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ESRC Research Seminars
Programme
June 11 1998
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
A roundtable introduced by:
Robert Hazell (The Constitution Unit, University College London) on UK developments
Brice Dickson (University of Ulster) on Northern Ireland
Michael Burgess (University of Hull) on Canadian perspectives
Robert Hazell of the Constitution Unit at University College, London, and Brice Dickson of the University of Ulster inaugurated the Centre's ESRC Research Seminar series on June 11th, with lucid reviews of recent constitutional developments in the United Kingdom in general and in Northern Ireland. The combined effect of their presentations was to demonstrate the unprecedented range of changes currently taking place in UK constitutional arrangements, and to ask whether a new constitution was being designed before our eyes or would inevitably emerge as ostensibly separate parts of the project intereacted. Michael Burgess of the University of Hull commented from a Canadian perspective on the dangers and benefits of opening up fundamental constitutional debate, suggesting that attempts to combine elements of parliamentary sovereignty and federalism had never succeeded, that the pull of popular sovereignty against parliamentary traditions would be profoundly unsettling, that constitutional reform was far from a panacea for all problems, but that nonetheless the debate which all three speakers had sketched could only be healthy for the polity. The seminar set a wide-ranging agenda for the series, which is funded by a Research Seminar Award from the ESRC and will continue during the next two years.
ESRC Research Seminars
Programme
June 11 1998
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
A roundtable introduced by:
Robert Hazell (The Constitution Unit, University College London) on UK developments
Brice Dickson (University of Ulster) on Northern Ireland
Michael Burgess (University of Hull) on Canadian perspectives
Robert Hazell of the Constitution Unit at University College, London, and Brice Dickson of the University of Ulster inaugurated the Centre's ESRC Research Seminar series on June 11th, with lucid reviews of recent constitutional developments in the United Kingdom in general and in Northern Ireland. The combined effect of their presentations was to demonstrate the unprecedented range of changes currently taking place in UK constitutional arrangements, and to ask whether a new constitution was being designed before our eyes or would inevitably emerge as ostensibly separate parts of the project intereacted. Michael Burgess of the University of Hull commented from a Canadian perspective on the dangers and benefits of opening up fundamental constitutional debate, suggesting that attempts to combine elements of parliamentary sovereignty and federalism had never succeeded, that the pull of popular sovereignty against parliamentary traditions would be profoundly unsettling, that constitutional reform was far from a panacea for all problems, but that nonetheless the debate which all three speakers had sketched could only be healthy for the polity. The seminar set a wide-ranging agenda for the series, which is funded by a Research Seminar Award from the ESRC and will continue during the next two years.
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