Understanding the Union

Varieties of unionism in Scotland may be found in the debates in the last Scottish Parliament in 1705–1707 and persisted for three centuries. In modern politics, they may be roughly mapped to social unionism, trade and security unionism, and nationalist unionism. The three strands map poorly on to contemporary party labels but are conceptually coherent. A social union entails uniform welfare standards and a uniform safety net throughout the UK. The trade and security union is about the economies of scale generated by free trade within the UK. It used also to be about the military and the British Empire, to which Scots contributed massively, but has been reborn as a primordial concern for the Union in and of itself, but with added Faslane. Nationalist unionism insists on the integrity of Scots constitutional law and on the sovereignty of the Scottish people. It remains a live strand of unionism, although the least-understood one.

Scotland at Westminster

Since the Treaty and Acts of Union in 1707, Scotland has returned MPs to Westminster. Whilst dwarfed, at least demographically by its partner in that Union, England, Scotland has, on a number of occasions, punched above its weight at the Centre—most notably at either end of the twentieth century when Liberalism and then Labour dominated Scottish politics. This chapter examines the relationship of Scotland with the UK Parliament. It begins by placing this relationship in its historical context, before then turning to an audit of contemporary Scottish influence and representation at Westminster, post-devolution. This chapter does this by breaking down two of the main and interconnected dimensions of Scottish representation at Westminster: (1) Scottish parliamentarians and the Westminster party system; and (2) institutional representation within Parliament. This latter category includes both Scottish-specific institutional mechanisms, such as the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Scottish Grand Committee, and the broader Westminster apparatus that can be leveraged for influence, such as parliamentary question times.

Intergovernmental Relations

Intergovernmental relations between the Scottish and UK governments are conditioned by path dependence from the pre-devolution arrangements, for example, in finance. They are also conditioned by the UK’s (uncodified) constitutional arrangements, such that the Sewel Convention has played a role, one which its authors might not have contemplated. Models of dual, co-operative, and competitive federalism are used to analyse the changing nature of intergovernmental relations. A dual federalism mode, under which governments get on with their own business, has developed into a mixture of co-operative and competitive relations. Achievements of co-operation include day-to-day official co-operation, but also intergovernmental agreement on major and difficult issues, such as holding an independence referendum, and the implementation of radical devolution of taxation and welfare. Intergovernmental competition includes political competition for votes, and economic competition through different packages of tax and welfare. Constitutional change has been a defining feature of intergovernmental relations over the last ten years. The chapter concludes by identifying some possible future trends—increasing economic and political competition, coupled with increasing demands for detailed co-operation over new powers—and the options for codifying and strengthening intergovernmental relations.

The Politics of Scotland’s Public Finances

Politics and fiscal mechanics play interwoven roles in the public finances of devolved Scotland. Asymmetric devolution, in the context of divergent economic performance and relative population size and growth rates, has contributed to the longevity of the Barnett formula. Though criticized for either overfunding or underfunding Scotland, its resilience stems from its role as political convention in reducing overt conflict, and from maintaining the expenditure autonomy of the Scottish Parliament. The low level of self-financing from devolved taxes stimulated allegations that the Parliament lacked accountability and fiscal responsibility. Extended taxation powers advanced through the cautious Calman Commission to the rushed Smith Commission, and were driven by imperatives for a ‘counter-offer’ after the 2014 Independence Referendum. The early operation of the 2016 Scottish Fiscal Framework and the divergence of UK and Scottish income tax rates highlights the practical issues of devolved tax policy in the context of UK fiscal centralization. These developments have been driven by changes in Scottish political circumstances rather than by changes in fiscal fundamentals.

