Devolution and Space in England: Empirical Essays on Economic Growth, Democratic Engagement, and Health

By transferring power from national to subnational policymakers, devolution is argued to have significant economic, political, and social benefits. Through being ‘closer’ to the recipient population, subnational governments can utilise their place-specific knowledge and more readily engage stakeholders, improving outcomes through stronger place-based policymaking and accountability. These arguments explain the expansion of devolution in England over the last fifteen years, reflecting a broader global shift from national to subnational governance since 1950. However, there are numerous concerns surrounding devolution. These include the inefficacy of devolution in influencing longstanding spatial realities such as economic ag- glomerations and spatially concentrated democratic disengagement, the sacrifice of national synergies in policy delivery, and that in practice place-based policies do not give enough attention to ‘space’ within ‘place’. Due to being of great policy significance, an increasing level of popular and academic attention is being devoted to devolution, yet empirical analysis remains limited. To address this situation my thesis focuses on devolution in England, one of the most spatially unequal developed countries, since 2016. I provide a holistic empirical investigation into the effects of devolved policies and how they relate to complex existing spatial contexts through three solo-authored papers. I provide the general motivation and aim of the thesis in Chapter 1, and the required common theoretical and empirical contexts in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 investigates the effect of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act (CLGDA) 2016 on economic growth, analysing the overall effect of devolution on GDP per Capita between and within devolved areas. Chapter 4 analyses the impact of greater devolved powers under the CLGDA 2016 on democratic engagement, using a restricted dataset to study how local election turnouts change between and within devolved areas. Chapter 5 uses Census microdata to assess how increased regional powers under the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Plan have influenced devolved neighbourhood health and health inequalities since 2016, compared against a matched sample of non-devolved neighbourhoods. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes, presenting common findings, academic contributions, and policy implications. Given limited and spatially heterogenous findings across my papers, I argue that there is an empirical imperative to go beyond top-down conceptions of English devolution, instead viewing devolution in England as a spatially heterogenous and contingent process – one that foregrounds location-specific complexity over national cohesion

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Sweeney, Nicholas

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Larsson, Johan

• Devolution
• Spatial inequalities

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/631e8195-ba0b-4a92-b14f-d99429af98d7/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0001-9349-5863

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/398391