Politics and Governance Open Access Journal | ISSN: 2183-2463 Volume 5, Issue 2 (2017) MultidisciplinaryMultidisciplinary StudiesStudies inin PoliticsPolitics andand GovernanceGovernance Editors Amelia Hadfield, Andrej J. Zwitter, Christian Haerpfer, Kseniya Kizilova, Naim Kapucu Politics and Governance, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2 Multidisciplinary Studies in Politics and Governance Published by Cogitatio Press Rua Fialho de Almeida 14, 2º Esq., 1070-129 Lisbon Portugal Academic Editors Amelia Hadfield, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK Andrej J. Zwitter, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Christian Haerpfer, University of Vienna, Austria Kseniya Kizilova, Institute for Comparative Survey Research, Austria Naim Kapucu, Naim Kapucu University of Central Florida, USA Editors-in-Chief Amelia Hadfield, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK Andrej J. Zwitter, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Available online at: www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance This issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). Articles may be reproduced provided that credit is given to the original andPolitics and Governance is acknowledged as the original venue of publication. Table of Contents Brexit and Devolution in the United Kingdom Michael Keating 1–3 Trust and Tolerance across the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Perspective on the Impact of the Arab Uprisings Niels Spierings 4–15 The Effect of Direct Democratic Participation on Citizens’ Political Attitudes in Switzerland: The Difference between Availability and Use Anna Kern 16–26 Towards Exit from the EU: The Conservative Party’s Increasing Euroscepticism since the 1980s Peter Dorey 27–40 Mixed Signals: Democratization and the Myanmar Media Tina Burrett 41–58 The State of Jordanian Women’s Organizations—Five Years Beyond the Arab Spring Peter A. Ferguson 59–68 Policy Integration and Multi-Level Governance: Dealing with the Vertical Dimension of Policy Mix Designs Michael Howlett, Joanna Vince and Pablo del Río 69–78 Why the United States Supports International Enforcement for Some Treaties but not for Others Jon Hovi and Tora Skodvin 79–92 Governing Disasters: Embracing Human Rights in a Multi-Level, Multi-Duty Bearer, Disaster Governance Landscape Lottie Lane and Marlies Hesselman 93–104 Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 1–3 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v5i2.920 Commentary Brexit and Devolution in the United Kingdom Michael Keating School of Social Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3FX, UK; E-Mail: [email protected] Submitted: 23 February 2017 | Accepted: 1 March 2017 | Published: 22 March 2017 Abstract Devolution in the United Kingdom is deeply connected to United Kingdom membership of the European Union, which provides an external support system for the internal settlement. Exit from the European Union destabilizes the internal settlement and raises a series of major constitutional issues. Keywords Brexit; devolution; Europe; United Kingdom Issue This commentary is part of a multidisciplinary issue of Politics and Governance, edited by Andrej J. Zwitter (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) and Amelia Hadfield (Canterbury Christ Church University, UK). © 2017 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). The United Kingdom (UK) has, in the last twenty years, sible, since the EU secures the UK as well as the EU been transformed from a unitary state into a complex, single market, regulating competition and dealing with multilevel polity, through a process of asymmetrical de- the external effects of policies. Agriculture, the environ- volution. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now have ment, regional policy and aspects of justice and home their own executive and legislative institutions, while affairs are not reserved to the UK level (and are there- England continues to be governed directly from the cen- for devolved) but are also EU competences. There are tre. This pattern has allowed devolution to be devel- no UK frameworks or ministerial departments in these oped without a fundamental reform of the UK consti- fields (the Whitehall departments are mostly for Eng- tution itself, leaving major questions such as the locus land) so that coordination comes through EU policy- of sovereignty and the entrenchment of the new institu- making, where the home nations must agree a common tions in abeyance. line before negotiating in Europe. One factor making this possible is that devolution More broadly, the EU provides a discursive frame- evolved since 1999, entirely during UK membership of work of ideas of shared and divided authority or ‘post- the European Union (EU) and has been shaped by it. The sovereignty’, which are at the heart of management of EU has provided a framework for the new constitutional the plurinational state that is the UK. The Northern Ire- settlement and has helped keep the UK’s own union to- land settlement