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Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 15:42 authored by Justin Rosenberg, Chris Boyle
This article uses the theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD) to produce a novel explanation of ‘Brexit and Trump’ – the two shock political events of 2016. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, we identify the global conjuncture of historical unevenness in which the votes occurred: how the neoliberal transformation of the advanced capitalist countries was synchronized with the radically different process of primitive accumulation in China. Second, we apply the theory of U&CD to this peculiar ‘simultaneity of the non-simultaneous’: the ‘big country’ effects of China's industrialization, we find, were thrice multiplied by its combination with the advanced sectors of the world economy, which accelerated China's take-off, brought forward its export phase, and widened its export profile at a moment of maximum openness in international trade. Finally, this produced the pattern of development that led to the events of 2016: the resultant trade shocks intensified the internal inequalities of British and American societies in ways that match the geography of the Leave and Trump votes. The analysis has a wider intellectual implication too, for the phenomena of historical unevenness and combination are intrinsic to the history of the global political economy; and the theory of U&CD therefore has a unique contribution to make to the field of International Political Economy.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Journal of Historical Sociology

ISSN

0952-1909

Publisher

Wiley

Issue

1

Volume

32

Page range

32-58

Department affiliated with

  • International Development Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Centre for Global Political Economy Publications

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Rosenberg, Justin and Boyle, Chris (2019) Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development. Journal of Historical Sociology, 32 (1). pp. 32-58. ISSN 0952-1909, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12217. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-11-02

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2021-03-10

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-11-01

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