Acceso usuarios
Nathalie Duclos, Marie-Violaine Louvet
This special issue examines twenty-five years of devolution in the United Kingdom by focusing on the evolution of representative institutions and parliamentary practices across the devolved territories. Since its introduction at the end of the 1990s, devolution has transformed the UK's constitutional landscape, giving rise to new legislatures and executives while preserving parliamentary sovereignty at Westminster. The contributions explore how these devolved institutions have developed over time, both individually and in relation to one another, within an asymmetrical and often contested system of territorial governance. Particular attention is paid to the functioning of parliaments as sites of representation, negotiation and conflict, as well as to the mechanisms designed to manage relations between the central and devolved levels of government. Several articles address the impact of Brexit on intergovernmental and interparliamentary relations, highlighting the strain placed on existing conventions and cooperative frameworks. The issue also considers the ways in which devolved parliaments have provided arenas for the articulation of nationalist claims, challenging earlier assumptions that devolution would stabilise the Union. Comparative perspectives on Scotland and Wales, alongside analyses of Northern Ireland's distinctive power-sharing arrangements, underline the diversity of representative models that have emerged, closely bound up with questions of institutional legitimacy, territorial representation and political authority in the contemporary United Kingdom.
