Product Description

The issue of devolution has often been one for polemic rather than reasoned analysis. This book places recent developments in the United Kingdom in their historical context, examining political and constitutional aspects of devolution in Britain from Gladstone's espousal of Home Rule in 1886 right up to the 1998 legislation governing the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. As well as considering what devolution will mean for Scotland and Wales, and how it will work in practice, Vernon Bogdanor discusses parallels with earlier devolution debates, giving special attention to the issue of Irish Home Rule which dominated British politics from 1886 to 1914. He also examines the experience of devolution in Northern Ireland and analyses the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, as well as considering the impact and implications of the new arrangements for the government of London under the Mayoral system implemented in May 2000. Devolution in the United Kingdom cuts across the boundaries of disciplines such as history, political science, and law, and will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the significance of the most important constitutional development of our time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77735 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 331 pages

About the Author
Vernon Bogdanor is Professor of Government at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Brasenose College, Oxford.

Customer Reviews

Devolution in (almost all of) the UK
For anyone interested in the issues of Home Rule, devolution and federalism in the UK, historically and contemporarily, this book is thorough and detailed, examining the internal party battles and the political battles fought at the ballot box. The sections on Irish Home Rule are also particularly illuminating, since many of the same arguments were repeated in the 1970s and prior to the 1997 referenda.

However, I do feel that, in omitting Cornwall from the chapter describing the "making of the UK", the author neglects a significant part of Anglo-Celtic political history. We should bear in mind that the Cornish or "West Welsh" resisted the Anglo-Saxon invasion until around A.D.930 before their border with Wessex was finally fixed at the Tamar. Thereafter, Cornwall periodically rebelled against London and continued to enjoy considerable political autonomy (including the right of the Stannary Parliament to veto Westminster legislation). Furthermore, given the absence of any Act of Union, Cornwall's de jure status as a part of England is hotly contested by some constitutional experts. And even today, Cornwall is again proclaiming its 'otherness' as a self-defining historic, cultural and geographical region (or even nation), who refuses to be submerged into a South-West agglomeration.

Despite this oversight, Devolution in the United Kingdom is an truly excellent book. I only hope subsequent editions will contain a Cornish chapter which might shed light on this unresolved constitutional question.