5/10/2023 0 Comments Devolution max![]() ![]() In this context, the Scottish referendum debates provided a welcome reminder of the powers of constitutional rethinking. If that informal mode is deemed by the two governments to be either unnecessary or impossible in present circumstances, an alternative must be found. ![]() ![]() This is all the more likely because it rests on an informal – if ‘determined’ – mode of resolving ongoing disputes of interpretation and of principle by the Irish and British governments. That sense of legitimate political balance was hard-won, and it is inevitably cast into question with wider global and national changes. If it fails to function as an adequate mode of governance, the fault lies not simply in the political leaders but in the wider configuration which sets incentives, defines opportunities, and gives (or fails to give) a sense of the legitimacy of the political process. In Northern Ireland devolution is a mode of conflict regulation how it functions depends on how it fits within the wider institutional and constitutional configuration defined by Agreement. In the Northern Irish case, devolution takes a radically different form and function than devolution elsewhere in the United Kingdom. It has become common political wisdom first in Britain, and latterly in the Irish state, to say that devolution in Northern Ireland means that politicians there must sort out their own conflicts without input from the two states. ![]()
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