Welsh devolution as passive revolution

Abstract

Welsh devolution has not been adequately theorised. Following the narrow vote for Welsh devolution in 1997, many academics in Wales adopted a nakedly ‘celebratory’, uncritical view of devolution as a radical change to the British state, taking at face value the claim that it was designed to rejuvenate Welsh democracy. The power relations inherent to the transformation of the British state are rarely discussed in Wales. As a consequence, the developments which have occurred in Wales since devolution – political disengagement, the rise of the far right, the vote for Brexit – seem hard to grasp: it is simply presumed that something has ‘gone wrong’ with the application of devolution. This dominant way of thinking assumes that devolution was designed to ‘work’. Using Gramsci’s concept of passive revolution, this article argues that devolution to Wales (and Scotland) was a central plank of New Labour’s transformation of both the Labour Party and the British state. Building on a reading of the post-war British state as a historic bloc, I draw attention to the power relations inherent in Welsh devolution and the ‘top down’ nature of the process, which was led by the Labour party in order to preserve its hegemony in Wales and the United Kingdom as a whole. After outlining the political struggles and strategies of transformismo which occurred within the process of passive revolution, where hegemony is temporarily ‘thinned’, I contend that contemporary Wales represents a period of interregnum, where the old world (the traditional centralised British state) has died, but a new Welsh state cannot be born. As Gramsci predicted, this has led to the emergence of a host of ‘morbid symptoms’ in Wales. I conclude by reflecting on the nature of the interregnum and whether ‘restoration’ or ‘revolution’ is likely to triumph in Wales.

Ripening time? The Welsh Labour government between Brexit and parliamentary sovereignty

“…Wyn Jones and Scully (2012) recount how this contradiction shaped the initial devolution dispensations: weakness in their design reflected attempts to contain the divisions. The ‘One Wales’ coalition with Plaid Cymru (2007–2011) marked a shift: it paved the way for the referendum on primary law-making powers and ‘dramatically blurred the ideological differences’ between the two parties (Evans, 2018: 499). A pro-devolution, ‘soft nationalism’ has since been ‘the hegemonic ideology within Welsh Labour’ (Moon, 2016: 283).…”

The British and the transfer of power in the Bechuanaland Protectorate: Neo-colonialism or passive revolution?

“…(p. 232) Thus, various reforms, modernizations and compromises implemented as a result of a crisis, primarily to restore bourgeois hegemony and privileges, have been conceptualized as passive revolutions (Evans 2018: 490). Specific examples include the Meiji Restoration in Japan (Allinson & Anievas 2010), the Mexican Revolution (Hesketh 2010;Morton 2011), decolonization (Chatterjee 1986), democratization (Fatton 1986(Fatton , 1999Abrahamsen 1997;Robinson 1996), Welsh devolution (Evans 2018) and Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement of 2008 (Raftopoulos 2010).…”

Welshness in ‘British Wales’: negotiating national identity at the margins

“…Emerging critical engagements with devolution (e.g. Jones et al, ; Evans ) have emphasized the power relations at the centre of the devolution process, arguing that far from representing a significant process of state restructuring which triggered a concomitant forward march of Welshness, devolution was intended to shore up Labour hegemony within Wales and check the rise of Welsh nationalist sentiment. Far from triggering a radical change to Welsh society, the people of Wales have not engaged with the devolved institution .…”