Talk:Devolution

Home rule

"Home rule", a term applicable in some areas, redirects here, which seems to be UK-centric. Especially bad since today's featured article about Greenland has a link to home rule. Nelson Ricardo 11:11, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Devolution, Subsidiarity and Home Rule

I think that User:Deus Ex is confused about Devolition and Home Rule and has created an confusing article.

Devolution is about subsidiarity, in an agreed constitutional framework, with a central agreed sovereign body. Home rule is also has undertones of independence. For example in the early 1990s questions were raised in South Africa if a statute needed to be passed in Westminster to recognise and give legal authority of the new SA constitution. Mandela in the end decided that it was not necessary. If he had it would have seemed odd to put that act of parliament under Devolution, but it would have fitted under Home Rule, given the Irish precedence, quite nicely.

I think that these two articles need to be reconstituted as two separate articles as they were until User:Deus Ex combined them. Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Aughavey 29 June 2005 14:24 (UTC) "This Act created the parliaments of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland — although the latter did not in reality function and Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State in 1922."

This is entirely subjective since the South of Ireland had a huge Catholic / Nationalist majority which increased further as the Unionist & Protestant population left or were burned out. Whilst in Northern Ireland the sizeable Nationalist (largely Catholic) population did not support the state and some sought to destabilse it.

If "devolution" were a real word, there'd be a way to pronounce it, wouldn't there? -- D021317c 24 May 2006 21:44 (EDT)

Does the Irish Home Rule section really belong here?

The section on "History" is entirely dedicated to the Irish Home Rule question. As far as I can tell, this section is well-written and informative in and of itself, but there's nothing really explaining what it tells us about the general concept of Devolution, and all of its details can no doubt be found elsewhere. Surely this can be consolidated significantly? --Jfruh 6 July 2005 16:30 (UTC)

We Could Create an Irish Home Rule article, if one doesnt exist. I do agree that the paragraph is out of placeKeeperoftheseal 12:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

It existed, and some officious ignoramus redirected it here. Have recreated it and added details of the Indian movement. Hornplease 14:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Slight modifications

I have added the following:

===Movements Calling For Devolution=== Movements calling for devolution also exist in Cornwall and to a limited degree in England and some English Regions such as Wessex. and:

==External Links==

• Cornish Constitutional Convention
• Devolve England
• The Campaign for an English Parliament
• Mercian Regionalists
• English Constitutional Convention

What do you think? Bretagne 44 15:56, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Bretangne 44. User:Lofty

Disambig

What would the pages listed on the proposed disambiguation page be? - cohesion | talk 09:44, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

'in Cornwall and to a limited degree in England'

Cornwall IS in England. I'm getting sick of seeing this on UK related articles. Whether Cornwall should be regarded as England or not, is a different matter. The fact is, it's in England. My personal opinion is that it's no less English than Devon but we should just stick with the facts.

Merge in of Devolved government

On 21 December 2005 Big Adamsky put templates on the two articles proposing a merge of Devolved government into this article. Seems a good idea to me. ...dave souza: talk 17:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Home rule already redirects here, and perhaps Decentralisation could also be incorporated into this article, as well? So as not to have slightly different articles repeat cited examples that are basically the same thing, more or less. The article might also be more properly renamed Political devolution, i.e. as a concept of Political science and/or Political geography. Any constructive thoughts on this? //Big Adamsky 18:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I did the merge earlier: there wasn't much in there that wasn't already here. Cwolfsheep 04:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

What about the definition for Devolution of: Evolutionary processes occurring without natural selection?

The rules for devolution are simple. In a sense you create paradise by removing the survival of the fittest requirements. In other words, feed all members of a society, ensure all members have equal opportunities to prosper, and provide all members the opportunity to reproduce. Random mutation and random recombination without survival of the fittest should lead to devolution. Eventually all of the members of future generations would degenerate with the addition of non-beneficial mutations.

The probably of a negative mutation is far greater than the probability of a positive change especially in a complex organism. In a natural setting, the negative changes would be eliminated through natural selection and the positive changes would be reinforced. The eliminations would occur through illness, prey, starvation, reduced opportunities to procreate, etc. The reinforcement would occur through ease of gathering resources and more opportunities to procreate.

