Author Archive

Erik Jones

Erik Jones is Professor of European Studies and International Political Economy and Director of European and Eurasian Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College in Oxford, United Kingdom. Professor Jones is author of "The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union" (2002), "Economic Adjustment and Political Transformation in Small States" (2008), and, together with Dana Allin, "Weary Policeman: American Power in an Age of Austerity" (2012). His most recent volume is a collection of short essays called "The Year the European Crisis Ended" (2014). He is editor or co-editor of more than twenty books or special issues of journals on topics related to European politics and political economy including reference works like "The Oxford Handbook of the European Union" (2012) and "The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics" (2015), and teaching works like "Developments in European Politics 2" (2011) and "Europe Today, Fifth Edition" (2014). Professor Jones is a contributing editor for "Survival" and co-editor of "Government and Opposition".

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The British vote to leave the European Union (EU) is the first step toward formal disintegration that the West has experienced. The closest parallel is France’s decision to step outside the integrated military command structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1966. But France remained a member of NATO; that decision was more like Britain’s opt-out from the single currency or Schengen, even if the shift of NATO’s headquarters from Paris to Brussels made it seem more dramatic. By contrast, the British have now decided that they do not want to take part in the EU and that they want to renegotiate their relationships with the rest of the world on a case-by-case basis. The West has not …

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The British referendum is based on (at least) two bad ideas. The first is that the popular legitimacy of a referendum can restore the sovereignty of the British parliament. The Leave campaign believes they can take power from Brussels and give it back to Westminster. That is a fantasy. The British parliament will be more constrained and less effective if the UK leaves. The second bad idea is that referendums are more democratic than acts of parliament (which is the kind of decision that brought Great Britain this far in its relationship with Europe). By giving the people the chance to speak their mind on a yes-or-no (in-or-out, remain-or-leave) question, we can discover what they really want. That is not …