The aim of the module is to provide students – particularly on the school’s Governance and Devolution route LLM route – with an insight into the changing character of the UK Constitution, especially in the light of devolution since the late 1990s.  The focus is on implications of these changes on patterns of governance and debates about citizenship across the UK. 

The module is taught by a mixture of seminars and lectures. The seminars will be based on a combination of group discussion and tutor and student presentations which are collectively discussed. Each student shall have an opportunity to make at least one presentation during the Module and for that presentation to be written up as a formative assessment for tutor feedback.

On completion of the module a student will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding:

• Identify major strands of Constitutional Theory relevant to the UK, set in a comparative context, drawing on legal and political sources;
• Identify key distinguishing structures and rules of the UK Constitution – and in particular recent changes to the Constitution arising from devolution and other processes of Constitutional reform – citing the relevant legal and political sources appropriately;
• Relate Constitutional theory and practice to patterns of governance across in the UK and to debates about citizenship in/of the UK.

24 contact hours including a mix of seminars, some lectures and, where appropriate, other forms of delivery. 

The seminars will provide a flexible mode of tuition, in some of which the tutor will lead with a presentation and require the students to evaluate and comment critically upon it. In the main, students will lead the class with a presentation, prepared as a formative assessment, which paper will then be discussed by the class. Each student shall have an opportunity to make at least one presentation during the Module. The class will be expected to evaluate and respond critically to the presentation. Their response, individually and collectively, will be assessed by the tutor in order to develop their individual and team skills in applying their knowledge and critical abilities to propositions and debates.

Skills that will be practised and developed

Intellectual Skills:

• Deploy the above mentioned understanding to formulate their own opinions on legal, theoretical and practical issues on particular topics and to carry out a sustained piece of original research on a selected topic:
• Identify and explain the significance of legal issues explicitly or implicitly raised;
• Evaluate the significance of the legal issues in their social and political context; identify the primary arguments for and against a proposition, assess the strengths and weaknesses of those arguments and come to a considered conclusion;

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

• Explain as required the cultural, political and historical contexts accounting for the development of the above mentioned structures and rules in their current form;
• Engage in independent library-based research into specific issues relating to human rights issues in the countries studied;
• Write a sustained critical exposition of specific issues relating to the areas of law studied and present reasoned and coherent conclusions.

Transferable Skills:

• Communicate effectively the results of this research using different techniques, including extended legal writing making use of appropriate legal terminology and supported by accurate citation of source material;

 Syllabus content

Among other topics the following will be discussed in seminars and/ or lectures:

1. Theorizing the UK Constitution, including the role of – and reforms to – the UK Parliament, and its relationship to devolved legislatures; concepts of unitary, union, confederal, federal state forms and their relationship to devolution; the relationship between government and governance.
2. To set the UK constitutional debate in a comparative and international context, including examples drawn from unitary and federal states elsewhere and/or the experience of Commonwealth countries
3. UKlegal systems and Judicial reform, including some differences between the legal systems of England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the establishment of the Supreme Court and the Regionalisation of the  Administrative Courts in England and Wales.
4. Citizenship, legislation and governance in the UK: focusing on a) the relationship between reserved and devolved powers across the UK and b) patterns of divergence and convergence/commonality in legislation, governance and public policy across the UK. Considering what, if any, implications these patterns have for social and political citizenship. Considering (recent debates about) the relationship between national identity (British Identity and sub-state 'national' identities) and citizenship.

 Indicative Reading and Resource List:

• R. Hazell and R. Rawlings (eds.), Devolution, Law Making and the Constitution (2005 Imprint-Academic).
• C. Jeffery and D Wincott (eds) Devolution in the United Kingdom: Statehood and Citizenship in Transition (2006, OUP) Special edition of Publius. The Journal of Federalism 36:1
•  J. Jowell and D. Oliver, The Changing Constitution (2007, OUP)
• Trench (ed.), The Dynamics of Devolution (2005, Imprint-Academic)  
• Trench (ed.), Devolution and Power in the United Kingdom (2007, Manchester UP).