Civilization strives to level the genetic testing grounds by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, and proving procreation choices to all. This is grandly civilized but it comes with a high price. Our tendency towards civilianization and humanity are creating an unhealthy environment for humankind. By removing the survival of the fittest side of the equation, all genetic combinations and mutations are equally incorporated into the genetic pool. The argument that “Devoltuion” can be bundled under evoltuion is flawed. The removal of natural selection which is key to the modern defintion of evolution is a concept in and of itself. Devolution is a logical name for this theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.174.255.100 (talk • contribs)

While these idea have something to do with Devolution (fallacy), they really seem to be along the lines of Eugenics#Galton's theory. ..dave souza, talk 18:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I reread Galton’s theory, but it does not go far enough. Galton supposed humanity would experience a “revision toward mediocrity” or a “regression towards the mean.” His theory was based on the rudimentary understanding of evolution of the time. His theory did not incorporation genetic mutation.

The theory of “Devolution” goes further. In addition to the tendency towards the mean caused by genetic recombination without natural selection, the entire distribution of characteristics will degrade due to mutation without natural selection. The gene pool will collect aberrant genes which would have been eliminated by natural selection under "normal" evolutionary processes. The end result will be something less than the average. Over a significant number of generations the result would be significantly less than the current average. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Young (talk • contribs)

Well, it still sounds like an extension of Galton's idea. More importantly, has someone of note published this in a mainstream publication? If you have a look at WP:NOR and linked policy and guideline pages, they make clear that by the nature of what Wikipedia's trying to do, we can only report on verifiable information, and can't put forward new ideas that haven't been published. ..dave souza, talk 23:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

This is so bizarre. Decades ago this word was invented by artists at Kent State University and referred to a supposed social regression of mankind. It was the basis for the new age band DEVO. Now it seems to be not only some kind of Anglican legalese, but a technical term in biology. Now the tea party movement in the US is using it as some kind of revolutionary slogan for their crackpot idea to break up the US. I guess no one can own a word or control its meaning. Weird how wikipedia can be so influential we dont even know who's writing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.8.204.113 (talk) 01:17, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I shouldn't really matter how many different ways crackpots and quacks have used the term "devolution" as a sort of counter-evolution term. The term exists, whether its pseudoscience, science fiction, or just cyberpunk. It deserves a separate article from this one. The word 'devolution' as a type of political subdivision is clearly a different topic entirely.

jg (talk) 07:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

French examples

This page is linked to from the Segolene Royal page, so I'm thinking it would be good to add an example that's relevant for France? I mean, I don't think she's speaking about Ireland when she says she's for devolution...213.112.249.100 10:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

New England

Regarding the entry:

"In the United States region of New England, cities and towns practice limited home rule and, for the most part, govern themselves in a directly-democratic fashion known as the New England town meeting."

a) There is no legal entity called 'New England' - it's just the traditional term for the six northeastern-most states of the U.S.

b) As was stated correctly elsewhere, there is no home rule or devolution between the Federal government and any subset of the fifty states (true - the situation is different with the 'non-states' like Guam); because, the U.S. Constitution is a pact that establishes the relationship and separation of powers between the Federal government and each state as an indivisible legal entity.

c) All but two states (Connecticut and Rhode Island - both from New England) have county governments that take precedence over whatever local charters may lie within. Such matters are entirely the responsibility of state governments.

d) 'cities and towns' in New England do not, as the quote suggests, practice limited home rule any more than they do in any other state. Boston is no more a 'devolution' of Massachusetts than Los Angeles is a 'devolution' of California.

e) Although some New England towns once practiced Direct Democracy, this is extremely rare today and only occurs in the very smallest of towns.

f) The existence of a town hall meeting does not mean they "practice limited home rule and, for the most part, govern themselves." The tradition of the town hall meeting has a separate, though occasionally related, history than the very rare phenomenon of direct democracy.

g) There is no devolution movement in New England or elsewhere comparable to , for example, the push for a Scottish assembly in the U.K. This is not a boast about U.S. stability or contentment. It's a consequence of the federal nature of the U.S. The U.S. government doesn't have the authority to incorporate or dis-incorporate a locality anyway. The only devolution-like push would be from states themselves, but the Civil War established (particularly the 13th amendment) that any further separation than that already established under the Federal constitution would be an act of treason.

h) The quote looks like something taken from a history book. It's a quaint view of late 18th century America perhaps.

i) I think the other sections are pretty good though. The federal district, Washington D.C., is a good example.

Thanks for letting me put in my two cents. jg 03:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Cornwall

I've expanded the Cornwall section slightly, but could do with some sources, particularly of the Lib Dem MP's support, and groups or people advocating stronger devolution than a regional assembly (I know they are out there somewhere). Mikebloke 17:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Added the following text - There is a movement that supports devolution in Cornwall. Its strongest advocates in elections are the Mebyon Kernow party and the Cornish Liberal Democrats who aim to establish a regional Cornish Assembly. A proportion of Cornish devolution supporters such as the Cornish Stannary Parliament, Cornwall 2000, the Cornish Nationalist Party, Cornish Solidarity and the Cornish National Liberation Army support further devolution for Cornwall to become either a constituent country of the United Kingdom or even split from the Union entirely.

