Les choix politiques et idéologiques des gouvernements conservateurs britanniques de Thatcher et Major ont longtemps rendu le Parti conservateur écossais impopulaire auprès des électeurs écossais. Néanmoins, le Parti conservateur écossais a remarquablement amélioré ses résultats électoraux lors des élections écossaises de 2016 et britanniques de 2017. Ce mémoire, divisé en deux chapitres avec leur propre question de recherche, évalue si les meilleurs résultats du Parti conservateur écossais sont expliqués par différents facteurs liés aux principaux clivages idéologiques identifiés dans la littérature, soit les clivages économique, culturel et centre-périphérie. Le premier chapitre évalue quels clivages idéologiques a eu le plus d’effet sur le vote conservateur en Écosse et au Royaume-Uni, aux élections de 2017 avec les données de panel du British Election Study de 2014 à 2017. Les analyses montrent que plus un électeur est à droite économiquement, plus la probabilité qu’il vote pour le Parti conservateur au Royaume-Uni et en Écosse est forte. Ils démontrent également que la probabilité de voter conservateur est la même au Royaume-Uni comme en Écosse en fonction du positionnement des électeurs sur les trois clivages idéologiques. Le deuxième chapitre évalue si les récents résultats électoraux du Parti conservateur écossais ne sont pas dus à son éloignement idéologique du Parti conservateur britannique de 2012 à 2019. Avec les données du Scottish Attitude Survey de 2012 à 2015, du British Attitude Survey de 2012 à 2017, du panel du British Election Study de 2014 à 2019 et de textes parlementaires de politiciens conservateurs britanniques et écossais de 2012 à 2019, les analyses montrent que les partis conservateurs écossais et britannique ne se sont pas éloignés idéologiquement. Les analyses montrent en général que la remontée du Parti conservateur écossais n’est pas due à son éloignement idéologique du Parti conservateur britannique. / The political and ideological decisions of the British Conservative Party under Thatcher and Major leadership have long made the Scottish Conservative Party unpopular with Scottish voters. Nevertheless, the Scottish Conservative Party has remarkably improved its election results at the 2016 Scottish election and the 2017 British election. This memory thesis, divided into two distinct chapters, assesses whether the Scottish Conservative Party last electoral results can be explained by different factors related to the economic, cultural, and centre-periphery ideological cleavages. The first chapter assesses which of the three ideological cleavages had the most important effect on the conservative vote in Scotland and the UK, at the 2017 election using panel data from the 2014-2017 British Election Study. The results show that the more a voter is on the right economically, higher is the probability that he voted for the Conservative Party in the UK and Scotland. The results also show that the likelihood of voting Conservative is almost the same in the UK as in Scotland, depending on the voters’ position on the three ideological scales. The second chapter assesses whether the Scottish Conservative Party’s recent election results are not due to its ideological detachment from the British Conservative Party from 2012 to 2019. With data from the 2012-2015 Scottish Attitude Survey, from the 2012-2017 British Attitude Survey, from the 2014-2019 panel data from British Election Study and from parliamentary debate texts of British and Scottish conservative politicians from 2012 to 2019, the results show that the Scottish and British conservative parties have not moved ideologically apart. Overall, the results tend to show that the rise of the Scottish Conservative Party is not due to its ideological detachment from the British Conservative Party.

This thesis explores precarization of work and subject formation in seven post-referendum Brexit novels through theories of cognitive capitalism and biopolitical production. The analysis is anchored in Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s reconceptualization of Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics. Hardt and Negri combine the concept of biopolitics with contemporary theories of cognitive capitalism and immaterial labour, to illuminate how subjects are subsumed into a system of biopower in which capitalistic production has become biopolitical production. I argue that the Brexit novels examined in this thesis demonstrate how the intrinsic bond between production and life shapes the characters’ relationship to the referendum. As the characters are caught between individual goals and communal values, in a system that demands that they take sole responsibility for their own success while also being responsible democratic citizens, the referendum produces conflicted subjects that experience deep internal and external conflicts in relation to Brexit.

Syftet med följande undersökning var att analysera korrelationerna mellan valkampanjerna Britian Stronger In Europe och Vote Leave, Take Back Control i förhållande till retorikens tre element ethos (trovärdighet), logos (förnuft) och pathos (känslor). Utifrån en kvalitativ innehållsanalys har valkampanjernas dokument, rapporter, affischer, tal och videoklipp analyserats för att presentera korrelationerna faktorerna emellan. Undersökningen kommer fram till att valkampanjen Britian Stronger In Europe och dess kampanjmaterial gick att korrelera till samtliga retoriska element, medan Vote Leave-kampanjen enbart gick att korrelera till ethos- och pathos-elementen. Anledningen till detta berodde på att Vote Leave-kampanjen inte utgick från något tillförlitligt material för att styrka sitt ställningstagande i relation till Storbritanniens medlemskap i EU, vilket var ett krav för att uppfylla logos-elementets kännetecken. Detta till trots, lyckades Vote Leave-kampanjen gå segrande ur den brittiska folkomröstningen med 52 % av rösterna gentemot Stronger In-kampanjens 48 %.

