I've just completed a map that will be included in the next update detailing the following features around the world:
Areas of UK without devolved assemblies
Areas with them
Colonies and protectorates under direct rule
Colonies and protectorates under home rule
Commonwealth Realms (countries with the Queen as their monarch)
Commonwealth Realms with major permanent British military bases
Commonwealth Members without the Queen as their HoS
Non-Commonwealth States under heavy British influence
Hopefully it will clear up some of the confusion relating to British territories and influence abroad.
This sounds really, really excellent.
Well, I for one like this idea, You filthy feminist, I really do. Surprisingly, You have been speaking my language throughout this whole evening.
I am actually quite surprised. Unless you were thinking of deploying threats or the army, a union sounds far too... voluntary for your tastes.
No, that's not devolution at all. Devolution is where specific powers are devolved to an assembly of some sort, while central government retains management of most internal affairs. A federation is where essentially independent states share a central government but manage their own internal policy.
The fundamental difference between devolution and federalism is that federalism involves explicit distinctions between the roles of the national government and state government with power being given from the states to the national government which the states, in theory have the power to take away again. Devolution, on the other hand, involves power being given from the national government to state governments but which the national government has the power to take away again whenever it feels like it.
I agree with the premise that the distinction fundamentally is between whether the powers are given to the local entities from the central government, or to the central government from the states. However, I'm not sure if what the two of you present is a true dichotomy. I think we should separate between the process of federation and devolution on one hand, and the difference between a federation and a devolved state on the other. For the latter you hint at three different criteria:
- The powers of the states and the national government is discrete or not discrete. (Which really ought to have two dimensions: whether certain powers are reserved to just one level, e.g. minting and foreign affairs, and whether the different levels must be authorised to expand their powers into the non-reserved areas)
- Whether the levels and/or their powers is entrenched in a constitution, so that it cannot easily be removed.
- Which level of government has the power to make changes to the position between them.
These criteria surely create a spectrum of different arrangements. One country might choose to have a constitution that places very strict limits on what the federal government can do, whilst at the same time leaving it up to a federal parliament to make changes to the constitution. Another might give local entities only strictly defined powers, but leave changing the constitution to the local entities alone. A third might only reserve powers to the national government, require the consent of both local and central powers to change the constitution and also include a right for the local entities to secede.
The
process of creating local assemblies in Britain would surely be by devolution, but whether the country will become what we might describe as a federation or a devolved unitary state will surely depend on how devolution is done. In the case of Britain, I imagine it would especially depend on whether the Liberals choose to abandon the concept of parliamentary sovereignty and adopt an entrenched (and written) constitution.