Scottish Debate Research Articles

Attack by a Turkey: Learning to Write History from Bernard Bailyn

Attack by a Turkey: Learning to Write History from Bernard Bailyn

Shaping the Scope of Conflict in Scotland’s Fracking Debate: Conflict Management and the Narrative Policy Framework

AbstractThis study applies a narrative lens to policy actors’ discursive strategies in the Scottish debate over fracking. Based on a sample of 226 newspaper articles (2011–2017) and drawing on key elements of the narrative policy framework (NPF), the research examines how policy coalitions have characterized their supporters, their opponents, and the main regulator (Scottish government). It also explores how actors have sought to expand or contain the scope of conflict to favor their policy objectives. Empirically, only the government strives for conflict containment, whereas both pro‐ and anti‐fracking groups prioritize conflict expansion through characterization contests and the diffusion and concentration of the costs/risks and benefits of fracking. In theoretical terms, the study proposes that Sarah Pralle’s conflict management model, which emphasizes symmetrical strategies of conflict expansion by both coalitions, is a potential tool to revise extant NPF expectations about the different narrative strategies of winning and losing coalitions. Moreover, the fact that policy actors mostly employ negatively rather than positively framed characters in their narratives may be a valid expectation for similar policy conflicts, particularly under conditions of regulatory uncertainty.

Casting for a sovereign role: Socialising an aspirant state in the Scottish independence referendum

This article examines international reactions to Scotland’s 2014 bid for independence as an instance of socialisation of an aspirant state, what we term ‘pre-socialisation’. Building on and contributing to research on state socialisation and role theory, this study proposes a nexus between roles and sovereignty. This nexus has three components: sovereignty itself is a role casted for by an actor; the sovereign role is entangled with the substantive foreign policy roles the actor might play; and the sovereign role implicates the substantive foreign policy roles of other actors. The Scottish debate on independence provides an effective laboratory to develop and explore these theoretical dimensions of pre-socialisation, revealing the contested value and meaning of sovereignty, the possible roles that an independent Scotland could play, and the projected implications for the role of the UK and other international actors. Our analysis of the Scottish case can provide insights for other cases of pre-socialisation and is more empirically significant following the UK’s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.

The discursive politics of unconventional gas in Scotland: Drifting towards precaution?

With a long history of oil and gas production and potentially significant reserves of unconventional gas, Scotland represents a notable case amid the growing international controversy over unconventional gas development (UGD). This article applies argumentative discourse analysis to the Scottish debate over UGD and identifies several important storylines which have mobilised different discourse coalitions and shaped public opinion as well as policy-making. For now, anti-UGD storylines appear more encompassing and have achieved greater resonance. Of particular interest, however, is the role of the Scottish government as a third discourse coalition. Through a moratorium on all forms of UGD and a cautious ‘evidence-based approach', the government has established a form of discursive dominance and has successfully minimised electoral risks. But its anti-Westminster storyline – created in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 – has undermined the government's pragmatic strategy by invoking Scottish resistance to the UK’s pursuit of shale gas. While the evidence-based approach persists as the preeminent storyline, its interpretation has ‘drifted’ from (1) a modestly reformed planning policy to (2) an exercise in scientific fact-finding combined with a public consultation and, arguably, (3) to a precautionary approach that might lay the foundation for an extended moratorium.

Encapsulació i estructura informativa en el debat parlamentari. Una anàlisi contrastiva (català – espanyol – anglès)

