(Lead researchers: Cole, Palmer, Wyn Jones)

This research cluster has attracted several major ESRC grants, including two under the Devolution Programme, one comparing devolution and decentralization in Wales and Brittany and the other focusing on voting behaviour and public attitudes in Wales (both rated ‘outstanding’). ESRC grants have – and are – supporting further research into patterns of partisan choice post-devolution, as well as convergence/divergence in public policies. Further research funding has been provided by the Leverhulme Trust, as well as large grants from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (on international lessons from local and regional governance) and from the Swedish government. EGIPP organized two ESRC conferences in Cardiff around this work. Cole sits on the executive committee of the Paris-based Groupement de recherches sur l’Administration locales en Europe (GRALE), including the French interior ministry and the CNRS as institutional partners. Wyn Jones is also involved in the ‘Citizenship after the Nation State’ project, funded in party by the ESF as well as other partners including the Welsh Assembly Government, which collects and analyses data at the regional level across western Europe involving research teams in Scotland, Germany, Spain, Austria and France. Dowling works on identity formation and governance in Catalonia, on which he has a forthcoming book. Recent key books include: Beyond Devolution and Decentralization (MUP); Sub-national Democracy in the European Union (OUP); Sub-national Government in France (Palgrave), and Palmer’s Devolution, Asymmetry and Europe: Multi-level Governance in the UK (Peter Lang 2008). Its members are active in the Wales Governance Centre.