Politics in the British Isles Politics in the British Isles The British Isles comprise two sovereign states, Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and three dependencies of the British Crown, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Ireland is a unitary state and a republic. Since 1998, it shares certain common institutions with Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom, from which it was partitioned in 1921. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and also a unitary state comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Also since 1998, the United Kingdom has devolved significant domestic powers (though differing in extent) to administrations in Northern
Politics in the British Isles history, culture and politics in the isles. The recent trend of using an "archipelago" perspective in scholarship of history, politics and identity was initiated by historian J. G. A. Pocock in the 1970s. He coined the term "Atlantic archipelago" as a replacement for "British Isles", and he pressed his fellow historians to reconsider two issues linked to the future of British history. First, he urged historians of the British Isles to move away from histories of the Three Kingdoms (Scotland, Ireland, England) as separate entities, and he called for studies implementing a bringing-together or conflation of these national narratives into