E-Book Overview
After three hundred years, the Anglo-Scottish Union is in serious difficulty. This is not because of a profound cultural divide between England and Scotland but because recent decades have seen the rebuilding of Scotland as a political community while the ideology and practices of the old unionism have atrophied. Yet while Britishness is in decline, it has not been replaced by a dominant ideology of Scottish independence. Rather Scots are looking to renegotiate union to find a new place in the Isles, in Europe, and in the world. There are few legal, constitutional or political obstacles to Scottish independence, but an independent Scotland would need to forge a new social and economic project as a small nation in the global market-place, and there has been little serious thinking about the implications of this. Short of independence, there is a range of constitutional options for renegotiating the Union to allow more Scottish self-government on the lines that public opinion seems to favor. The limits are posed not by constitutional principles but by the unwillingness of English opinion to abandon their unitary conception of the state. The end of the United Kingdom may be provoked, not by Scottish nationalism, but by English unionism.
E-Book Content
T H E I N D E P E N D E N C E O F S C OT L A N D
This page intentionally left blank
The Independence of Scotland Self-government and the Shifting Politics of Union
MICHAEL KEATING
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oYces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York q Michael Keating 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2009926747 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by the MPG Books Group ISBN 978–0–19–954595–7 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Contents Preface List of Figures List of Abbreviations
vi ix x
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
1 17 45 79
State and Nation Understanding the Union The Strange Death of Unionist Scotland Becoming Independent The Political Economy of Independence: Large States and Small Nations 6. Constitutional Futures: State and Nation in the Twenty-First Century 7. Beyond Devolution: Evolutionary Change 8. Scotland and the Future of Union Notes Bibliography Index
101 125 143 173 181 187 207
Preface This started out as a book about Scottish inde