2016年的英國脫歐公投，最終以51.89%比48.11%的差距，決定了英國脫歐的命運。各界紛紛揣測各種可能造成民眾投下脫歐一票的原因，包含個人經濟狀況、政黨認同、受民粹操控、反菁英、對歐洲認同等。本文針對既有研究中尚存在之空缺，聚焦「議題投票取向」對選民投票抉擇的影響，探究脫歐陣營對資訊的扭曲是否對選民的投票抉擇有顯著影響。論文就脫歐派針對國民健保、移民、脫歐後的英國對外經貿、失業率、勞工權益保障與是否能無條件持續享有歐盟單一市場好處這六項議題，透過「二分勝算對數模型」進行分析，從個體層次行為來瞭解資訊扭曲對選民在脫歐公投中投票行為的影響。 研究結果顯示，在移民潮來襲、民眾高喊反全球化與選民不安全感高漲的大環境背景下，脫歐陣營對選民所關心之議題的煽動與對資訊的操控使選民在做出投票抉擇時受到明顯誤導。此外，模型結果亦顯示，選民的個人社經背景與心理態度認知同樣對選民投票行為產生影響。總結而言，本研究透過微觀層次的分析，針對促使選民投下脫歐一票的因素做出深入探討，並以「資訊扭曲」作為重要變數，補充議題投票相關研究之不足。 / In the Brexit referendum held in June 2016, 51.89 per cent of the voter voted Leave and 48.11 per cent voted Remain. The result sealed the fate of the UK as an outsider of the European Union. While the reasons behind voter’s choice to leave the EU remain disputed, individual voter’s socio-economic status, party identification, populism, anti-elite mood, and identity toward European were among the most frequently listed factors. In order to fill the gap that existing researchs has left, this thesis focuses on the significance of “issue voting” in voting behavior. It discusses if the distortion of information by the Leave campaign had a significant impact on people’s voting choice. It uses the “logistic regression model” to analyse six issues brought about by the Leave campaign. They include the NHS, immigration, trading arrangements with other nations, unemployment, working conditions for British workers, and unconditional maintaining of all the benefits from the EU. By focusing on the individual level, I try to investigate how the distortion of information has impacted upon people’s voting behavior in the Brexit referendum. The study shows that against the background of an increased flow of immigrants and heightened anti-globalization mood, voters had a strong sense of insecurity. Under such circumstances, the Leave campaign exploited the opportunity to incite voters on issues they cared most about, manipulated information during the demagogic campaign, and misled people on their voting decision. In addition, the model also demonstrates that voters’ socioeconomic status and mental cognizance have the same effect on people’s voting behavior. In the nutshell, this thesis uses micro-level analysis to investigate voter behavior in the Brexit referendum. It brings in “information distortion” as a key variable in explaining voter behavior, a variable largely neglected in the existing literature on issue voting.

From the United Kingdom's Brexit on June 23, 2016, to the formal Brexit on January 30, 2020, there has been a large amount of academic literature discussing the possible effects of Brexit. Among them, the literature on the impact of Brexit on tax policy reforms and capital markets in EU countries is too numerous to enumerate. However, the current research literature lacks a discussion of Central and Eastern European countries, and there is even less research on the link between capital markets and tax policy reforms. This article assumes that the impact of Brexit on the capital markets of CEE countries will cause the government to turn to tax increases to increase fiscal revenue. Three hypotheses are proposed under this assumption. In addition, the empirical research in this article uses the combination of the Poisson model and the Heckman selection model to conduct regression research on the overall taxation of CEE countries, changes in direct and indirect taxation tax policies and bond interest rates, government changes, and political parties left or right. It is concluded that Brexit has no significant impact on the capital markets of CEE countries, and has not caused enough shocks that the government will turn to the government to increase revenue by issuing more tax increases. And Brexit...

