Brexit and the Trust Paradox of Sovereigntist Internationalism CGLG seminar with guest speaker Ben Martill

This paper posits that sovereigntist governments (Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, the like) encounter a paradox when they seek to transpose existing forms of institutionally-dense cooperation into looser forms while retaining underlying levels of inter-state engagement. This is because lost control needs to be substituted by enhanced trust and trust-worthiness, both of which these actors struggle to generate. The argument is illustrated by the May government's efforts to shift the UK-EU relationship into less binding formats without incurring economic damage.