Suchergebnisse

This article seeks to place the 1997 referendum on the Labour government's plans to establish an elected Welsh Assembly into the context of the debate on devolution as it has developed in Wales since 1979, when broadly similar proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by the Welsh electorate. The authors argue that given the belated decision to hold the referendum, the particular difficulties created by the Welsh political landscape, and the fact that there was no real attempt to develop a broad-based consensus behind the proposals before the 1997 general election, the fact that the proposals were finally approved -albeit by the narrowest of margins - represents a substantial achievement for the pro-devolutionists.

Low levels of voter turnout in the first election to the National Assembly for Wales in May 1999 brought into question both the ability of devolution to revitalize representative democracy and the legitimacy of the Assembly itself. But drawing wider implications from turnout requires that we understand why electoral abstention was so widespread. We examine three hypotheses about voter turnout in 1999: that non-participation simply reflected a general apathy towards politics; that it was based on a specific apathy towards the new Assembly; or that low voter turnout reflected antipathy towards an unwanted political institution. We find support for the first two hypotheses, but little evidence for the third. Devolution has failed to engage the interest and support of many in Wales, but low turnout has not been prompted by fundamental antagonism to the devolved institution among the Welsh electorate.