IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/regstd/v36y2002i7p757-765.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

England and the Centre

Author

Listed:
  • James Mitchell

Abstract

Central government in the UK has been organized both by function and territory. While many of the territorial issues dealt with at the centre have now been devolved, a new, English, territorial dimension has emerged which is serving further to undermine the functional basis of central government. Devolution has had a powerful impact on England at the centre. Whitehall has come to terms with devolution unevenly, though with a growing appreciation that parts of Whitehall now have an essentially English focus. Policy 'spillovers' from the Scottish Parliament in particular have begun to impact on the policy agendas of England-focused Whitehall departments. An intensification of the debate on the Barnett formula has heightened a new sense of territorial competition for resources. These developments are set to enhance territorial tensions in the operation of the centre. Au Royaume-Uni, l'administration centrale s'organise a partir des notions de fonction et de territoire. Alors qu'une proportion non-negligeable des questions regionales dont s'est occupele centre politique sont maintenant sous la tutelle des regions, une nouvelle portee territoriale anglaise voit le jour qui sert a ebranler davantage la base fonctionnelle de l'administration centrale. La regionalisation a eu un impact fort au sein de l'Angleterre politique. Whitehall a accepte la notion de regionalisation de facon irreguliere, tout en se rendant bien compte que le centre d'interet de certains departements a Whitehall est essentiellement l'Angleterre. Des retombees de politique qui remontent notamment au Parlement ecossais ont commence a avoir un impact sur les programmes d'action des departements a Whitehall dont le centre d'interet c'est l'Angleterre. Une intensification du debat sur la formule Barnett a souligne le nouveau sentiment de concurrence regionale pour des ressources. Ces developpements sont censes augmenter les tensions territoriales quant au fonctionnement du centre politique. Die Zentralregierung des Vereinigten Konigreichs von Grossbritannien wird durch Funktion und Gebiet bestimmt. Da viele Fragen, die das Gebiet betreffen, vormals in der Hauptstadt entschieden wurden, jetzt aber dezentralisiert gehandhabt werden, ist eine neue, englische, vom Gebiet bestimmte Dimension aufgetaucht, die dazu beitragt, die Funktionsfahigkeit der Zentralregierung zu untergraben. Dezentralisierung wirkt sich stark auf das Machtzentrum Englands aus. In Whitehall findet man sich mit Dezentralisierung nicht unbedingt leicht ab, obwohl mit zunehmendem Verstandnis, dass bestimmte Rollen Whitehalls sich nun im Wesentlichen nur auf England beziehen. Besonders das gelegentliche Uberschwappen politischer Bestrebungen des schottischen Parlaments hat angefangen, sich auf das politische Programm der sich vorwiegend mit England beschaftigenden Whitehall Ministerien auszuwirken. Eine Intensivierung der Debatte um die Barnettschen Formel hat ein neues Gefuhl territorialer Konkurrenz bezuglich Resourssen verstarkt. Diese Entwicklungen werden zur Verscharfung territorialer Spannungen im Ablauf der Dinge im Zentrum fuhren.

Suggested Citation

  • James Mitchell, 2002. "England and the Centre," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(7), pages 757-765.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:regstd:v:36:y:2002:i:7:p:757-765
    DOI: 10.1080/0034340022000006079
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0034340022000006079
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0034340022000006079?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Hazell, 0. "The English Question," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 36(1), pages 37-56.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. MacGill, Iain & Outhred, Hugh & Nolles, Karel, 2006. "Some design lessons from market-based greenhouse gas regulation in the restructured Australian electricity industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 11-25, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Allan Cochrane, 2012. "Making up a Region: The Rise and Fall of the ‘South East of England’ as a Political Territory," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 95-108, February.
    2. repec:cep:spccrp:02 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John Harrison, 2012. "Life after Regions? The Evolution of City-regionalism in England," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 1243-1259, October.
    4. Kevin Morgan, 2002. "English Question: Regional Perspectives on a Fractured Nation," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(7), pages 797-810.
    5. John Harrison, 2013. "Configuring the New 'Regional World': On being Caught between Territory and Networks," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 55-74, January.
    6. Danson Mike & Gordon MacLeod & Gerry Mooney, 2012. "Devolution and the Shifting Political Economic Geographies of the United Kingdom Introduction and Context," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 1-9, February.
    7. Amy Glasmeier, 2006. "Book reviews," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(7), pages 801-809.
    8. Joyce Liddle, 2001. "RDAs, Sub-Regional Partnerships and Local Regeneration," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 16(4), pages 312-323, November.
    9. Mark Sandford, 2002. "What Place for England in an Asymmetrically Devolved UK?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(7), pages 789-796.
    10. Martin Quinn, 2013. "New Labour’s regional experiment: Lessons from the East Midlands," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(7-8), pages 738-751, November.
    11. Charlie Jeffery & John Mawson, 2002. "Introduction: Beyond the White Paper on the English Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(7), pages 715-720.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:regstd:v:36:y:2002:i:7:p:757-765. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRES20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.