The Functions of Intergovernmental Agreements : Post-Devolution Concordats from a Comparative Perspective
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The present article examines the functions played by concordats and other intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) in the United Kingdom, in light of the experience of some multilayered states, notably Canada, Belgium, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, the United States and Spain. The author first explains the role of IGAs in multi-layered states, before addressing their similar function in the UK.The legal status of IGAs varies greatly between federations, but agreements play at least five common functions. First, they are used for substantive policy coordination or harmonization between orders of government. Second, they govern intergovernmental process and procedure. Third, IGAs play a ‘para-constitutional’ function when they are used to circumvent the formal distribution of powers or to formalise a convention. Fourth, they are instruments of ‘regulation by contract’, using the guise of compromise and consensus as an alternative to a unilateral exercise of power. Fifth, IGAs are instruments of soft law, negotiated, drafted and implemented as if they were binding regardless of their legal status.UK concordats are essentially designed to ensure efficient information-sharing, early-warning and rules of confidentiality between administrations. As such, their main function is that of ‘procedural cooperation’. However, a closer examination reveals that they also serve some policy-coordination functions. Furthermore, the ‘no surprise’ credo they embody is reminiscent of the principle of federal comity or federal loyalty and points to a para-constitutional function. There is also no doubt that concordats play a soft-law function in the conduct of devolution politics. Finally, time will tell whether in the UK, as in other multi-layered States, concordats will play ‘regulating by contract’ functions, dressing up directions from the centre in consensual terms.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.018 | 0.036 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.017 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.017 | 0.019 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.013 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".