Altered States: Federalism and Devolution at the “Real” Turn of the Millennium

This article is the Sir David Williams Lecture delivered by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Cambridge in May 2001. In it the author considers the operation of the twin processes of devolution and federalism in the United Kingdom and contrasts it with their operation in the United States, where the different premises have produced different historical trajectories and different contemporary challenges. Yet federalism and devolution in the two countries also reflect many of the same values and thus present many of the same opportunities.