This dissertation mainly studies correlation and then portfolio analysis of financial contagion and capital flight, focusing on currency co-movements around the political uncertainty due to the Brexit referendum on 26 June 2016. The correlation, mean, and covariance computations in the analysis are both time-unconditional and time-conditional, and the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) methods are applied. The correlation analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 1) extends the previous literature on contagion testing based on a single global factor model, bivariate correlation analysis, and heteroskedasticity bias correction. Chapter 1 proposes an alternatively extended framework, assuming that intensification of financial correlations in a state of distress could coincide with rising global-factor-loading variability, provides simple tests to verify the assumptions of the literature and of the extended framework, and considers capital flight other than merely financial contagion. The outcomes show that, compared to the literature, the extended framework can be deemed more verified to the Brexit case. Empirically, with the UK being the shock-originating economy and the sterling value plummeting on the US dollar, there exist contagions to some other major currencies as well as a flight to quality, particularly to the yen, probably suggesting diversification benefits. When the correlation coefficients are time-conditional, or depend more on more recent data, the evidence shows fewer contagions and flights since the political uncertainty in question disappeared gradually over time. After relevant interest rates were partialled out, some previous statistical contagion and flight occurrences became less significant or even insignificant, possibly due to the significant impacts of the interest rates on the corresponding currency correlations. The portfolio analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 2) examines financial contagion and capital flight implied by portfolio reallocations through mean-variance portfolio analysis, and builds on the correlation analysis in Chapter 1. In the correlation analysis, correlations are bivariate, whereas in the portfolio analysis they are multivariate and the risk-return tradeoff is also vitally involved. Portfolio risk minimization and reward-to-risk maximization are the two analytical cases of portfolio optimality taken into consideration. Robust portfolio optimizations, using shrinkage estimations and newly proposed risk-based weight constraints, are also applied. The evidence demonstrates that the portfolio analysis outcomes regarding currency contagions and flights, implying diversification benefits, vary and are noticeably dissimilar from the correlation analysis outcomes of Chapter 1. Subsequently, it could be inferred that the diversification benefits deduced from the portfolio and correlation analyses differ owing to the dominance, during market uncertainty, of the behaviors of the means and (co)variances of all the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns, over the behaviors of just bivariate correlations between the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns. Moreover, corrections of the heteroskedasticity bias inherent in the shock-originating returns, overall, do not have an effect on currency portfolio rebalancing. Additionally, hedging demands could be implied from detected structural portfolio reallocations, probably as a result of variance-covariance shocks rising from Brexit. / This dissertation mainly studies correlation and then portfolio analysis of financial contagion and capital flight, focusing on currency co-movements around the political uncertainty due to the Brexit referendum on 26 June 2016. The correlation, mean, and covariance computations in the analysis are both time-unconditional and time-conditional, and the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) methods are applied. The correlation analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 1) extends the previous literature on contagion testing based on a single global factor model, bivariate correlation analysis, and heteroskedasticity bias correction. Chapter 1 proposes an alternatively extended framework, assuming that intensification of financial correlations in a state of distress could coincide with rising global-factor-loading variability, provides simple tests to verify the assumptions of the literature and of the extended framework, and considers capital flight other than merely financial contagion. The outcomes show that, compared to the literature, the extended framework can be deemed more verified to the Brexit case. Empirically, with the UK being the shock-originating economy and the sterling value plummeting on the US dollar, there exist contagions to some other major currencies as well as a flight to quality, particularly to the yen, probably suggesting diversification benefits. When the correlation coefficients are time-conditional, or depend more on more recent data, the evidence shows fewer contagions and flights since the political uncertainty in question disappeared gradually over time. After relevant interest rates were partialled out, some previous statistical contagion and flight occurrences became less significant or even insignificant, possibly due to the significant impacts of the interest rates on the corresponding currency correlations. The portfolio analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 2) examines financial contagion and capital flight implied by portfolio reallocations through mean-variance portfolio analysis, and builds on the correlation analysis in Chapter 1. In the correlation analysis, correlations are bivariate, whereas in the portfolio analysis they are multivariate and the risk-return tradeoff is also vitally involved. Portfolio risk minimization and reward-to-risk maximization are the two analytical cases of portfolio optimality taken into consideration. Robust portfolio optimizations, using shrinkage estimations and newly proposed risk-based weight constraints, are also applied. The evidence demonstrates that the portfolio analysis outcomes regarding currency contagions and flights, implying diversification benefits, vary and are noticeably dissimilar from the correlation analysis outcomes of Chapter 1. Subsequently, it could be inferred that the diversification benefits deduced from the portfolio and correlation analyses differ owing to the dominance, during market uncertainty, of the behaviors of the means and (co)variances of all the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns, over the behaviors of just bivariate correlations between the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns. Moreover, corrections of the heteroskedasticity bias inherent in the shock-originating returns, overall, do not have an effect on currency portfolio rebalancing. Additionally, hedging demands could be implied from detected structural portfolio reallocations, probably as a result of variance-covariance shocks rising from Brexit.

