certain industries, a key policy for the Democratic
Socialists. The Labour Party manifesto problematises neoliberal policymaking, stat-
ing that ‘many basic goods and services have been taken out of democratic control
through privatisation’ (Labour Party, 2017 p. 19). This problematisation is resolved
by Labour promising to ‘give more people a stake – and a say – in our economy’
through the public ownership of firms (Labour Party, 2017, p. 19). Here, the
emphasis is on tipping ‘power away from bosses and into the hands of the people’
(Corbyn, 2019, paragraph 9), as ‘Labour will always seek to redistribute power to
people’ (Labour Party, 2018, p. 6). Much like Labour’s industrial strategy, this key
policy is described using a populist discursive frame (Labour Party, 2017, p. 19):
the distribution of ownership of the country’s economy means that decisions about our
economy are often made by a narrow elite. More democratic ownership structures would
help our economy deliver for the many and lead to a fairer distribution of wealth.
These examples clearly demonstrate how the Democratic Socialist policy para-
digm has used the populist discursive frame to provide a solution to their problem-
atisation of Britain’s debt-driven neoliberal growth model.
The Liberal Economic Nationalist and Democratic Socialist policy paradigms
went head-to-head in the 2019 General Election, with Brexit a key policy battle-
ground. The Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party won a convincing majority after
the Labour Party had their worst election performance since 1935, which suggests
that the export-oriented neoliberal growth model promoted by the Liberal
Economic Nationalists offered a much more compelling narrative to the voting
public than the state intervention advocated by the Democratic Socialists.
Therefore, although Britain is thought to currently exist in an interregnum of
economic policymaking (e.g. Stahl, 2019), the results of our analysis suggest that
the decline of neoliberalism in Britain is overstated. Rather, the success of the
Liberal Economic Nationalists provides an understanding of the export-oriented
neoliberal economic policies that will be implemented to reorient the British econ-
omy away from the European political and economic project.
Conclusion
To conclude, we have explained how two competing sets of economic ideas – the
Liberal Economic Nationalists and the Democratic Socialists – have used the popu-
list elite/people discursive frame to challenge, and provide solutions to, Britain’s
debt-driven neoliberal growth model. The Liberal Economic Nationalists principally
critique the EU for limiting Britain’s autonomy to negotiate trade deals with non-
EU nations. Subsequently, Brexit provides an opportunity for British neoliberalism
to be reoriented, via a process of punctuated evolution, around an export-driven
growth model based on an increase of non-EU trade. Alternatively, the Democratic
Socialists consider the EU a set of neoliberal institutions that obstruct the possibil-
ity of socialism emerging in Britain. As such, they propose a post-Brexit full para-
digm shift away from neoliberalism towards socialism, to provide greater policy
autonomy to the British state to nationalise industries and place limits on market
activity. Both paradigms present their policies as directly benefiting ‘the British
people’ at the expense of other actors, particularly British, EU or financial elites. As
such, we have shown how this populist framing acts as a ‘signifier’ of how chal-
lenges to dominant economic policies are discursively constructed and resolved by
political actors promoting alternative economic ideas.
As the populist political actors of the Liberal Economic Nationalist and
Democratic Socialist paradigms advocate incongruent policies on globalisation and
neoliberalism, this suggests that populism cannot be conceptualised as a political
response to voter demands to limit these two major structural changes of the global
economy. Alternatively, we have described how these opposing political actors have
used the populist discursive frame to construct a challenge to Britain’s debt-driven
neoliberal growth model and generate voter support for their own economic poli-
cies. Therefore, we suggest that it is the shared deployment of the elite/people dis-
cursive frame that provides a more complete account of what constitutes as
populism in the case of Brexit. Based on the results of our descriptive analysis, we
argue that focusing on how different political actors deploy the populist discursive
frame to generate support for their own policies offers a compelling means for the
field of IPE to understand what constitutes as the phenomenon of global populism,
as well as how it emerged in specific cases.
The rise of domestic populist political actors can pose a threat to the stability
regional and international political and economic projects; a key area of study for
the field of Liberal International Order. There have been numerous examples of
populist political actors who have run on platforms challenging the European
Union, such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France and
Norbert Hofer in Austria. Similarly, Donald Trump has been considered a populist
political actor for appealing to voters disgruntled at the negative consequences of
the US’ hegemonic role in the Liberal International Order (Stokes, 2018). Based on
the results of our descriptive analysis of the case of Brexit, we suggest that the
constitutive elements of populism in the European and US cases may not be

reduced to a political response to voter demands to leave the European Union or
challenge the LIO. Alternatively, populism in these cases could potentially be
related to the use of the elite/people discursive frame by political actors as a means
to construct a crisis of these international projects to generate support for their
own policy agenda. Developing a detailed analysis of the use of the populist discur-
sive frame in these cases as a future research project could potentially provide
important insights into what constitutes as global populism and its role in challeng-
ing the political structures of the international economy.
Acknowledgements
We thank the editors of RIPE for their advice and the anonymous reviewers for their comments;
both of which have significantly developed the article. We also thank Jeremy Green, Tiago
Ramalho, Matthew Donoghue and Tiago Carvalho for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts
of this paper. We are particularly indebted to Jason Sharman for providing a great deal of con-
structive advice on several drafts throughout the review process. All responsibility for any errors
and omissions made in this paper must lie solely with the authors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
James D. G. Wood is a Teaching Associate in Political Economy in the Department of Politics
and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, where he is also a member of the
Fellowship at Trinity Hall. His research on financialisation has been published in Comparative
European Politics, New Political Economy and The British Journal of Politics and International
Relations. James is also a co-convenor of the Political Studies Association’s British and
Comparative Political Economy specialist group.
Valentina Ausserladscheider is a PhD candidate at the Sociology Department of the University of

Cambridge and her thesis investigates the rise of economic nationalist ideas in political elites’ dis-
course. Valentina undertook her undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of
Innsbruck, Austria (2010–13) before completing her MSc in Economic Sociology at the London
School of Economics and Political Science (2013–14) and MPhil in Sociology from the University
of Cambridge (2014–15).
ORCID
James D. G. Wood http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1462-6437
Valentina Ausserladscheider http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1153-0491
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Populism, Brexit, and the manufactured crisis of

James D. G. Wood & Valentina Ausserladscheider

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