Scottish Parliament Elections Research Articles

Scottish Parliament Elections: ‘British Not Scottish’ Or ‘More Scottish Than British’?

Scottish Parliament Elections: ‘British Not Scottish’ Or ‘More Scottish Than British’?

English national parties in post-devolution UK

The introduction of devolved political institutions to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales created a two-fold asymmetrical constitutional system across the United Kingdom, a system from which England was excluded. But, has this exclusion, along with the SNP victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, the Brown premiership and the reluctance among the main UK-wide parties to be seen to promote Englishness and England, or to support the creation of an English Parliament, provided fertile ground for the growth of English national party politics? Given these conditions, an examination of the current state of English national parties and whether a single party has been able to rise to prominence, in a fairly crowded field, tells much about the nature of smaller party politics in the United Kingdom. This article reports the results of recent research exploring the politics, policies and organisation of English nationalist parties, and examines the nature of their nationalism to assess the contribution made to party politics in England. The research from which this article is drawn is funded by the Leverhulme Trust under grant numberF/094/AP.

Rejected ballot papers in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election: The voters’ perspective

Although there were a number of other administrative problems, the unusually large number of ballots rejected in the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections attracted considerable media interest and comment and provoked a special enquiry by the Electoral Commission. It is generally accepted that the new design of the ballot paper was the major factor in causing problems and that these problems were greatest in less well-off areas. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the views and perceptions of electors, especially with reference to the question of the legitimacy of elections. Analysis of specially collected survey data shows that the voters recognised that there were serious problems in the elections and, although offering a variety of explanations, tended to blame the authorities. Trust in the fairness of the electoral process has been reduced by the experience and this may result in reduced voter participation in future.

An Opposing View of Scotland's Ballot Paper Problem: Arbuthnott and the Government had the Right Idea

The May 2007 Scottish Parliament election used a different ballot format from the one used in the previous elections, one that combined the regional and constituency votes onto one ballot paper (two separate papers were used before). Because there were many more invalid votes in 2007, the problem was blamed on the two‐vote ballot paper, which was recommended by the Arbuthnott Commission to prevent misunderstandings about what the two votes were for. Other places that use the mixed‐member proportional (MMP) electoral system tend to use a two‐vote ballot paper, with Germany and New Zealand seeing low levels of invalid votes. While the decision to revert to two separate papers in future Scottish Parliament elections might reduce the number of invalid votes, the price could be more confusion about the proportional nature of the electoral system unless public education improves significantly.

Disaggregating the electoral roll

Following their ‘wipe-out’ at the 1997 General Election, Scottish Conservatives worked from the assumption that they had endured their own ‘crisis’ in representation. The material consequences of this ‘crisis’ entailed losses of !nancial and other resources, knowledge and political legitimacy. This article describes how some Conservative activists addressed this ‘crisis’ in the period leading to the 2003 local Government and Scottish Parliament elections. Their efforts to render the secret ballot transparent in order to discern the voting intentions of potential supporters both demonstrated and re!ected their efforts to manage this crisis. Despite legal constraints, they constructed an imaginary of thousands of local voters’ preferences through a variety of discursive instruments, which allowed Party activists to disaggregate the electoral roll in order to apprehend a new whole – the Conservative electoral base. This, in turn, enabled a Conservative politics of self-knowledge, as a form of empowerment for these activists.

The unfortunate natural experiment in ballot design: The Scottish Parliamentary elections of 2007

The 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections were notable for the extensive variation across constituencies in rejected ballots (ranging from 1.90% to 12.09%). This paper uses an unfortunate natural experiment to identify the influence of ballot design on the occurrence of rejected ballots, or ‘residual votes’. In two electoral regions, visual prompts were removed and instructions were abbreviated on the (already poorly designed) ballot papers. Using zero-truncated negative binomial regression to model total residual votes as well as constituency and regional undervotes and overvotes, we find clear evidence that these changes made a major contribution to the extent of residual votes in constituencies within those regions. The findings emphasise that ballot design is not a trivial subject that can be neglected by electoral administrators.

The 2007 Scottish Elections: a Dark Day for Participatory Democracy

The Scottish Parliament election of May 2007, held during the anniversary of the 1707 Treaty of Union, produced the first Scottish government whose explicit mandate was to break up the United Kingd...

Mass, Cadre or Franchise Parties? Assessing Scotland’s Local Party Organizations

This article assesses Scotland’s constituency party organizations. In particular, it examines the level of membership and societal penetration evident in Scotland’s party organizations, and aims to place this in comparative perspective. It also examines Scottish local parties in relation to party organizational models that have the grassroots as their focus, and suggests that Scottish local party organizations demonstrate a broad convergence around the “modern cadre” party model of Koole (1994). The first section outlines a number of important themes within the party organization literature and provides an overview of the data utilized, primarily an extensive survey of Scottish constituency parties carried out in the aftermath of the 2003 Scottish parliament election. Part two examines the development of party membership and societal penetration in Scottish constituencies and places Scotland comparatively. The third part examines intra‐party politics, while the fourth moves on to discuss candidate selection. The fifth section outlines the resources and organizational coverage of local parties. The concluding discussion assesses the quantitative and qualitative aspects of party organizational models and their applicability in relation to grassroots party organization in Scotland.