Several Cornish Liberal Democrat MPs such as Andrew George, Matthew Taylor and Dan Rogerson are strong supporters of Cornish devolution. See - Andrew George MP, Press release regarding Cornish devolution October 2007

On Wednesday 12 December 2001, the Cornish Constitutional Convention and Mebyon Kernow submitted a 50,000-strong petition supporting devolution in Cornwall to 10 Downing Street. See: - The Cornish Constitutional Convention and BBC News 11th December 2001- Government gets Cornish assembly call. In December 2007 Cornwall Council leader David Whalley stated that “There is something inevitable about the journey to a Cornish Assembly” See:- Cornwall Council leader supports Cornish devolution .... please see also:- Cornish self-government movement and Constitutional status of Cornwall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.193.173 (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Japan

Devolution in Japan - this is a hot topic recently and relevant to this article

• http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
• http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20080610a2.html

brain (talk) 15:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Leeds and Manchester City Regions

These two city regions have just been give devolved powers and are soon to get devolved transport powers. Can someone do a good job of putting that in please?--Tubs uk (talk) 01:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

ICM/BBC Scotland poll marking 10 years of Scottish devolution

Here is the detailed data from the BBC poll:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_06_09_devolution_poll.pdf

... and the BBC stories published using data from the poll:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8123114.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8123346.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8124129.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8125041.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8127464.stm

--Mais oui! (talk) 07:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Native American Tribal Nations in the United States of America

This article states "Native American tribes have some rights devolved to them by United States government . . . " This is incorrect. Native American tribal nations predate the United States of America (as well as contact with European explorers and settlers). As a result, their relationships with America, including their rights and powers as sovereign entities within the federal system, spring from and are governed by treaties dating back in some cases to the early 17th century. Article VI of the US Constitution states that "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land" along with the Constitution itself. Therefore the rights and powers of sovereign Native American tribal nations within the USA have the same constitutional presence and irreducability as the powers granted to the several States. (Additionally, the earlier statement in this article that "In the United States only the federal government and the state governments are recognized by the United States Constitution. . . " is also incorrect, for the same reason.) The rights held by American Indian tribal nations are not devolved to them by any authority, as devolution (per the introduction to this article) implies the such rights ". . . can be repealed by central government in the same way an ordinary statute can be." Native American tribal nation's right and powers cannot be repealed by the federal government - the only power the Constitution specifically grants to Congress with regards to American Indian tribes is in Article I Section 8, which in part reads that the US Congress has the power to ". . . regulate commerce with Indian tribes." These rights, governed by treaty, can only be changed through either new treaties, or processes established by existing treaties. However, I wanted to wait for additional comments before making this change tomorrow evening. Thank you for your attention.Professor Storyteller (talk) 04:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
.
Yes, federally recognized tribal government falls under treaty law and is therefore not subject to one-sided congressional revocation or rewriting. This is almost the exact opposite of devolution, which is more a provisional grant of limited self-rule. The current text in this article seems to say otherwise. What is the best way to correct this? It's either wrong or at least very misleading in the current form. jg (talk) 09:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

"Other meanings" should have they own articles

The "Other meanings of the term devolution" should have they own articles and be removed from this page (but noted on the disambiguation page).71.109.159.30 (talk) 16:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Subnation and a state divided into a state?

The first few sentences need to be cleaned up. At the moment they are inaccurate, unless colloquial American English is to be elevated to use in an encyclopedia. First, since nation does not equal state, what would a subnation be, the division of Czechoslovak into Czech and Slovak, or American into African-American and Asian-American? Also, how can you go from the level of sovereign state down to the level of a state? Most people would understand what the sentences are trying to convey; however, isn’t the point to be as accurate as possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.27.111.8 (talk) 03:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Devolution within U.S. states

"In the United States only the federal government, state governments, and American Indian tribes are recognized by the United States Constitution, so local governments are subdivisions of states. Theoretically, a state could abolish all local governments within its borders. Local governments such as municipalities, counties, parishes, boroughs, school districts, and other types of local government and political subdivision entities are devolved."

