Book review: Covid, Brexit and the Anglosphere: Frameworks for Future Trade and Economic Growth <i>Richard Simmons and Nigel Culkin reviewed</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Covid, Brexit and the Anglosphere' by Richard Simmons and Nigel Culkin examines the social, economic and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Brexit process on the Anglosphere -the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.The Anglosphere proponents argue that it is feasible to become economically integrated without losing political sovereignty due to the common heritage of language, law and culture.The book delves into how these events have shaped and influenced the Anglosphere's relationship with globalization, nationalism and international trade.The authors address the following question: 'How do we use international trade deals to realise a Brexit Dividend?' (p.13).In doing so, they discuss the potential for shifts in trade policies, tariffs and regulations in the Anglosphere countries and the implications for global supply chains and economic integration.They also explore the challenges and opportunities for global governance in the face of rising nationalism and changing dynamics in the Anglosphere.The table of contents playfully starts with the Menu (trade theories), offers an Aperitif (400 years of causation) and goes through Sorbet (economic background), Soup (throwing nationalism, popularism, trade and development into the mix), Seasoning (Anglosphere), Specials (innovation, trade growth and entrepreneur, perhaps the most relevant sections for ISBJ audience), Main Course (shocks, trade and growth) and ending with Desserts (resources for innovation).Political economists have long been preoccupied with finding the optimal trade pattern to create value and protect the economy.Trade theory, the authors advance, seeks this optimal combination of resources (people, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, capital, land, natural endowments) that maximises the value for both the nation (the United Kingdom, in our case) and the international community it trades with.Free trade (i.e.no tariffs or common rules) allows the market to optimally allocate resources to the benefit of all within the free trade area and producers to provide goods or services where they have an absolute advantage, as its biggest proponent, Adam Smith, suggested.David Ricardo provides a more nuanced argument, where nations learn to specialise in products or services where they have a comparative advantage.Brexit, the authors claim, was positioned as the 'free trade divine providence' (pp.31-32), although it ultimately restricted the movement of labour with the aim to raise real wages.Mercantilism (as seen through Trump's 'America First') sees trade policy as an extension of state policy, where 'one party's gain is another's loss' and trade is seen as a means to raise national 1212333I SB0010.1177/02662426231212333International
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.060 | 0.034 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".