Cross-border Constraints on Policy Innovation and Diffusion in Devolved Nations: The Case of Minimum Unit of Alcohol Pricing in Wales

Since 1999, devolution has afforded researchers the opportunity to explore the extent to which new powers and capabilities have shaped public action in different parts of the UK, and whether policies and policymaking ‘styles’ have diverged or remained across the devolved nations. The core claim of this literature is that, on the one hand, Wales and Scotland have acquired some of the powers and policy levers necessary to crafting bespoke policy solutions to meet the needs of their populations, but, on the other, universal constraints on policymaking have limited their ability to do so. Consequently, while certain high-profile policies, such as the charges for plastic bags initiated by Wales and the abolition of university tuition fees in Scotland, demonstrate the devolved nations’ ability to innovate, policy divergence remains the exception rather than the rule. To date, however, discussion of the UK nations’ differentiated capacity and eagerness for policy innovation has largely ignored the impact policy processes in one devolved polity can have on another. Just because two devolved nations in a multi-level systems have the policymaking capacity and political will to adopt an innovative policy does not mean that both, or either, will be able to do so unencumbered. Instead, institutional obstacles, policy disputes, and procedural delays in one devolved nation may influence when and how another opts to conduct its own decision-making process. Drawing on documentary analysis and interviews with key policymakers, the paper illustrates this claim with a case study of the stalled diffusion of minimum unit pricing of alcohol policy across the UK, focusing particularly on the policy trajectory in Wales. It argues that greater attention should be paid to the relational and diachronic dimensions of policymaking powers and levers: the manner in which they are sensitive to issues of timing, sequencing, and to policymaking processes taking place in other devolved nations.