Richard Beardsworth: "Brexit Chaos and the Contemporary Loss of Politics"

On Thursday, January 25 Professor Richard Beardsworth delivered an erudite, timely talk on the UK’s departure from the European Union. A packed room of students, faculty and Board members listened to the provocatively titled: “Out of Control: Brexit Chaos and the Contemporary Loss of Politics.”

The dense speech explored wide-ranging themes spanning the messy intricacies of Brexit negotiations, the fractures of a contemporary globalized society and the diminution of Western dominance.

Professor Beardsworth had travelled from West Wales, UK, where he is head of the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University as well as the University Director of Ethics. However, he is no stranger to Paris or AUP, having taught at our University for almost 20 years, beginning as a professor in Comparative Literature and going on to head up the Department of International and Comparative Politics.

“It’s lovely to see the place thriving,” he noted before the talk. “With an American diaspora here in Paris and with historic and political events as they are, I think The American University of Paris can do a great deal. It’s good to see something growing so well.”

After an introduction from President Celeste Schenck, Beardsworth set about laying out his argument for why he believes that, contrary to the “leave” campaign’s mantra of “taking back control,” the unfolding of the Brexit negotiation process has been demonstrative of a loss of it. “Take back control is totally out of control,” he told the international audience.

Expanding this idea further, he went on to describe the wishes and aims of two general constituent parties that enabled the vote to leave the European Union – people from former industrial working-class communities and “Eurosceptic elites” –  before explaining why, according to his analysis, they were simply unachievable in the reality of negotiations.

He suggested that the Brexit vote has both revealed and exaggerated fissures within the left and right of the British political landscape. The political crisis that both fueled and has been exacerbated by the vote, has seen British politicians unable to and unwilling to take coherent positions and instead engaging in “hedging” and “fudging” of their positions.

Beardsworth went on to describe a more general existential crisis both in the governing class and among citizens, linked, he believes, to a loss of the notion of the “common good,” or what he terms as “the contemporary loss of politics.”

“Brexit is a symptom of that loss,” he noted, speaking before his talk, “just as Trump is a symptom of it in the US.” For Beardsworth, this “loss of politics” can be attributed to the development of two key phenomena. The first is the radical inequality in the developed countries, where the power of the market has left those dependent on the state expelled from the social contract, while income gains are being made (albeit from a lower base) across society in emerging economies: China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia.

He then argued, perhaps more controversially, the effects of this were made worse by the contemporary politics of identity, highlighting the “personalization of politics” and the focus on single issues.

“Politics becomes accordingly, as we saw with the Hillary Clinton campaign, a question of abstract rainbow aggregations – a formulaic commonality that does not win you elections,” Professor Beardsworth told the audience.

His conclusion struck a gingerly hopeful, if urgent, note. He suggested that over the coming decades, humans will face material and ideological challenges, evoking the threat of nuclear proliferation, the effects of climate change, the challenges of climate and economic migration and the prospect of health pandemics. He suggested that, contrary to the rhetoric of Brexit, the pooling or even cession of state sovereignty will be necessary in order to combat these threats.

“These global and planetary threats will either drag us forward into new political inventions of government, democracy and critically the relations between national, regional and global interests  –  or they will drag us back into a politics of fear before planetary threats.”

“We are in a shared community of fate on the planet and nationalism is just not going to work in any form. And it’s very important that we try and address this loss and reinvent governance and politics,” he noted before the event.

The talk was followed by a lively Q&A with questions from students, faculty, the Board and AUP President, Celeste Schenck. One British student even probed Professor Beardsworth for answers on his legal status, revealing at least one advantage of “Brexit chaos.”

“I’m not a civil servant,” said Beardsworth, “but I don’t think there’s a problem at the moment precisely because it’s so appallingly negotiated. Incompetence can be a strength in many ways!”