BREXIT AND THE DYNAMICS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Abstract

On June 23, 2016, the British electorate voted in a referendum to decide whether the country was to continue to remain in the European Union or break way from the organization. The result of that referendum was that while Seventeen million, four hundred and ten thousand, seven hundred and forty (17,410,742) representing 51.89% of the country’s population voted to leave the European Union, Sixteen million, one hundred and forty-one thousand, two hundred and forty-one people representing 48.11% of the population voted to remain within the confines of the multilateral political institution. This paper interrogated the nexus between the apparently over optimistic hope offered by the Functionalist theory on the automaticity of the political union from cooperation in designated functional areas in utter disregard to the ever present tendency of the modern day nation-state to re-assert its sovereignty. The study adopts a descriptive approach in its analyses and the source of data is secondary materials. The theoretical framework that is at play is Functionalism. It was found that the functional approach is at once overtly too optimistic and does in fact ignore the animating proclivity of the nation-states as the epicenters of political power and authority. It is suggested that rather than build a utopia about the cooperative instincts of the nation-states, theorists and statesmen should concentrate on the underpinning of benchmarks which are realizable and that are susceptible to the realism of state power and the concomitant authority over their citizens.