Andrew Burns

My research focuses on constitutional reform for the United Kingdom: not the legal detail or actual content of constitutional reform, but the political process of such reform. My thesis will follow the three-paper model. The thesis aims to analyse the development, and partial implementation, of a range of democratic reforms throughout the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st century.

The thesis will engage with the following three theoretical questions:

1. How Is a Strategic Action Field Created?
2. How Does an Institution Develop and Change?
3. What Role Have Key Actors Played in Creating the Scottish Parliament?

How Is a Strategic Action Field Created?

The thesis will examine the development of devolution arguments in the UK from the late 1970s through to the late 1990s. Building on the work of Fligstein and McAdam (2012), the thesis will explore the 'episode of contention' that led to the emergence of devolution as an issue which was subsequently delivered, all as part of a wider constitutional reform programme. These wider reforms include:

• Devolution for Scotland, Wales, and for Northern Ireland
• Incorporation of the European Convention of Human Rights into British law
• A Freedom of Information Act
• Partial reform of the House of Lords
• The use of proportional representation (electoral reform) for a wide variety of subordinate elections
• Implementation of elected mayors for Local Government

These first-order democratic reforms, now in place, mark a significant shift in the constitutional make-up of the United Kingdom. As well as Fligstein and McAdam (2012), further studies on Strategic Action Fields will be used to develop an understanding of the 'episode of contention' that led to such a wide-ranging programme of democratic reforms. The thesis will specifically examine how a consensus for devolution (the case of the Scottish Parliament) was created, analysing the role of different actors in creating the Strategic Action Field for devolution.

How Does an Institution Develop and Change?

This part of the thesis analyses devolution in Scotland over a 20-year period (1999–2019). The unit of analysis is the Scottish Parliament. This thesis examines the extent to which the initial plans for the Scottish Parliament were realised. It will explore the process of change—using the work of Tsoukas and Chia (2002), among other Organisational Change literature—and examine unintended consequences and paradoxes associated with creating and maintaining an institution.

What Role Have Key Actors Played in Creating the Scottish Parliament?

This part of the thesis will engage with identity work debates. In particular, it will explore the role played by the identities of key actors in shaping the Scottish Parliament. It will use the work of Brown (2015 and 2017) and others to assess the importance of organisational identities in forming the early bureaucratic structures of the new Scottish Parliament in the early years of devolution. This analysis includes the use of semi-structured interview data gathered in the mid 1990s from many of the original drafters of the democratic reforms that have now been enacted. This secondary material will provide a rich source of data.

The thesis then assesses the actual impact of the implemented democratic reforms through a combination of further semi-structured interviews with both reformers and politicians now administering the new institutions. Finally, there will be a thorough assessment, using documentary analysis, of the original (procedural) design-processes for the Scottish Parliament.

Supervisor(s)

• Chris Carter (Lead Supervisor)
• Ron Kerr
• James Mitchell