Scottish Affairs Research Articles

Gianfranco Poggi (1934–2023)

Gianfranco Poggi (1934–2023) was amongst the initial staff cohort at the formation of the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Sociology in 1964. Poggi’s recent death brought to an end almost six decades of thinking, arguing, and writing about Sociology: much of that time was spent in Scotland. Here Scottish Affairs marks his passing through short memorials to him from his former student and colleague, David McCrone; and from his daughter, Maria Poggi Johnson.

Scottish Affairs at Thirty

This editorial essay reviews thirty years of Scottish Affairs, from its ‘prehistoric’ roots in the Scottish Government Yearbooks, through its initial launch and overall development. It reiterates this journal's various commitments, not least to providing a forum for, and to encourage, well-informed debate on, and around, Scotland.

Daring to Dare: Edinburgh International Festivals Diary 2022

Mario Relich provides an annual fixture in Scottish Affairs: a personal review of the Edinburgh International Festivals. Themes for 2022 included freedom of speech and the war on Ukraine.

An Enduring Connection: The Irish in Scotland

This contribution to the theme of ‘Scotland and the Two Irelands’ takes the form of a discussion between Michael Rosie, editor of Scottish Affairs, and Professor Sir Tom Devine, the pre-eminent scholar of modern connections between Scotland and Ireland. In the discussion Devine unfolds the migrant autobiographies of the Devine and Martin families, from rural Ulster, through industrial Lanarkshire, and into Scotland’s professional classes. The account sheds light both on the migrant experience, and on the centrality of secondary education for twentieth century Scottish social mobility.

Negotiating Boundaries of Tolerance: The Scottish Police Authority and the Doctrine of Operational Independence

In Scottish Affairs in 2001, Kenneth Scott and Roy Wilkie, while discussing the appointments of chief constables, noted that ‘the real power in Scottish policing is probably revealed where those elements in the tripartite system [chief constables, local government and central government] interact’ (2001: 57) irrespective of the constitutional and legislative boundaries. This paper examines the nascent police governance arrangements by shining a spotlight on the status of the operational independence doctrine in the post-reform era. It revisits the Scottish Police Authority’s attempts to negotiate its own boundaries of influence since its formation. The discussion draws on the 2012 reform legislation, official policy agenda that led to the creation of the Scottish Police Authority ( Malik, 2018 ), a select number of interviews with key architects of the Scottish police reform conducted between 2013–2016, official parliamentary reports, public meeting minutes, and HMICS and Audit Scotland inspection reports. The analysis suggests that the reform agenda did not seek to address the broad interpretation of operational independence that played a key part in diminishing the influence and performance of the local police boards. On the one hand, the Authority have attempted to challenge the scope of operational independence but with limited success. Conversely, and contradictorily, the influence of Ministers and the Scottish Government has gradually expanded. This raises important questions in relation to the essence of operational independence, when it is invoked and crucially who it is invoked against. New boundaries of tolerance and influence need to be negotiated for the Scottish Police Authority to be able to play a more meaningful and independent oversight role in police governance.

Our Plural Gàidhealtachd: An Editorial Rejoinder

In the preamble of the response articles to the recent special issue of Scottish Affairs on Scotland's Gàidhealtachd Futures the authors make some negative assertions about the editorial position. This short and positive essay revisits and reiterates the key themes of ‘plurality’ and ‘futures’ that are the focus of the special issue's contribution to important discussions and emerging priorities for Scotland's Gàidhealtachd Futures.

On Decolonising and Indigenising ScottishGàidhligStudies: A Rejoinder to Armstrong et al.

In their response to my Scottish Affairs article ‘Recovering and Reconstituting Gàidheal Ethnicity’, Armstrong et al. present misleading and misinformed beliefs about my views on identity and indigeneity. In doing so they distort and divert from my article’s focus. Armstrong et al.’s own views on identity and indigeneity not only contain problematic claims relating to ancestry and race, but also disclose superficial essentialist thinking. Indigeneity is not decided by abstract theorising or legal fiat, as Armstrong et al. propose. Instead, the contemporary emergence of indigeneity in the Gàidhealtachd is happening in community settings among many self-identifying and community recognised or affirmed Gàidheil, and with support from those working in allyship. It is developing, and apparently intensifying, in relation to real-world experiences, concerns and aspirations. This development has global resonance and offers the best hope for the resurgence of Gàidheil as a historically, culturally and place-grounded people, including language revitalisation.