Parliamentary debate (PD) as a specific genre of parliamentary discourse exhibits a hybrid nature: part oral and part written discourse. It is performed orally, but planned ahead and formal. From the point of view of lexical cohesion, encapsulation by means of abstract and unspecific nouns (e.g. fact or reason) is an indicator of the informative density and the underlying written nature of PD. With the tools provided by Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Linguistics, this paper aims at describing and characterizing cross-linguistically lexical encapsulation’s potential to define the information structure of PD. In this regard, encapsulation is analyzed in relation to the notions of topic and focus in three PDs in Catalan, Spanish and English. In order to determine the contribution of encapsulation to the information structure of PD, we describe the properties of lexical encapsulation as a referential cohesion device and analyze the various lexico-grammatical and discourse patterns in which encapsulators occur. From a cross-linguistic point of view, the results show a higher frequency of encapsulation in the debate in English. In this respect, the Scottish debate exhibits a higher cohesive and informational density than the Catalan and the Spanish ones. However, there has also been observed a homogeneous crosslinguistic behavior of encapsulation with regard to weaving the information structure of PD. In fact, the different usage patterns uncover similar general trends in the three languages. These quantitative coincidences are interpreted as genre related features. On the other hand, some patterns unveil cross-linguistic differences linked to a more speaker-dependent style aiming at guiding the addressee (persuasive function) and to the lexico-grammatical features of each language.

The Political Myth of Margaret Thatcher in Scotland

The article describes and explains the phenomenon of the political myth of Margaret Thatcher – her anti–Scottish attitude and policies and its impact on the process of decomposition of the United Kingdom. The author indicates that the view of Margaret Thatcher’s dominance in Scotland is simplified, stripped of complexity, ignoring significant information conflicting with the thesis, but that also plays an important role in current politics, legitimizing secessionist demands and strengthening the identity of the Scottish community. In the contemporary Scottish debate with its unequivocal defence policy of Thatcher is outside of the discourse, proving its sanctity status. Thatcher could see this special Scottish dimension within the United Kingdom, but treated it rather as a delay in the reforms needed in the country. There are many counterarguments to the validity of the Thatcher myth. Firstly, many negative processes that took place in the 80s were not initiated by Thatcher, only accelerated. Secondly, the Tory decline in popularity in the north began before the leadership of Thatcher and has lasted long after her dismissal. The Conservative Party was permanently seen in Scotland as openly English. Thirdly, there is a lot of accuracy in the opinion that the real division is not between Scotland and England, only between southern England and the rest of the country. Widespread opinion that Thatcher was hostile to Scotland is to a large extent untruthful. She has never retreated radically from any of the Scottish privileges, such as the Barnett formula or the Scottish Development Agency.

The Gothic Origin of Modern Civility: Mandeville and the Scots on Courage

This paper seeks to establish that Bernard Mandeville's ideas on courage and honour shaped the Scottish debate about ancients and moderns by formulating a perspective how eighteenth-century civil societies grew large, luxurious and feminine without losing their ability to wage war. My focus is on Mandeville's positive influence on David Hume, whose writings were a springboard for many Mandevillean ideas in Scotland. In contrast to a recent claim in scholarship, Hume aimed to discredit, instead of developing, Shaftesburyan ideas of ancient courage. The concluding part of the paper will discuss Andrew Millar and Adam Ferguson in this context.

Should We Prescribe Heroin? A Current Scottish Debate.

There have been recent calls from within both Scotland and England for the wider prescription of heroin to heroin addicts as a way of coping with our burgeoning drug problem and as a route to reducing drug related criminality. But how feasible is heroin prescribing in this context? This paper considers some of the existing research evidence relating to heroin prescribing and looks also at the ethics and practicalities of prescribing heroin to heroin addicts in Scotland. We conclude that whilst the evidence on the benefits of heroin prescribing is far from clear cut there is a case for mounting a Scottish trial of heroin prescribing. Such a trial would need to be tightly controlled and rigorously evaluated. It would need to show that heroin prescribing was associated not only with a comparable level of harm reduction, as methadone prescribing, but that it was also an effective route towards drug users' eventual recovery and drug cessation.

