Putney Debates 2021: The Unity of a Nation

Description

  To unite a group of regions to create a nation is a daunting task under any circumstances. It becomes more difficult when regional identity has a long history, often associated with independence and ethnicity, language and religion. The United Kingdom is an old union of four proud, distinct, and very different parts and peoples. After Brexit, the unity of the UK is under strain and its future is precarious; loyalty and support for the constitutional structure is on the wane. The purposes of Putney Debates 2021 include: (1) to construct models of unity from the experience of a selection of nations; (2) to analyse the case of United Kingdom, identify the points of tension and instability; and (3) to draw on the models of unity to propose an approach suited to the United Kingdom. A course of lectures on the constitutional structure and its success and/or problems of five countries including the US, China, Spain, Italy and the UK will be pre-recorded and uploaded to our website. On 8 December 2021, two panels will convene, the first to discuss the model of unity, and the second to focus on the unity of the UK.  

Speakers

Denis Galligan   Emeritus Professor at Oxford University Richard Clary   Lecturer at Harvard Law School (US) Qianfan Zhang   Professor at Peking University (China) Francesco Bilancia   Professor at Pescara University (Italy) Roberto Galan Vioque   Professor at Seville University (Spain) Sionaidh Douglas-Scott    Professor at Queens Mary College London Michael Gordon   Professor at Liverpool University Christopher McCrudden   Professor at Queens University Belfast Nicola McEwen   Professor at Edinburgh University Sarah Nason   Senior Lecturer at Bangor University Alison Young   Professor at Cambridge University