Open economy politics and Brexit: insights, puzzles, and ways forward

On 23 June 2016, a majority of 52% of British voters decided in a referendum that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. The decision sent shockwaves around Britain, Europe, and the world: the Brexit'-vote presents the first instance that a country has voted to exit a major supranational institution, putting both the European integration project and the future of the United Kingdom in a globalized world into question. At the time of writing, four months after the referendum vote, the contours of Brexit remain unclear. Yet even within this short time frame, Brexit politics have been remarkable on both the domestic and the international level. In this paper, we first present a brief overview of IPE research in the open economy politics (OEP) tradition. We then discuss the insights OEP provides that help us to better understand the referendum vote and Brexit politics, but also emphasize that they present a number of puzzles for OEP-inspired researchers. Based on this analysis, the final section suggests avenues for advancing the OEP research program.