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SUMMARY:Changing ideas of statecraft in an ever loosening Union? - Profess
 or Michael Kenny (Queen Mary University London)
DTSTART:20140623T110000Z
DTEND:20140623T130000Z
UID:TALK52933@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ursa Mali
DESCRIPTION:Both the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence and t
 he intensification of debates about the UK’s membership of the European 
 Union (as well the growing likelihood of a referendum on this question) ha
 ve helped catalyse a gathering focus in public discourse and politics upon
  issues of territory\, nationhood and governance. Whereas questions of nat
 ional sentiment and identity have typically emerged over the last two cent
 uries in the context of the UK’s peripheral territories\, they are now b
 ubbling to the surface in its national heartland – England. Growing regi
 onal economic inequalities undergird a rising hostility to a model of gove
 rnance and economic system which reflect the concentrations of wealth and 
 power in London and the South East. Meanwhile a cocktail of socio-economic
  changes and heightened cultural anxiety have underpinned a significant ri
 se in the salience of English identity in the last twenty years. The rise 
 of UKIP\, and its employment of an Anglocentric discourse of decline\, hav
 e highlighted the potential for political parties and wider social forces 
 to harvest a palpable mood of English disenchantment.\n\nRelatively little
  attention\, however\, has been directed to the impact of these shifts\, a
 nd of the system of devolution introduced by the first Blair government in
  1999\, upon the self-understandings and governing outlook of members of t
 he UK’s policy community. And it is their implications for UK-level stat
 ecraft that is the primary focus of this paper.\n\nWhat now is the value o
 f some of the most familiar traditions and ideas that framed the developme
 nt and operations of the British state – in the context of a highly asym
 metrical\, multi-tiered polity\, founded upon a tacit assumption about the
  enduring consent of the English to be governed by British institutions. D
 oes the Westminster model of parliamentary government\, and ideas about th
 e functional division of responsibilities institutionalised in Whitehall\,
  help or inhibit state-level policy-makers in this context? Does the emerg
 ence of service Departments with very different territorial remits -- incl
 uding some (eg Health) that are de facto focused almost entirely upon Engl
 and – represent a challenge to the articulation of a new state-wide unde
 rstanding of UK governance? How might a state which has fostered a brand o
 f patriotism – Britishness – that is aligned with the governing instit
 utions and laws of the UK come to see itself as a multi-national and multi
 -levelled entity? And\, in policy terms\, what connections might now be tr
 aced between debates about the constitutional reconfiguration of the UK (w
 hatever the Scottish referendum) and the current focus upon devolving more
  powers to regions\, city-regions and cities within England\n
LOCATION:Room S3\, Alison Richard Building
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