The Use of the Internet by Political Parties and Candidates in the 2007 Scottish Parliament Election

This paper reports the results of a study which investigated the use of the Internet by political parties and individual candidates as part of their campaigns for election to the Scottish Parliament in 2007. This was a comparative, follow-up study to one conducted prior to the previous Scottish Parliamentary election in 2003. Two methodologies were used in gathering data. Firstly, the content of the websites of 27 political parties and 12 individual candidates was analysed to identify the ways in which political participation by the Scottish public was encouraged via the provision of information and of opportunities for interaction, debate and feedback. Secondly, a series of email enquiries, based around key policy issues, was directed at political parties and individual candidates, to measure the speed and extent of response, as well as any efforts made towards the creation of an ongoing relationship with potential voters. The results indicate that the Internet was used mainly for the dissemination of information and ideas rather than for their exchange.

Community Politics? Grassroots Liberal Democrats and the 2003 Scottish Parliament Elections

The Liberal Democrats have become synonymous with the idea of ‘community politics’. This means being active in communities between elections in order to build a profile from which the party benefits at subsequent elections. This article examines the constituency organisation of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in order to ask how deserved the reputation for ‘community politics’ is in the Scottish context. It assesses how extensive the party organisation is, and how active that organisation is both between and during election campaigns. The first section of the article assesses the importance of local parties. The second section examines the extent of Scottish Liberal Democrat membership and societal penetration. The third and fourth sections address levels of activity between and during elections. The article concludes with a short assessment of the implications for the party.

STV GOES TARTAN: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF ITS USE IN THE 2007 SCOTTISH LOCAL ELECTIONS

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. A commission established jointly by the Scottish Executive and the Scotland Office to consider the implications of having different boundaries for Scottish Parliament and House of Commons elections also gave serious consideration to recommending STV (Arbuthnott 2006 Arbuthnott, Sir J. chmn. 2006. Putting citizens first: Boundaries, voting and representation in Scotland, Edinburgh: The Stationery Office. [Google Scholar]). However, it eventually came down in favour of trying to improve the existing AMS system rather than switching to STV at this stage at least. 2. However, we should note that the incidence of spoilt votes fell back to 2.1 per cent in the 2005 Northern Irish elections, which were once again held on the same day as a UK general election (Electoral Office for Northern Ireland 2005 electoral office for northern ireland. 2005. General statistics, 2005 local government election Available online at www.eoni.org.uk [Google Scholar]). 3. In contrast the introduction of a new ballot paper for the Scottish Parliament election caused considerable confusion. No less than 4 per cent of the constituency votes and a little under 3 per cent of the list votes cast in that election were ruled invalid (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6637387.stm). 4. For example, in the 2001 general election, just 0.3 per cent of the votes in Scotland were ruled invalid, and in 2005, 0.4 per cent. In the first two Scottish Parliament elections these figures were 0.4 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively (Curtice and Fisher 2003 Curtice, J. and Fisher, S. 2003. Scottish Parliament Election 2003: Analysis of turnout, Edinburgh: Electoral Commission. Available online at www.electoralcommission.org.uk [Google Scholar]; Rallings and Thrasher 2005 Rallings, C. and Thrasher, M. 2005. The 2005 general election: Analysis of the results, London: Electoral Commission. Available online at www.electoralcommission.org.uk [Google Scholar]). 5. The author is conducting a survey based study of voting behaviour in the local and parliamentary election in collaboration with David McCrone (Edinburgh) and Michael Marsh (Trinity College, Dublin) as part of the 2007 Scottish Social Attitudes survey.

‘A Historic Moment’? The Results Of The Scottish Parliament Elections 2007

‘A Historic Moment’? The Results Of The Scottish Parliament Elections 2007

The Smooth Wooing: The SNP's Victory in the 2007 Scottish Parliament Elections

Shambles, drama, suspense . . . the 2007 Scottish parliament election had it all. There was the fiasco of more than 140,000 spoiled ballot papers, the intrigue of whether Scotland really was marching on to independence, and the cliffhanger of the final result when the SNP beat Labour by just one seat That alone was history the first time Labour had foiled to win the biggest haul of seats and votes in Scotland since 19SS. So too was the aftermath the first Scottish National Party government in British political history. True, it was a minority government, but it was a government with the keys to Bute and St Andrews House nonetheless. How this came about will be the subject of much research and debate for years to come.