Green Politics

Whilst Scottish environmental policies feature many characteristics typical for modern systems of governance, addressing similar environmental challenges and wicked problems of the twenty-first century, many environmental policy responses in Scotland are nevertheless distinctly contextual and often driven by the ongoing constitutional debate whilst also being ambitious, if not pioneering. This is not to say that Scotland leads in environmental politics on all fronts; where coalition networks and other factors may not promise the desired results, Scottish decision makers shy away from a determined green approach. This chapter therefore argues that in order to understand green politics in Scotland as a whole we need to study environmental policies carefully and individually and take into consideration a number of factors (or parameters) such as resource availability and, more importantly, the strategic consideration of whether or not a co-framing between green ambitions and national identity can be achieved successfully.

Religion and Political Parties

This chapter explains the ways that religion has been a significant factor in Scottish politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It examines the decades-long identification with the Labour Party on the part of the Catholic community, and the dramatic shift in Catholic allegiance to the SNP in more recent times. The chapter also considers the ways in which Protestant identity has related to party politics in Scotland. It discusses the political significance of Scottish society’s increasingly multifaith and ‘no faith’ character and argues that religion is tied up, if ambiguously, with contemporary cleavages over the question of Scotland’s constitutional future.

Smaller Parties

Small parties in Scotland have played a number of roles in the post-devolution party system. In some areas they have been trailblazers for broader developments, whilst in others they have met some success but had little longer impact. Understanding this is crucial for a broader understanding of party competition and the Scottish party system. The first section of the chapter addresses thorny theoretical issues around what counts as a ‘small’ party, and the relation between smallness and relevance. The second section discusses key small parties that have had some level of success in Scotland. These include the Greens, Scottish Socialist Party, UKIP, Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party, and the ‘Others’ who have also been successfully elected in Scotland, including the Liberal Democrats, given their changing fortunes over time. The final section considers reasons for the rise of smaller parties, whilst examining the broader effect on the Scottish party system and putting Scotland into comparative perspective in relation to the role of small parties.

Elections and Electoral Systems

Research on voting and political engagement suggests that structural features of political life can affect whether and how individuals participate. This includes the administration of elections, the ease with which one can cast a ballot, the opportunities for deliberation and engagement during election campaigns as well as the ways in which votes are translated into seats. Key here are the costs for voters—costs of time often chief amongst them—of getting involved, staying informed, reaching decisions, and casting a ballot. Scots have multiple electoral worlds to navigate, each of which has the capacity to alter the incentive structures for engagement for voters. This chapter explores these variations—focusing on the diversity of electoral experience in Scotland as well as frequent, recent, changes to elections—before focusing in greater detail on electoral systems, why they have been adopted and their implications for electoral outcomes in Scotland.

Scotland as a Political Community

Modern perspectives on Scotland see it neither as an undifferentiated part of a unitary nation state, nor as a radically distinct or ‘ethnic’ community. Rather it is a component nation within a union, which itself changes over time. Since the late twentieth century, Scotland has become more important as a political community and at the end of the century it gained an autonomous Parliament. It is not a homogeneous unit but a space in which political contestation takes place. Even as it increasingly resembles the rest of the UK in its economic and social structures and values, it is politically differentiated. Devolution in 1999 started an institutional dynamic whose effects are still being worked out. Scotland now has a distinct party system. Its constitutional future is unresolved after the independence referendum of 2014 and the European referendum of 2016, in which Scotland voted to remain in the European Union whilst England and Wales voted to leave.

Twin Tracks

Though easily conflated, the cultural and political nationalism of modern Scotland are not the same. This chapter surveys parallel developments in cultural production and constitutional change from 1967 to 2018, and the role of the Scottish intelligentsia in re-instituting national-political space. Drawing on the key journals and magazines of the pro-devolution left, we explore the role of Scottish cultural ‘voice’ in affirming, mobilizing and institutionalizing the national-political frame. Scottish devolution had an important but highly mediated cultural dimension, with claims to national representation deeply entangled in electoral triangulation, and the emergence of ‘neo-popular’ Scottish identity cementing the image of anti-Thatcherite cultural consensus. But the idea of Holyrood arriving on a wave of artistic Renaissance and rising national ‘confidence’ is too simplistic, and obscures important disparities between the ‘twin tracks’ of cultural and political nationalism.