Gaelic and Identity: A Response to Iain MacKinnon

This article responds to the recent special issue of Scottish Affairs on ‘Gàidhealtachd Futures’ and in particular the article by Iain MacKinnon proposing that ancestry, ethnicity and indigeneity should become the principal elements in contemporary Gaelic identity. The editors of the special issue do not give an analytically meaningful presentation of the term Gàidhealtachd and MacKinnon fails to give a complete or balanced account of previous research on the question of Gaelic identity. There is considerable uncertainty about how the term Gael is understood today; many Gaelic speakers are reluctant to accept this label for themselves. MacKinnon's arguments concerning the role of ancestry in defining Gaelic identity are highly problematic in both analytical and political terms. His proposals concerning ethnicity and indigeneity are unsustainable, particularly in light of relevant legal standards, and amount to a strategic, ethical and legal dead end for the Gaelic revitalisation movement.

The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Manifestations, Impacts and Responses

The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Constructing its Governance was published in Scottish Affairs 30.1. It showed how the city council, Scottish Government and the events, festivals and tourism industries worked in partnership as a growth coalition. This follow-up article describes some of the results they achieved. It focuses on Edinburgh's August and Winter Festivals, as these are the largest scale festival events. It also analyses the project that sought to re-imagine West Princes Street Gardens. It explores the meaning of ‘festivalisation’ both through its direct impacts on the use of urban space, but also in its relation to the commodification of public space and austerity urbanism. Festivalisation has normalised the flow of value from local public spaces to geographically dispersed asset owners. However, opposition emerged from some local residents and community councils, with the long-established civic amenity charity, the Cockburn Association, playing a catalytic role. The Covid pandemic disrupted this process in 2020, opening up further debates about the role of festivals and tourism in the recovery.

Scotland's Gàidhealtachd Futures: an introduction

This special issue of Scottish Affairs is the first to be solely dedicated to matters relating to Scotland's Gàidhealtachd. Scottish Affairs has a broad, interdisciplinary readership and this informs our approach as guest editors for the special issue. As such, the focus for the issue is to be future-oriented, whilst necessarily being informed by cultural context, contemporary society and lived experience. By curating the articles in these terms, an aim is to encourage an ethic of engagement with a spectrum of topics (not exhaustive) of contemporary research and debate of relevance to the Gàidhealtachd, and to encourage relational perspectives and creative horizons across that spectrum. Therefore, the special issue is not constrained by a single disciplinary focus or structure; although, in important, different ways, the articles are oriented to forms of disciplinarity and practice. This emphasis on emerging debates within the Gàidhealtachd includes their intersections and orientations with situated experiences, subjectivities and voices. Whilst the theme of the special issue is ‘futures’, this is not in a superficially speculative or unproductive sense. Rather, it is ontologically oriented: to the spaces and cultural articulations of encounters and entanglements of people, places and social or community networks. Nevertheless, and not least because of the finite space afforded in a collection or volume of writing, the special issue does not claim to be representative of all dimensions, experiences or understandings of the Gàidhealtachd. Some are yet to come – sin mar a tha e.

Losing sight of women's rights (again): a response to Cowan et al.

This article responds to Cowan et al.'s critique of our article ‘Losing sight of women's rights: the unregulated introduction of gender self-identification as a case study of policy capture in Scotland’, published by Scottish Affairs 28(3) in August 2019. Cowan et al. make a series of strong criticisms, including of our accuracy, diligence and adherence to scholarly norms. We reject these as unreasonable. In our view, they misunderstand and misrepresent the fundamental purpose of our article, fail to engage with our core thesis of policy capture, and implausibly seek to place our view of the law beyond academic respectability. Their own strongly-asserted view of the law appears at least open to question. We argue that the problem is not with our scholarship falling below any normal acceptable standard, but rather that Cowan et al. appear to be uncomfortable with others holding and expressing any different view to theirs on this topic. They have therefore reached too quickly for assertions of incompetence or worse. We discuss the climate in which our original article was produced and in which we are now defending it. Describing our own experiences as well of those of other academics, we question how the scholarship needed to help shape policy and law in this area can take place under such conditions.

Progressive home rule?

Progressive home rule?