Forging the compact of church and state in the development of Catholic education in late nineteenth-century Scotland

Introduction: the contexts of Catholic schooling As post-devolution Scotland passes the milestone of a third Scottish parliamentary election, the question of state-suppo rted Catholic education, and the peculiar nature of the 1918 UK l egislation that underpins it, is once again the subject of intense scrutiny. Emboldened by devolution and fuelled by a wave of progressive UK and European law concerned with issues of equality and diversity , opponents of separate Catholic schools have renewed their demands for the provisions of the 1918 Act to be reviewed or, indee d, abolished. With the ninetieth anniversary of the passage of the Act approaching, influential commentators from across the political spectrum have argued that its principal terms reflect the social and religious controversies of a distant era, increasingly incong ruent with the inclusive culture of a multiethnic and mostly secul ar twenty-first century Scotland. 1 The character and scale of the objections currentl y levelled at the continued existence of Catholic sch ools in Scotland suggests that reconsideration of the transactions b etween Church and State that led to the signing of the 1918 Act is pe rhaps overdue ‐ especially as a realignment of the relationship bet ween the two forces seems currently to be well advanced. This article examines a particular phase in the rel ationship between the Catholic Church and the Scottish state authorit ies with reference to the development and reform of the Catholic schools system leading up to the watershed settlement of the 1918 Education A ct. It analyses the collaboration of Church and State in the context of wider developments in the culture of Scottish education in the period 1872‐1918, focusing particularly on the experience of Glasgow and the e mergence there of a fully state-supported network of Catholic schools. It brings to bear on the material from this period an interpretation tha t places greater emphasis than previous studies on wider state attit udes to institutional religion and changing perceptions of the role of Ch urches in the provision of mass education in a modern society. Th e concordat struck between the Scottish authorities and the Catholic C hurch in Scotland regarding the governance of schools in the early pa rt of the twentieth

‘The Settled Will of the Scottish People’: What is Next for Scotland's Parliaments?

Following a likely relative shift from Labour to SNP in the Scottish Parliament elections of 3 May 2007 the eight year Labour/Liberal Democratic Party coalition will come under great pressure and may be replaced by a minority administration or a Liberal Democrat/SNP coalition. While the independence issue may be sidelined, key constitutional issues will arise as a result of the Liberal Democrats' proposals featuring in Moving Towards Federalism which envisage greater legislative and taxation powers for the Scottish Parliament and a reconsideration of the devolution settlement. A number of weaknesses in the documents' proposals are identified. If it is acted upon there is the possibility of considerable resulting constitutional conflict arising which could pose considerable challenges for the future of the UK. The UK government which has actual competence on these issues has largely stayed silent on them during the campaign but may have to respond sensitively in its aftermath.

‘Post-Modern’ Campaigning? Constituency Party Activities in the 2003 Scottish Parliament Elections

‘Post-Modern’ Campaigning? Constituency Party Activities in the 2003 Scottish Parliament Elections

The Scottish Parliament, Democracy and Adult Education

It is true that the Scottish parliament has failed to live up to public expectations. This is partly as a result of high initial hopes, a hostile media, but also a real sense of failure of the institution to make a difference to people's lives. In the most recent Scottish parliamentary election in 2003, just under 50 per cent of the electorate took the trouble to vote a decline of about 9 per cent since the first election in 1999 (Denver 2003). Quite surprisingly, however, the common response to disappointment with the parliament is to demand it be given more political power not less (McCrone 2005).

Exploring Variations in Turnout: Constituencies and Wards in the Scottish Parliament Elections of 1999 and 2003

Elections for the Scottish Parliament and for all Scottish local authorities were held on the same day in 1999 and 2003, allowing a more detailed exploration of turnout variations than has been possible before. On both occasions, turnout in the two sets of elections was almost identical so that reported ward turnout at local level also indicates ward turnout in the parliament elections. Parliamentary turnout is analysed at both constituency and ward levels. The latter gives us greater confidence in the constituency results and also suggests some relationships which are not apparent at constituency level. The strongest determinant of turnout is consistently found to be the proportion of adults with a degree; religious affiliation, here analysed for the first time at the aggregate level, is also strongly related to turnout.

‘The Last Post’ For First-Past-The-Post? The 2003 Scottish Council Elections

The third round of elections for the 32 unitary Scottish local councils established in 1995 took place on May 1st 2003. As in the previous round in 1999, these were held on the same day as the Scottish Parliament elections. Whereas in Wales council elections were postponed in order to avoid a clash with elections for the National Assembly, the Scottish Executive apparently took the view that the inevitable overshadowing of the local elections by the Parliament elections was a price worth paying in order to secure the likely benefit of a higher local turnout than would otherwise be the case.

Electing the First Parliament

Theory regarding turnout in elections suggests that voters are more likely to vote when their vote could be decisive. The article provides a generalized test of the relationship between the likelihood of turning out and the closeness of elections. Data are single-member district (firstpast-the-post) and regional (party list) constituency-level results from the Scottish Parliament election of 1999. Scotland provides an excellent case because the 1999 Scottish Parliament was elected using a combination of single-member districts, plus an additional member, regional list alternative vote system. In addition, the Scottish Parliament election was characterized by regional, multiparty competition. Controlling for other factors, the article finds that closeness counts and relates to higher levels of voter participation in the Scottish Parliament elections. This finding holds for single-member district (first-past-the-post) constituencies and additional member regional lists.