requires a suspension of disbelief in tra- gether. Brexit puts that union in question. ditional ideas of sovereignty and allows citizens to ex- The primacy of EU law (and also the European Con- press multiple identities and loyalties. This is given more vention on Human Rights) is embedded in the devolution concrete expression in cross-border cooperation and in acts, so that devolved legislation can be struck down by all–Ireland and UK–Irish institutions such as the British– any court for infringing it. Indeed, most challenges to the Irish Council (including the UK and Irish governments, competences of the devolved legislatures have been un- the three devolved governments and the Channel Is- der European rather than UK law. At a minimum, Brexit lands and Isle of Man). In Scotland, too, it has favoured will require the removal of the relevant clauses from the ideas of multiple levels of government. As in other parts devolution acts. of Europe, it provides an external dimension to devolu- EU membership has also allowed a more expansive tion. The Scottish National Party (SNP) favours Scottish form of devolution than otherwise might have been pos- independence, but within the EU, which provides an ex- Politics and Governance, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 1–3 1 ternal support system and qualifies the idea of unfet- trade, movement of people and no hard border between tered sovereignty. Surveys regularly show that, far from them. With the UK outside the EU and the Single Market, wanting to take back sovereignty in a simple manner, this would be more difficult. Scotland does four times most Scots are happy with the idea of multiple layers as much trade with the rest of the UK as it does with of government. the EU27. In 2014 the Scottish Government proposed to Brexit thus poses major challenges to the constitu- share the Pound sterling after independence. This was tional settlement of the UK, exacerbated by the fact contested at the time by the UK Government. With the that Scotland voted by 62 per cent to remain. All the UK outside the EU, it would be even more difficult. The parties represented in the Scottish Parliament were for concession that David Cameron gained in his renegoti- Remain, although since the election of May 2016 and ation that the EU is a multi-currency zone, lapsed af- the June referendum, a small number of Leave support- ter Brexit. ers has emerged on the Conservative Labour and even The Northern Ireland peace agreement is not for- SNP benches. Northern Ireland voted 56 per cent to re- mally part of the EU structures but it is deeply embed- main but this disguises a serious division between the ded in European assumptions about mixed sovereignty. two communities. Nationalists were massively for re- Cross-border cooperation is facilitated by the EU Single main while unionists were divided. The two governing Market and the ease of travel. Brexit threatens many parties (until the collapse of the Executive) were seri- of these gains. It has widened differences between the ously at odds (Sinn Féin for remain and the Democratic two communities, since there will be no neutral Euro- Unionists for leave). Wales voted for leave in much the pean ground between the two national aspirations and same proportion as England. sovereignty claims, and because the two communities There are some common concerns among the de- voted in different ways. It risks putting an EU border be- volved territories. There is strong support in Scotland and tween the two parts of the island, undermining efforts Wales for remaining in the Single Market, and in North- to bring them together. UK ministers have insisted that ern Ireland for keeping an open border with the Republic some solution will be found and that there will be no of Ireland (which implies staying close to the Single Mar- hard border. That depends on what is meant by a border. ket). There is support in Wales and (especially) Scotland, It might be possible to avoid a physical border and to re- for retaining free movement of labour. The idea of the UK tain free movement at least for Irish and British citizens, staying in the Single Market appears to have been closed building on the old Common Travel Area, which predates off by the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech and the EU. With Ireland in and the UK out of the single mar- the subsequent UK Government White Paper, although ket, however, there will be differences in product stan- it is far from clear just what the relationship with the Sin- dards for goods, environmental regulations and rules on gle Market and Customs Union will be. trade in services. There will be rules of origin on goods The Scottish Government’s second preference is for moving between the EU and UK customs unions. So there a differentiated Brexit, which would allow Scotland to re- will have to be a border between the two parts of Ireland, main within the Single Market (although remaining in a albeit a virtual one, policed unobtrusively and without a customs union with the UK) even after the UK leaves it.