The United Kingdom: From Hypercentralization to Devolution

Abstract

Abstract The United Kingdom (UK) is a liberal democratic state where democracy is exercised in the context of the doctrine of the sovereignty of parliament. Neither the democratic features of the UK nor even the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty are codified in a written constitution, but are rather the accumulation of unwritten ‘conventions’ as well as written rules—laws passed by parliament and case-laws made by judges— that have developed over long periods of time. The concept of democracy in the UK has similarly developed over time and in a piecemeal manner during a period of about two hundred years. It is based on the liberal concept of the primacy of the individual, conceived as someone in possession of a bundle of’rights’, in particular the right to conduct commerce, that could be exercised provided that they did not interfere with the rights of others. At first, it was restricted to gentlemen of means and property, thus excluding the lower classes and women. This ‘economic’ right was also the basis of other rights: the right to freedom of speech, the right to a free press; the right to vote and stand in elections, the right to representation in parliament.