THE CHANGING TERRITORIAL OPERATING CODE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: EVIDENCE FROM NORTHERN IRELAND

This article investigates the UK's changing territorial operating code. The core theme discussed is that recent trends are captured by the Dual Polity thesis but that the model is undesirable as a medium for territorial management. The contention is that, whilst the conditions which sustained the old Dual Polity of 1920-70 as a credible territorial operating code had disappeared by 1979, the subsequent command code of the Thatcher era failed to subdue the Periphery or deliver stability and acquiesence in territorial management which the Centre craved. In response, the consequent upheavals of the 1980s encourage the Centre to fashion a new territorial code, approximating to the old Dual Polity. However, unlike its 1930 forbear, this recreated Dual Polity involves a sharply attenuated role for local government, leaving a system of sub-central governance heavily populated with quangos and joint boards comparable to a new magistracy and demonstrating the worst aspects of Britain's own emerging democratic deficit. The article employs evidence from Northern Ireland as a model of the new Dual Polity in extremis , arguing that fresh thinking is required in policy-making. The Centre has been willing to countenance innovative new structures for the management of its most intractable territorial problem (Northern Ireland). The article concludes that a similarly novel approach is required for the UK, based on a recognition of the inapplicability of outmoded forms of territorial management, the inescapable consequences of the UK's membership of the European Union, a reassessment of the role of each tier of government, and one which embraces the concept of subsidiarity.