| Description |
1 online resource (x, 246 pages) : color illustrations |
| Contents |
Cover -- State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union -- Copyright -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Figures -- Tables -- Chapter 1: Nation States and Political Unions -- States and Unions -- Differentiated Polities -- Modernization and the Demise of Union -- The Union Principle -- Sovereignty and Post-Sovereignty -- Constitutional Formulas -- The Stability of Unions -- Chapter 2: Union and its Challengers in the United Kingdom -- Interpreting the United Kingdom -- The Old Regime -- Towards Union -- Legacy of Unions -- Modernization and the Nationalist Challenge -- Territorial Management in the Twentieth Century -- Chapter 3: The Millennium Settlement -- The Return of the National Question -- Towards Devolution -- Devolution Design -- Dynamic Effects -- The Open Constitution -- Chapter 4: The Sovereignty Conundrum -- Parliamentary Sovereignty -- Conceding Sovereignty -- Squaring the Circle -- Interpreting the Constitution -- Law, Politics and Constitutionalism -- Chapter 5: Union at the Centre -- Self-Ruleand Shared Rule -- Linking the Levels -- Reforming the Centre -- The Emergence of England -- Balancing the Union -- Chapter 6: Between Two Unions -- Europe as a Union -- Reconciling the Two Unions -- Human and Citizen Rights -- Brexit -- Disintegration -- Recentralization -- Reconfiguration -- Chapter 7: Union and Unionisms in the United Kingdom -- Nationalism and Unionism -- Integration -- The Patriot Tradition -- Contractualism -- The Home Rule Tradition -- Neo-Unionism -- The Crisis of Unionism -- Chapter 8: Economic Union -- The Principle of Economic Union -- The United Kingdom as an Economic Union -- Economic Union in the Twentieth Century -- The Internal Market --The Disconnected Union -- Rebalancing Economic Union? -- Chapter 9: Social Union -- Defining the Social Union -- Taxing and Spending -- Winners and Losers -- The Politics of Barnett -- The Welfare State -- Public Services -- A Sharing Union? -- Chapter 10: The Public and the Union -- Constituting the Nation -- Measuring Identity and Constitutional Preferences -- Scotland -- Wales -- Northern Ireland -- England -- The Sharing Union -- The Foundations of Union -- Chapter 11: The Future of Union -- References -- Index |
| Summary |
"The United Kingdom has often been seen as a unitary nation-state. This book argues that it should be understood as a plurinational union in which the key elements of demos, telos, and ethos are contested. Except in the mid-twentieth century, its territorial boundaries have been contested and the matter of sovereignty has never definitely been settled. Since the end of the twentieth century, devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland has made this more apparent. With the weakening of the British national project, tensions between the centre and the peripheral nations have grown, greatly exacerbated by Brexit. Eurosceptics have long argued that membership of the European Union is inconsistent with the sovereignty of the British people and Parliament. On another reading, however, both the UK and the EU are plurinational unions and highly compatible. The EU, indeed, served as an important external support system for the devolution settlement. Brexit destabilizes it. Unionism historically served as a doctrine and a set of practices seeking to reconcile a unitary state with a plurinational reality. Since devolution, it has struggled to come to terms with the new constitutional reality or embrace the idea of shared sovereignty. The Union is under increasing strain but there is no simple way of resolving these strains, either by secession of the component nations, or a return to the unitary state. The peoples of these islands need to find new constitutional concepts for living together in a world in which traditional ideas of national sovereignty have lost their relevance."-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (Oxford Scholarship Online, viewed August 20, 2021) |
| Subject |
Nation-state.
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Constitutional law -- Great Britain.
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nations.
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Constitutional law
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Nation-state
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Politics and government
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| SUBJECT |
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 21st century
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| Subject |
Great Britain
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| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780192578327 |
|
0192578324 |
|
9780192578334 |
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0192578332 |
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9780191876851 |
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0191876852 |
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