Human trafficking has become an international issue of significant importance; it is the largest and most profitable organised crime after drugs and arms trafficking. Particular concern has recently been raised due to the Brexit potential ramifications on Human trafficking. There is a risk that the EU directive 2011/36 will be repealed as a result of Brexit. Accordingly, it has been questioned whether the UK national efforts and legislation concerning human trafficking are comprehensive and sufficient enough without the strengthening support of the EU and especially the EU directive 2011/36. Thus, this thesis aimed to determine the impact Brexit will have on human trafficking in the UK by investigating if there will be "gaps" in the UK national legislation on human trafficking.  A comparative content analysis was conducted to analyse the UK national legislation on human trafficking, The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA 2015). The Modern Slavery Act was compared with the EU directive 2011/36 to determine how the legislation differed. The method and analysis were conducted on both a latent and manifest level which means it both described the definitions and analysed how the definitions could be interpreted, hence how it affects reality. Based on what has commonly been argued the main reasons behind human trafficking in Europe, the content analysis focused on the definitions of human trafficking, prostitution and protection of migrant victims. Prostitution and migrations are frequently claimed to be the main reasons behind human trafficking in Europe.  Due to the risk of the EU directive 2011/36 being repealed, the result of the thesis exhibits the need for the UK to update their national legislation. The MSA 2015 needs to become coherent with international agreements and strengthen the protection of victims of human trafficking. Due to the gendered nature of human trafficking, this research addressed human trafficking from a feminist perspective by applying the "dominance theory" and the "sameness theory". The feminist theories helped analyse and investigate the issue of human trafficking and the potential ramifications of Brexit. Applying the ideas illustrated the patriarchal structures surrounding human trafficking and within the MSA 2015.

Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic are two recent crises whose combined effects exacerbated the exclusion of irregular migrants in Europe. In this thesis, I will explore the structure-agency linkages that shaped the everyday survival strategies of irregular Filipino migrants (IFMs) in navigating a post-Brexit, mid-pandemic UK. Using Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson’s frameworks of political-civil society, differential inclusion, and internal borders, I examine how IFMs exercised their agency against the “formal” rules of the state as well as the “informal” rules set by fellow social actors. The themes that emerged from the analysis underscored the long-debated sociological tensions between structure and agency. Among these, the most recurring one is that IFMs’ agency were expanded or delimited by their positionality vis-à-vis various social actors such as employers, landlords, co-tenants, “benevolent” individuals, and immigration middlemen. This necessitates further studies that could link these micro-level structurations to the broader epistemic shifts within Europe’s migration governance framework.

This thesis conducts a case study on how the idea of a Scottish nation and Scottish independence have been constructed and changed within the political discourse produced by the Scottish National Party during the period around the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 and around the Brexit referendum in 2016. This will be done by conducting a textual analysis with a set of operational questions on written material produced by the Scottish National Party during the period of time previoulsy mentioned, based on the theoretical framework of social constructivism and nationalism with a focus on "imagined communities". The thesis concludes that the idea of Scotland as a nation and Scottish independence is seen as a substantially fairer and more solidary nation than its neighbour to the south, as well that some aspects of the perception of Scottish independence and Scotland's future have changed over the process from the independence referendum to the Brexit referendum.

With an eye on the current social and political situation in Europe, and with regards to the so-termed refugee crisis, this study aims to map the discourse on assumed good and evil shared among Western cultures, as represented by Sweden, Germany and the United States.  The thesis takes its point of departure from essayistic reflections of the philosophical tradition and theological and religious analytical positions respectively. These are then followed by two investigative main chapters, designed along the lines of Norman Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA). The first of these chapters studies the narratives of good and evil employed in the mainstream cinema of the past ten years in the mentioned countries. The second analysis is made up of three case studies, in turn looking at similar narratives in the campaigns of the two main competitors in the 2016 presidential race, a German protest movement against free trade agreements, and the everyday political communication of Swedish Facebook users. In a final chapter, findings from all four preceding chapters are brought together in an attempt to sketch an image of the congruences and discrepancies of narratives on good and evil in the overall discursive field. The thesis finds that the discursive field shared by the three investigated societies is largely homogenous, with certain imagery permeating all analysed orders of discourse. Many of the reoccurring images are however likely rooted in the human psyche and therefore less dependent on discourse practice. Furthermore, certain principles are agreed upon in theory while not reproduced in social practice. Themes assigned to either good or evil often seem to take on secondary functions next to assumed fixed identities of in- and out-groups.  Being a qualitative study, this thesis aims at giving an overview and delivering a base for further investigations rather than providing definitive answers.