Abstract

The article proposes a comparison between British devolution and Italian one, both have occurred at about the same time (from the end of Nineties years until now), looking what is common in devolution process inside two cultural and institutional context deeply different. About the constitutional innovation, British and Italian political systems know different method to pass a reform: in British system, Westminster parliament is "sovereign" not only in ordinary law-making but above all in constitutional matter (this is the meaning of parliament sovereignty in Dicey's thought); in Italian system, constitutional power isn't on the same degree of ordinary law, because the parliament makes ordinary law and an "ad hoc convention" makes the constitution (or at least its fundamental reforms), as it's in French tradition. In spite of so, it's possible to see a common element in British and Italian devolution, on the side of its limits: that is the difficult to compatible the post-centralistic state and its fiscal autonomy with the universalistic principles of welfare state. This may be one of the mains challenge that Western states will have to face, looking for a new political balances for the new era that follows the cold war end.