Britains referendum on EU membership in the summer of 2016 was a landmark voteand the "Leave" result was largely unexpected . But should it have startled observers (and, indeed, many Brits themselves) so much? A year later, while much around Brexit remains muddled, many reasons behind the outcome are becoming clearand beyond politics or economics, one clear driver could be psychology.

Consider how Britons have long distanced themselves from the landmass across the channel, othering it as "the Continent" with ambiguous affection. The much-repeated mantra of the victorious Brexiteers, was "Vote Leave, Take Back Control"; right-wing Brexit champion Nigel Farage declared that Britain could claim its own Independence Day and even half-jokingly suggested that June 23 become a national holiday, like July 4.

Put simply, ask an island nation if it prefers to stand apart, to reaffirm its island mentality, and it will likely seize the chance with gusto. Of course, Britain isnt the only country with borders defined by nature rather than nurture (or at least political deal-making). Theyre scattered across the world, from Malta to Madagascar , Japan to Australia . The Caribbean is home to a cluster of island countries, whether large like Cuba and Jamaica, or smaller standalones including Saba and Dominica; over the course of centuries, the region's islands have fought for independence from forced European oversight (the most recent, St Kitts & Nevis, broke away just over 30 years ago). But what characteristics, if any, define an island nations mentality? What traits might water-limited countries share?

Madeleine Bunting is a British writer who specializes in islands, and her most recent book , Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey , was published in 2016. Islands produce very powerful, contradictory emotional responsesyou can fall in love passionately with them and then be desperate to get away from them, Bunting explains to Cond Nast Traveler . Take Australia, immigrations Shangri-La, where the population has ballooned to 24 million in the last year, largely thanks to an uptick in incomers; yet it also hemorrhages citizensthe diaspora sits at around one million , or about 5 percent of those who hold Australian passports. Bunting believes that the true island mentality is a paradox, comprised of such contradictory impulses. Naturally isolationist and happiest when standing apart, islands are still forced to be outward looking for their very survival, sustenance, and supplies, relying on trade by sea. Self-sufficiency is an alluring, but almost impossible, illusion.

Ambition is another core component of island mentality, at least according to Lucille Turner. The Anglo-French writer explored this idea in its historical context in the wake of the Brexit vote, notably highlighting the fierce opposition the Romans encountered when first trying to steamroller into the British Isles from mainland Europe. Islands are usually relatively small, and it makes you want to punch above your weight, she suggests. Historically, at least, easy access to oceans only facilitated that instinct. If you want to impose yourself on the wider world in some way or other, the sea is a good vehicle for that, Turner continues. Japan and Britain both had quite strong navies. Look, too, how commonplace castles with moats were in both nations past. Holing up there with a moat of water is not too dissimilar from holing up in your country, with the sea around you.

Writer Louisa Leontiades has experienced that assertiveness first hand, hopscotching between different islands throughout her lifethe tiny Swedish isle of Brnn that she now calls home, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, where she lived in the 1990s with her Greek-American father. She believes that such instincts manifest as much in the everyday as the imperial past. Greek Cypriots, for example, would fiercely declare loyalty to Athens when challenged by Turkish rivals; at all other times, though, their island identity came first. Instead of Turkish delight or Greek coffee, they had Cypriot delight and Cypriot coffee, Leontiades tells Traveler . Theyre first Cypriot, then Greeknever the other way round.

Look more closely, though, and the question of an island mentality becomes more complex. Many such nations are themselves comprised of other islands: Malta plus Gozo , for instance, or Australia, which has more than 8,000 islands within its maritime borders. Indonesia is a country made up of so many islands, its government can't even settle on a number. As for Great Britain, beyond the two major landmasses that comprise the British Isles (and are home to Eire, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England) it oversees almost 200 standalone, inhabited islands. What is the island mentality within the island mentality? Do islands within an island react against those impulses or embrace them with extra fervor? Even waterways arent essential to creating this mindsetjust look at Switzerland, the landlocked, steadfastly neutral nation that forms the hub of continental Europes spoke of countries. It has proudly stood apart for centuries, its Alpine peaks as effective a boundary as any ocean.

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How Island Nations Are Bound Together by More Than Water - Cond Nast Traveler