How has ‘ BREXIT’ affected the regionalisation process initiated by European Union and what could be its likely impacts in the regionalisation process of world politics? (2017, 15 Marks)
European integration runs from the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) through Maastricht (1993) to a Union with its own legal order, on the unstated assumption that integration only moves forward. Brexit broke that assumption. After the 2016 referendum the United Kingdom, a member since 1973, left on 31 January 2020: the first state ever to exit, taking roughly a seventh of the Union’s economy and an eighth of its population. Angela Merkel called the vote a watershed for European unification.
Effects on the EU’s own integration
- Integration shown to be reversible. Ernst B. Haas’s neofunctionalism treated spill-over as a ratchet; Brexit is the clearest case of what Philippe C. Schmitter (1970) called spill-back. Article 50 TEU became a tested procedure.
- Politicisation confirmed. Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks (2009) argue in their postfunctionalist theory that a “constraining dissensus” of identity politics and referendums now limits what elites can do. Brexit bears this out.
- Loss of capability. The EU lost a nuclear-armed permanent Security Council member, a liberal voice on trade, and the City of London.
- Consolidation of the twenty-seven. They held together through the Article 50 talks, secured the Irish border (Windsor Framework, 2023) and, without the most reluctant member, moved to common borrowing (NextGenerationEU, 2020), defence financing and an enlargement process moving again in 2026.
- Differentiated integration. Brexit normalised a Europe of circles: the European Political Community (2022) seats Britain in an outer ring, and enhanced cooperation carried the €90 billion Ukraine loan (December 2025) past holdouts.
- No contagion. No other state has started to leave. Eurosceptic parties dropped exit demands to change the Union from inside: in Albert O. Hirschman’s terms (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, 1970), from exit to voice. The 2025 UK–EU reset added a Security and Defence Partnership on the Union’s terms.
Likely impacts on world regionalisation
- Integration costs are now visible. Leaving deep integration proved slow and costly: customs checks, less services trade, a disputed internal border. That strengthens the intergovernmental, sovereignty-preserving model of ASEAN and the African Union over supranationalism.
- Exit becomes a normal option. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger left ECOWAS in January 2025, and Moldova leaves the CIS in April 2027. Their causes are local, but exit no longer looks unthinkable.
- Wider sovereigntist backlash. Brexit, the American exit from the TPP (2017) and NAFTA’s renegotiation signalled a turn to transactional arrangements and geo-economic blocs built around security alignment.
- Counter-trend. Regionalism kept expanding: RCEP (in force 2022), the AfCFTA, Timor-Leste’s entry to ASEAN (2025) and the EU’s agreements with Mercosur and India show states still treat regions as shelter in a fragmenting world economy.
Conclusion
Brexit did not halt European integration. It ended the idea that integration was irreversible, and showed that the costs of exit bind a union better than any treaty clause. For world politics its lasting effect is to make regionalism more flexible, intergovernmental and sovereignty-conscious, not to undo it.