ABSTRACT
Recent policy studies research has introduced a number of concepts to analyse the widely observed trend toward the fragmentation of national government powers. Among other themes (see Joseph Murphy’s introductory chapter for a fuller account), contributions here have included the ‘hollowing out of the state’ (Rhodes, 1999), the shift from ‘government to governance’ (Pierre and Peters, 2000), and the emergence of ‘multi-level governance’ (Bache and Flinders, 2004a; Lyall and Tait, 2004, 2005). The latter is particularly relevant for the concern here with the impact of devolution on policy making.
