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Abstract
Since the 1970s, a decentralizing trend has gathered pace in several Western European countries. Governments in Spain, Italy, Belgium and the United Kingdom have moved to bestow significant powers on certain regions, while France and Portugal have made more limited reforms. The fact that countries facing nationalist challenges in the periphery have been more likely to decentralize poses a puzzle, because research shows that greater autonomy does not necessarily decrease secessionist sentiment and may even increase some forms of nationalist agitation. Why then do governments decentralize? This paper argues that the explanation lies in partisan political calculations, which can also explain the timing and character of devolution.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to acknowledge helpful suggestions from Larry Anderson, Joshua Dyck, Jan Erk, Gregg B. Johnson, Harvey Palmer and Joost Van Spanje. All remaining errors are the author's.
Notes
The most recent proposal for legislative powers for the Corsican assembly was narrowly defeated in a referendum on the island. See BBC News Online, ‘Corsicans reject autonomy offer’, 6 July 2003, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3049986.stm (accessed 22 August 2007).
Some SNP leaders did fear precisely that devolution would cause voters to reject independence (Keating and Bleiman, Citation1979; Levy, Citation1990).
In this case, the constitutional requirement of linguistic parity within the cabinet and the cordon sanitaire against Flemish Interest (VB) mean that all central government coalitions will include Francophone parties: the Flemish parties cannot simply “rule Belgium”.
O'Neill (Citation2003: 1076) argued that decentralization was nearly universally popular in her South American cases, perhaps because regional nationalism was not an issue.
Osmond Citation(1997) argued that Labour opposed home rule during the 1940s and 1950s because they thought that it would require a reduction in Welsh and Scottish parliamentary representation.
BBC News Online, ‘Plaid commits to independence,’ 21 September 2003, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/3124418.stm (accessed 21 January 2008).
Historical Liberal, SDP and Liberal Democratic manifestos can be found at http://www.libdemmanifesto.com (accessed 21 January 2008).
Figures come from Bryn Morgan and Joseph Connelly, ‘UK Election Statistics: 1945–2000,’ 29 March 2001, House of Commons Library.
BBC News Online, ‘Basque independence plan rejected’, 2 February 2005, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4228297.stm (accessed 23 August 2007).
BBC News Online, ‘Spain to block Basque plan’, 31 October 2003, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3232397.stm (accessed 23 August 2007).
BBC News Online, ‘Spain MPs back Catalonia autonomy’, 30 March 2006, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4860244.stm (accessed 23 August 2007).
The Sardinian nationalist movement has been much weaker and countrywide parties of the left and right are roughly equally strong on the island, generating no strong predictions from Hypotheses 1 and 2.
Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Aaland all enjoy quite broad powers currently, but, in all three cases, there are strong political parties demanding further decentralization or even independence.