Devolution in the United Kingdom: Statehood and Citizenship in Transition

Abstract

The United Kingdom evolved as a of unions, in which government arrangements were territorially varied in line with the particular circumstances of the sequence of acts of union between the core state territory of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The recent devolution reforms have built on that territorial nonuniformity, embedding a number of idiosyncrasies into the devolved UK state: a lopsidedness that leaves the biggest and wealthiest part of the United Kingdom?England?governed centrally wihle the non English nations have devolved government, devolved government arrangements for those nations that are markedly asymmetrical, and an underdeveloped system of intergovern mental relations connecting United Kingdom?level and devolved political arenas. Together these issues pose important questions of whether the devolution reforms amount to a coherent overall package, whether the reforms are stable, and whether they erode a common UK citizenship. The United Kingdom has a reputation as one of the more centralized states in contemporary Europe. In that light the devolution reforms introduced by the United Kingdom's Labour governments since 1997?the Scottish parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly?appear to be a radical break. Some of that appearance is misleading. Devolution, in fact, was a deceptively simple thing to do. To understand why, the dominant conceptualization of the United Kingdom as a unitary state must be challenged. The United Kingdom is in many respects a highly centralized political system, with power formally concentrated in a famously?or notoriously?strong and putatively sovereign parliament. But this centralized power was never effectively used to create a territorially uniform state. The devolution reforms have built on that residual territorial nonuniformity. In effect they have done little more than to democratize the distinctive administrative arrangements that had emerged over centuries for delivering UK policies outside the core state