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Publius: The Journal of Federalism Advance Access originally published online on February 10, 2009
Publius: The Journal of Federalism 2009 39(2):289-313; doi:10.1093/publius/pjn038
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

This article appears in the following Publius: The Journal of Federalism issue: Federalism and Constitutional Change [View the issue table of contents]

Devolution in the United Kingdom: Problems of a Piecemeal Approach to Constitutional Change

Charlie Jeffery*
*University of Edinburgh; E-mail: charlie.jeffery{at}ed.ac.uk

The UK's devolution reforms have been piecemeal, directed at specific territorial issues in one or other part of the UK, and poorly coordinated with one another. While this piecemeal approach reflects a centuries-old approach to territorial statecraft in the UK, the addition since 1999 of democratic process and, more recently, partisan conflict between UK and devolved government, has established strong centrifugal tendencies. The article explores how territorial policy variation, inter-regional spillovers, the fusion of UK central government institutions with those for governing England, contradictions in public opinion, and under-institutionalized intergovernmental relations underline that centrifugal dynamic. Most significantly there has been no sustained attempt to review and renew the purposes of union since devolution.


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