Conciliar authority in Reformation Scotland: the example of the Kennedy/Davidson debate, 1558–63

‘For to the most parte of men, lawfull and godlie appeareth whatsoever antiquitie hath received’, complained John Knox in his 1558 First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women – and indeed for Knox and his fellow Protestants, the question of historical pedigree was troublesome. Catholic polemicists frequently posed some form of the question, ‘Where was your Church before Luther?’, and contrasted this problem with their own historical continuity, unbroken since the apostle Peter. Knox’s homeland of Scotland saw comparatively little sixteenth-century theological debate, but as in Reformation disputes on the continent, in Scotland historical superiority was claimed by Catholic and Protestant alike. A useful means of legitimation for either side, as Knox had said, was to demonstrate greater similarity to the primitive Church than one’s opponent. The appeal to superior historical precedent was particularly central to one Scottish debate, the printed theological exchange between Quintin Kennedy and John Davidson, and here it was slightly unusual in that these authors focused on the general council, rather than the papacy or episcopacy, as the means of historical legitimation.

Review: Union, Empire and Explanation

T h e intention of this volume', writes John Robertson in the Preface, 'is to demonstrate that the Union negotiated between Scotland and England in 1707 should be understood within an intellectual as well as a political and economic context, and that it generated a significant body of political thought' (Robertson 1995, p.xiii). In fact the essays which comprise this collection deal with a far longer timescale and wider range of subject matter than this would suggest, stretching from religious realignments in Scotland after the Restoration to the outbreak of the American Revolution. A review of this length cannot therefore do justice to the full range of issues discussed; I will concentrate instead on those aspects which are of most relevance to the Scottish debate on the Union in the late 20th century.

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:English and American Judges as Lawmakers. By L. L. JaffeVenturing to do Justice. By R. E. KeetonThe English Penal System in Transition. By J. E. Hall Williams.Labour Law. By J. B. Cronin and R. P. Grime.Foundations of Wage Policy. By K. S. V. MenonHistory of the Law of Charity 1532–1827. By Gareth JonesWelsh Studies in Public Law. Edited by J. A. AndrewsThe Scottish Debate: Essays on Scottish Nationalism. Edited by Neil MacCormickAsian Contract Law. Edited by David E. AllanContract. By F. R. Davies.The Law of Contract. Third edition. By G. H. Treitel.Sutton and Shannon on Contracts. Seventh edition. Edited by Aubrey L. Diamond, W. R. Cornish, A. S. Grabiner and R. S. Nock.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:The Administrative Process in Britain. By R. S. G. Brown.French politicians and Elections, 1951–1969. By P. M. Williams.Ulster 1969. The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland. By Max Hastings.Fire Over Ulster. By Patrick Riddell.Divided Ulster. By Liam de Paor.Participating in Local Affairs. By Dilys M. Hill.Pages from Memory. By James Griffiths.The Cabinet. By P. Gordon Walker.The Prime Minister. Edited by A. King.The Story of the Cabinet Office. By R. K. Mosley.The Scottish Debate. Edited by N. MacCormick.Tanzania Party Transformation and Economic Development. Expanded Edition. By Henry Bienen.The Commons in Transition. Edited by A. H. Hanson and Bernard Crick for the Study of Parliament Group.The Member of Parliament and his Information. By Anthony Barker and Michael Rush.

The Romance of Libraries

WHERE books are gathered together, there is built an altar to Romance. Alike over the little fireside bookcase and over the high‐piled shelves of the municipal library its spirit hovers. In some places more readily than in others, however, does the book‐lover become immediately and instinctively aware of its presence. No visitor to Edinburgh who crosses Parliament Hall—whether abuzz with talk and thronged with groups of pacing advocates, or silent save for the ghostly voices of old Scottish debate and peopled by the shades of Fletcher of Saltoun, Lord Belhaven, and Chancellor Seafield—and passes thence down the steep narrow stairway to what was once the Laigh Parliament House but is now the National Library, can long remain insensible to the appeal of the place. Are you of the company of the Stevensonians? Wait but a moment and round yonder projecting book‐case will glide the elfin‐shade of R. L. S.—from that table he will pick up a hand‐lantern with its flickering candle and, swinging his vagabond Pharos, will disappear down a dark stairway. Are you a merchant and versed in the ways of mercantile houses? Here they will show you the massive leather‐bound ledgers of the Darien Company, the entries made with the scrupulous artistry of the days when men used the quill‐pen.