The Impact of Scottish Devolution on Social and Political Cohesion in Britain Shevlane, Robin
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National diversity and social cohesion: the impact of Scottish devolution on social and political cohesion in Britain Shevlane, Robin The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/587 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] 2 Abstract Within a number of Western nation-states, internal national minorities are advancing demands for political recognition and a measure of autonomy short of full independence. General acceptance of democratic ideals places pressure on these states to accede to such demands and devolve political power to national minorities. This thesis examines the consequences that this process implies for political and social cohesion in nationally diverse states; does the formal political recognition of national diversity facilitate the integration of the state? Can nationally diverse societies generate and maintain the bonds of social solidarity that are necessary if they are to bind together effectively? Part One of the thesis examines these issues from a theoretical perspective; drawing on a range of existing analyses, from both classical and contemporary literature, the concepts of state, nation, sovereignty, self-determination and social cohesion are subject to detailed examination with a view to understanding how they shape the political demands of national minorities and what the most implications of these demands are. Part Two aims at further interrogating these theoretical claims through an empirical analysis of the Scottish devolution in 1999, established in 1999, and the impact it has on political and social cohesion in Britain. This involves an investigation into the historical development of a distinct Scottish nation, its evolving relationship with the British state and the concept of ‘Britishness’, and the factors accounting for the rise of Scottish nationalism in the second half of the twentieth century. Finally, the devolution settlement itself is made the central focus of analysis, and the questions of its impact on the future political stability of Britain as a single state and on the social cohesion of British society are examined with reference to existing literature on devolution, survey data provided by the British and Scottish Social Attitude surveys, and an analysis of significant discourses of nation- building in the speeches of a number of important political figures. 3 Contents Introduction 5 PA R T O N E: T H E O R E T I C A L FR A M E W O R K The Nation-State 12 Theories of the State 14 Summary 31 Theories of the Nation 37 Summary 50 National Minorities Within the Nation-State 56 What is a National Minority? 56 The Concept of Sovereignty in Classical Political Theory 58 Sovereignty, the Nation-State, and National Minorities 73 Popular Sovereignty and Self-determination 75 Summary 79 Social Cohesion and National Diversity 85 What is Social Cohesion? 86 The Concept of Social Cohesion in Classical Social Theory 88 Classical Social Theory and National Identity 113 Social Cohesion in Contemporary Thought 117 Social Capital Theory 118 Communitarianism, National Identity and Social Cohesion 124 Summary 130 PA R T T W O: T H E C ASE O F SC O T L A ND A ND T H E BRI T ISH ST A T E The Scottish Nation, 1057-1886 137 The Institutional Roots of Scottish National Identity, 1057-1286 138 The Anglo-Scottish Relationship, 1286-1328 141 The Road to the Union of the Scottish and English Crowns 146 The Treaty of Union, 1707 149 The Highlands and the Jacobite Threat 154 The Scottish Enlightenment 156 The Development of ‘Britishness’ 157 Scotland and the British Empire 158 Dual Identities 160 Nationalism 162 Summary 165 4 The Rise of Modern Scottish Nationalism, 1886-1999 169 The Emergence of Nationalism, 1886-1934 170 Nationalism Transformed, 1934-1945 175 Nationalism in Abeyance, 1945-1967 176 Scottish Devolution: The First Attempt, 1967-1979 180 The Thatcher-led Conservative Government and the Creation of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, 1979-1990 183 New Labour and the Road to Devolution, 1990-1999 187 Summary 189 The Consequences of Scottish Devolution for the Political Cohesion of the British State 191 Legal-Constitutional Consequences 193 Political-Institutional Consequences 204 Financial Consequences 210 Summary 216 Devolution and Social Cohesion in Britain 218 Devolution and the Break-up of the Union? 218 Levels of trust and perceptions of fairness 229 Devolution and National Identity 236 Post-Devolution Nation-Building Discourse 242 Summary 258 Conclusion 261 Notes 278 5 Introduction Evidence of the capacity of nationalism to confound the expectations of those who would predict its imminent demise is not difficult to unearth; nationalist movements of various stripes can be found operating across virtually every region of the globe, and the idea of the nation continues to occupy a central role in all states’ attempts to construct and maintain a claim to political legitimacy. Perhaps most surprising of all, minority nationalist movements that contest the legitimacy of the state are to be found in a number of so-called consolidated nation-states of the Western world; states for which the task of state- and nation-building might have thought to have been completed. There is, moreover, ample evidence that a number of such movements are in fact gaining in strength as they display an ability to exploit opportunities provided by the growing interdependence of states in a global age. The states in which such nationalist movements operate, committed as they are to democratic ideals, find themselves under increasing pressure to respond by extending some form of political autonomy to national minority communities. Such political autonomy can take the form of devolution, in which functionally-specific powers are transferred from the centre to the periphery without affecting the constitutional superiority of the former, or federalism, by which a constitutionally guaranteed formal division of powers between central and regional levels of government is established that leaves neither subordinate to the other. In its theoretical dimension, the objective of this thesis is to examine what some of the principle consequences of such a decentralization of political authority through the granting of a measure of autonomy to internal minorities are; how it contributes to the transformation of the nation-state model and whether it impacts upon political and social cohesion within the state? Does devolution, for example, foster friction and conflict between different levels of government representing different visions of nationality, thereby facilitating the disintegration of the state, or does it, by contrast, re-legitimize the state in the eyes of alienated minorities, thereby 6 strengthen political cohesion? Can states extending political recognition to a diversity of semi-autonomous national communities continue to generate the bonds of solidarity necessary for the maintenance of social cohesion? The case of Britain, where a process of political devolution was initiated in 1999 in response to nationalist claims advanced by its internal minorities, provides our empirical focus. As a case study for an analysis of the consequences of granting political autonomy in response to the nationalist claims of internal minorities, Britain presents a number of idiosyncratic features, not the least of which is terminological in nature. The official title of the state is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – generally shortened to either the United Kingdom or the UK – and comprises four constituent territorial units; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Britain, the term is used in this study, properly refers only to the three territorial units that together form the British mainland; England, Scotland and Wales. With its distinctive division between a Protestant Ulster community committed to membership of the United Kingdom and a Catholic Irish community that reject the legitimacy of the UK state and instead favour their incorporation into a united Irish state, the historical and political experience of Northern Ireland is markedly different from mainland Britain. Northern Ireland is, for example, the only territorial unit of the United Kingdom in which the three major political parties – Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats – are without parliamentary representation. Given the specific issues associated with Northern Ireland’s integration in the United Kingdom, and the history of political violence that this has engendered, its analysis is beyond the scope of the present study, which instead is restricted to a concern with mainland Britain alone. Although reference is made to England, Scotland and Wales, it is on the case of Scotland that the major weight of the empirical analysis falls, a approach justified on account of the relative strength of nationalist sentiment in Scotland and the greater extent of the political autonomy it possesses as part of the 1999 devolution settlement. Given that the nationalist movement is significantly stronger in Scotland than in Wales, and that the autonomous powers of the Scottish are considerably greater than those granted to the devolved Welsh Assembly, it is reasonable to 7 assume that any consequences as the process of devolution might bring about will be most pronounced in the Scotland. That being said, where the impact of devolution on social cohesion is concerned, the asymmetrical nature of the devolution settlement means that its impact on the English population is a factor of considerable importance. Whilst the overall objective is therefore an analysis of the impact of devolution on political and social cohesion in Britain, the weight of empirical arguments fall on Scotland and, to a lesser degree, the effect of devolution on English attitudes toward the Union.