Schmidt, Susanne K.Susanne K.Schmidt2022-02-172022-02-172020-03-011350-1763https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/511310.26092/elib/910The abundant literature on the UK’s Brexit-decision has focused on explaining the politicization and preference formation leading up to the referendum. But the institutional background has received much less attention. I argue that as a common-law country with a tradition of parliamentary sover-eignty, the UK exhibits institutional features that pose a significant mismatch to the prevailing policy-making mode in the European Union. The latter relies heavily on the constitutionalization of the EU-Treaties with the four freedoms, competition law, and citizenship rights, and accords an extraordi-nary role to the European Court of Justice in policymaking. Constitutionalized European rules regarding freedom of movement and EU citizens’ access to the welfare state drove the politicization of EU-membership in the UK. To understand why ‘taking back control’ found such resonance, it is im-portant to reflect the core features of the UK polity.enAttribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germanyhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/BrexitEU citizenshipparliamentary sovereigntyEuropean Court of Justicefree movementover-constituzionalization320Artikel/Aufsatzurn:nbn:de:gbv:46-elib51135