Sex and gender equality law and policy: a response to Murray, Hunter Blackburn and Mackenzie

This article is a response to ‘Losing Sight of Women's Rights: The Unregulated Introduction of Gender Self-Identification as a Case Study of Policy Capture in Scotland’ by Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa MacKenzie, published in Scottish Affairs 28(3). Murray et al. sought to explore the legal status of women, particularly with regard to discrimination legislation, and concluded that the interests of trans women had begun to systematically erode the interests of non-trans women in Scotland. In this response, we aim to correct some of the erroneous statements made by Murray et al. about legal definitions of sex and gender, and about discrimination law. In critically engaging with Murray et al.’s argument we aim to build a much-needed clearer understanding of law and policy on sex and gender in Scotland, particularly as it relates to the application of the Equality Act 2010. We argue that, in that claiming that there has been policy capture in Scotland, Murray et al. have neglected to contextualise ongoing debates about sex and gender in law against the backdrop of over two decades of clear legal and policy shifts across the UK. We call for researchers and others – in Scotland and elsewhere – to take care, particularly in interpreting and applying the law, especially as it applies to marginalised minority populations, so that we do not further obfuscate or mislead on important legal and social issues.

Making Scotland an ACE-informed nation

In recent years, tackling Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has become a central dimension of early years, education, youth and family policy. In this Scottish Affairs special issue, we discuss why this public policy has galvanized so much attention in Scotland, and the possible consequence its popularity might have in theory, policy and practice. How, for example, has ACE research shaped how policy is responding to poverty and social inequality? What moral judgements are made by the ACE-agenda, and how might it obscure alternative ways of thinking about the problem of adversity, and cultivating lasting solutions. With contributions from academics and practitioners across different disciplines and practice settings, the collection points to an ongoing need for critical engagement in ACE-policy, and a greater commitment to understanding how ACE-policy is being translated into different practice settings. While theoretical debates are important, future research must prioritise the experiences of practitioners, and those with lived experience of adversity.

Scotland and Brexit: Citizenship, identity and belonging

This article is the editorial introduction to the Special Issue of Scottish Affairs on Scotland and Brexit: Citizenship, Identity and Belonging. Here we outline the key themes and concerns of the Special Issue and contextualise the various contributions that follow. In particular we focus on issues of rights, identity, representation and entitlement in the context of growing social divisions and shifting boundaries of citizenship. We consider, too, Scotland as a distinctive part of the Brexit discourse, and explore the past, present and future of Scotland in a changing UK and EU.

Statement from the authors of ‘Losing sight of women's rights’

This statement notes the contribution made by Lisa Mackenzie to the 2019 article ‘Losing sight of women's rights: the unregulated introduction of gender self-identification as a case study of policy capture in Scotland’ in Scottish Affairs, 28 (3).

Introduction: 1707, 2014 and the Constitutional Imperative in Scotland's National Press and Civil Society

This essay provides an historical, cultural and institutional juxtaposition of the Scottish national press' relationship to constitutional change, using the Union of 1707 and the 2014 independence referendum as key markers of this relationship. It reviews the parallels between both historical events in the context of structural changes to Scottish civil society, and the role played by the media in amplifying and facilitating these changes. Finally, the essay maps the work of a number of historical and literary scholars, media experts, civil society actors, and journalists who have contributed to the Scottish Affairs special issue, 1707 and 2014: The National Press, Civil Society and Constitutional Identity in Scotland.

Obituary: Paddy Bort 1954–2017

Eberhard ‘Paddy’ Bort served as Reviews Editor of Scottish Affairs from 2000 to his unexpected death in early 2017. This obituary outlines the unique contribution Paddy made to Scotland's intellectual and cultural life.

‘A true European’: In Memory of Eberhard ‘Paddy’ Bort, 1954–2017

Eberhard ‘Paddy’ Bort served as Reviews Editor of Scottish Affairs from 2000 to his unexpected death in early 2017. This essay draws together several of his colleagues and friends to outline Paddy's contributions to the study of Borders and his wider activities in and around Scottish academic life.

‘I was no “master of this work” but a servant to it’? William Laud, Charles I and the making of Scottish ecclesiastical policy, 1634-6

Building upon recent scholarship, this article presents a study of policy formation within the composite monarchy of Charles I. Through a scrutiny of the 1636 canons – a crucial but neglected aspect of the ‘Laudian’ programme in Scotland – new light is shed on the contested dynamics of the working partnership between the king and William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury (1633–45). The article also engages with the question of whether Laud can accurately be described as ‘the master’ of religious reform in Scotland and contends that he recast retrospectively his role in policy formation – not just in the canons, but in other, equally controversial, aspects of Scottish policy – thus concealing the true extent of his involvement, by presenting himself as having been a servant, not an agent. Suggesting greater involvement in Scottish affairs than has hitherto been acknowledged, these findings put Laud at the heart of a programme of religious reform that extended across the British churches during the sixteen-thirties.