Backstabbing Boris, Brexit, and the implications for HST

Since I decided on a curriculum for this class, Boris Johnson has decided to support Brexit.  His decision will make a huge impact on this course, as we shall have to argue over the implications of the decision on whether Great Britain stays or leaves through our theoretical lenses on the international political system, or if you will, the international political economy. Currently the polls are showing that the ‘in’ and ‘out’ campaigns are neck and neck and this has already impacted the Pound Sterling, which is losing ground against the Dollar, the Euro and the Swiss Franc rather smartly.  

Boris Johnson avers that the UK should vote to stay out because there is a ‘better deal’ on the table if this occurs.  Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament has dismissed this idea as farcical, stating that Boris Johnson should read the EU treaties. What is also significant is the fact that Schulz has argued that he would never have imagined in his political career that he would see a Tory Prime Minister leading a campaign in Great Britain to stay in the European Union.  He also maintained that should the UK leave the EU, it would find itself in an economic limbo without any bi-lateral trading treaties for years.

Now 70 years after Bretton Woods, where is the United States in this entire hubbub?  Is the United States still able to influence a political or an economic event that will rock the world and materially change the trading and financing regime that it has established following WW II? What do we mean when we aver that the US is the hegemon in the current international system? 

For the record, although the polls are showing a ‘neck and neck’ race in the UK, I am of the opinion that the ‘stay in’ campaign, led by David Cameron, will win with a comfortable margin.    Boris will then disappear on his bicycle.

I have argued that much has been written about Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST). One point I wish to point out again is that HST avers that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single nation, or hegemon dominates the rules and arrangements of the international system.  If we return to Charles KIndleberger, who argued that a lack of world leadership led to the Great Depression between the wars, then we can assume that the rise of the United States after WW II and its control of the Bretton Woods system created the environment for the enormous strides in growth and prosperity after the war. 

Moreover, while the classical liberal interpretation of HST argues that the hegemon, using institutions, will cover the commons through ‘enlightened self-interest’, Stephen Krasner has made it quite clear that this self-interest will take the form of an international regime, ‘defined as sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations’.  Changes in principles and norms result in changes to the regime itself.  For example, John Ruggie contends that ‘the distinction between orthodox and embedded liberalism involves differences over norms and principles.  Orthodox liberalism endorses increasing the scope of the market.  Embedded liberalism prescribes state action to contain domestic social and economic dislocations generated by markets’.  Thus orthodox and embedded liberalism define different regimes.

So how can we reconcile our ideas on the above?  Brexit, distilled to its essence, is an argument over orthodox liberals and embedded liberals.  The conservative Tories especially want a more limited government, less oversight from Brussels, and the development of the free market.  Europe on the other hand is moving more in a direction of embedded liberalism and ‘regional’ oversight of the economy.  Well where is the US in this argument?  President Obama has hinted at a US predilection for a ‘stay in’ vote, as this should promote a US/EU free trade deal, but he is concerned that any interference may backfire.  

If we were to follow HST, we would argue that the US would control the outcome through the regime that it has created by offering side payments that would be critical to the outcome. and US self interest.  Has the world now gone beyond the idea that the US is dominating the rules and arrangements of the international system?