The notion that county and local governments are merely devolved under a state government and subject to dissolution would depend greatly on the content of that state's own constitution. Some states have federation principles of their own and regard the powers of some sub-governments as rights rather than just privileges. The question then is, is this getting into too much minutia for an article on devolution; should the section just switch to waffle terms like "often" and "in many states;" or should the topic of federated principles in individual state constitutions be brought up in the article?

jg (talk) 07:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

1979 Scotland referendum

The article states that "in Scotland's case a slim majority of those voting had backed the proposal". Does this refer to a slim simple majority or a slim qualified majority? Why is there no citation reference? —Nakkisormi (talk) 10:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Refs are very easy to come by, as the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, and related stories, was a massive media event during that year. The 'Yes' side won a slim simple majority. See the article for details. --Mais oui! (talk) 10:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I just noticed the easter egg links to the referenda in question on my own. Perhaps they should be made more obvious... —Nakkisormi (talk) 10:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Greece and the Mount Athos

The Mount Athos is an autonomous state inside the Greek state. Why is this not being considered? 95.17.44.74 (talk) 03:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

United States

The States

:"Theoretically, a state could abolish all local governments within its borders.

Local governments such as municipalities, counties, parishes, boroughs, school districts, and other types of local government and political subdivision entities are devolved."

These two sentences seem to be claiming that all governments below the State level are devolved. Is that what is being claimed here, does it just sound that way, or is no one else getting that impression?

The ability of a State to dissolve, revoke the charter of, or curtail the rights of one of its sub-governments (counties, cities, etc) varies from State to State and even varies among the sub-governments within a State. Some have guarantees under its State's constitution; though, many do not. The ones that don't have charters and sovereign rights that are constitutionally guaranteed may be considered devolved. The others cannot be said to be devolved.

So what's the answer here? Go into greater detail and turn the United States into a bigger section, or just say something like "some are devolved, some are not" ... or what ?
jg (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

No one has picked which corrective is best. For now, the bulk of this section is being replaced with a link to "https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/State_constitution_%28United_States%29." jg (talk) 05:28, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Federal or Central?

Currently, the lead states the following, amongst others:

Devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area, thus granting them a higher level of autonomy. Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority may be temporary and are reversible, ultimately residing with the central government.

Other than Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 16 (1958) [x] (holding that State agents cannot violate rights “created or protected” by the Federal Constitution) (quoting Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60, 81 (1917) [x], the Supreme Court seems to place an especial stress on the Supremacy Clause. For example, the Court has held that Cannabis sativa and C. indica can be prohibited on a nationwide basis without an ad hoc Amendment therefor, see Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 26 (2005) [x] (holding that the Commerce Clause supercedes those rights and privileges secured by the Tenth Amendment); Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas, 588 U.S. 504, 531-533 (2019) [x] (the text of the Twenty-First Amendment cannot save a statute that unduly burdens interstate commerce). What justifies the notion, then, of calling the Federal Government “federal”? OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

After a couple more years of having learned about the Constitution and law, as well as about the practice of law, I've come to the conclusion that the General Government, as the Founders would have called it, “is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.” Raich, supra, at 58 (Thomas, J., dissenting). This is not, however, by amendment, as by Article V: but by judicial activism—specifically, by construing the Commerce Clause so broadly as to render void the Tenth Amendment's prohibition on the exercise of powers “not delegated” to the United States. It has nothing to do with the Supremacy Clause and everything to do with wanting the General Government to have “a general police power.” United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 514, 567 (1995) [x].

Truly, the Government of today has changed from its original federo-national character to that of a devolved central government. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 02:24, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

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Criteria?

I don't see which is the criteria that has been used for this “List of unitary states with devolution” table. For instance, Chilean regions have no Legislature, nor lawmaking. Same as France, which is extremely centralist. It is highly unaccurate to say those countries have a devolution process like the ones in the United Kingdom or in Spain. Also, Portugal has only two self-governing regions (Azores and Madeira) — the remaining ones are subject to the Lisbon government.

In order to create a proper table, I suggest to set a criteria. For instance:

—Only States in which one or more subnational entities have Legislature and lawmaking (not only rulemaking) can enter. —One column telling how many regions are in that country, divided into two other columns: one for self-governing regions and another one for bare administrative regions (important for Italy and Portugal). —One column saying if the self-governing regions have both Executive branch, Legislature and/or Judiciary. —One column that shows which is the electoral system (direct? parliamentary? appointed by the Head of State?). —One column explaining where we can find the limits on this devolution (Constitution? special law? regional constitution? bilateral agreement?).

Probably some uncommon cases may enter. For instance, Iraq is officially a federal State, but that's not accurate. Actually, its devolution system is similar to the Spanish one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiegoPonga (talk • contribs) 10:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)