Le controversie della democrazia: il caso Brexit

The purpose of the thesis is to analyse and understand the social and anthropological causes behind the 2016 Brexit referendum vote linking the identity of the English population to its hidden colonial past and domination. These feelings, not visible and tangible anymore have been caught by the propaganda machine during the Brexit campaign making even the less nostalgic able to perceive a sense of loss. So why Brexit happened? Was it just a result based on racism and nationalism or the result of the loss of power and prestige given by the empire? Starting from the general concept of the nation-state, the focus will be on the concepts of Britishness and Englishness as the main points under the problem of extreme nationalism. When the subject of Brexit comes up, there is always a tendency to consider purely modern data resulting only from the actual vote without taking into account the social and cultural background of a deeply fragmented nation. My study, therefore, aims to connect the roots of English history with the present day. In order to provide a complete analysis of the phenomenon, particular attention will then be paid to the way in which social media was used during the election campaign. The precise and accurate targeting of the social profiles of millions of citizens allowed parties to manipulate them raising hidden nationalist ideologies (even spreading fake news).