Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, since 1997 and the New Labor's landslide victory, there has been a flurry of legislation in the U.K., with reference to the House of Lords, party funding and freedom of information, in an attempt to change and modernize the institutions of the country. The author points out that devolution, which means deputing or delegating of power or authority, is different from federalism, which is a constitutional settlement in which power is not devolved by the center to the periphery (with the center remaining the locus of supreme power), but rather shared between two entities, as is the structure in America, Australia or Germany. The paper concludes that, with devolution, the structure of government in Scotland and Wales and in the U.K. has become more complex as it has created a situation of interdependence rather than a separation of powers.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Definition
The British Constitutional System
The Distinctiveness of Wales and Scotland
The Proto-history of Devolution
The Nationalist Parties
The 1960s/early 1970s as Turning Point
The State of the Economy Britain-wide and on the Periphery
A Protest Vote?
The Identity Question
Decolonization of the Nation and Mind
A Critical Assessment of the Foregoing (2-1 to 2-4)
Devolution: First Attempt
Business as Usual?
The Kilbrandon Report
Devolution as a Last Resort, or Labour's Big dilemma
A Divisive Issue
The 1979 Referendum and its Aftermath
The 'Ice Age' (1979-1997)
A Radically New Agenda
Concessions
Playing the Economic Card
The Gap Widens
Devolution no matter what
The Campaign for a Scottish Assembly / Parliament, the Scottish Constitutional Convention and the Campaign for a Welsh Assembly
The European Dimension and the New Nationalism
Limits and Contradictions
The Dream Come True
The Referenda
The Scotland and Wales Acts (1998)
Devolution - A Success?
Conclusion
Devolution: Event or Process?
The End of Britain? The End of Britishness?
What about England?
Secretaries of State for Wales

From the Paper:

"Incorporation, of course, brought with it an unprecedented measure of administrative uniformity, so much so that Wales can in fact be said to have been the creation of the Henrician union with England. Through it, Wales achieved territorial integrity for the first time in history; indeed, although the Welsh were recognized in the Middle Ages as forming a distinct nation on account of certain key cultural features, they had never inhabited a single polity. All the indications are that the implementation of the program launched by the Cromwellian regime proved unproblematic from the very start."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Vernon BOGDANOR, Devolution in the United Kingdom, Oxford: OUP, 1999, 329 p., ISBN 0 19 280128
• Christopher G. A. BRYANT, The Nations of Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 316 p., ISBN 0 19 874287 8
• Gaid GERARD & Mathew GRAVES (dir.) Europe unie, le royaume desuni? Enjeux politiques, constitutionnels et identitaires de la devolution, Brest, Triade, 2000, ISBN 2 901737 47 1
• Moya JONES, Le Royaume desuni : Angleterre, Irlande, Ecosse, Pays de Galles - Introduction a la devolution, Paris, Eds. Ellipses, 2003, 125 p., ISBN 2 7298 1380 2
• Revue Francaise de Civilisation Britannique, automne 2006 : 'La Devolution des pouvoirs a l'Ecosse et au pays de Galles'

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