| 0. A Note on Terminology and Methodology |
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| 0.1 Terminology |
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| It is in the nature of the politics
of devolution in a number of countries that the very terminology to be used
can be a subject of debate. |
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| A particular difficulty exists
with some countries in that the terminology used in state legislation may
differ from that in use by the devolved parliament. The focus of this report
is on the practices of devolved parliaments. For this purpose, we have also
considered the practices in the parliaments of constituent units of a federal
state (e.g. Germany and Belgium). Reference to "devolved" or "devolution"
used in this report may, also include a reference to a federal structure.
The context should make it clear if this is the case. |
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| The term "state" is
used in preference to "nation" to denote the relevant central
state. For clarity, the constituent States of the federal German and Austrian
republics are referred to throughout as Land/Länder. |
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| 0.2 Methodology |
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| This research project was carried
out over a period of four weeks in the summer of 1998, with some minor additions
and changes made thereafter as a result of information supplied at a later
date. An extensive use was made of both primary and secondary material,
including web-sites. Direct approaches were made to a wide range of contacts,
including almost all the devolved parliaments and assemblies in Europe,
as well as to a number outside Europe. No doubt due to the short period
available for the research, and the summer period, responses were not received
in every case, although detailed responses were received from a large number
of parliaments or assemblies. |
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| For this reason, the research
required to make use in a few cases of material which was not as up-to-date
as would have been preferable. However, in the vast majority of cases, we
believe the information provided to be a reasonably accurate statement of
the current position. |
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