Scottish Parliament Elections Research Articles

Political recruitment and the 2003 Scottish and Welsh elections: candidate selection, positive discrimination and party adaptation

Party candidate selection procedures for Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections, in addition to a traditional concern to recruit effective politicians, have been viewed as a means of bringing in new blood, achieving better female representation, and in Wales at least, promoting ethnic minority representation. Such issues have been felt most keenly by Labour, the nationalist parties and the Liberal Democrats. This article explores the impact of candidate selection procedures on political recruitment at the second set of elections in 2003. As in 1999, there were tensions between party memberships and central party intervention over all of these goals. In 2003, these were resolved with varying degrees of success by the different parties, with party adapation towards greater central intervention being more accepted in the Labour Party than in the nationalist parties, where de‐centralist party traditions remained strong. Overall, a further advance in female representation was the most remarkable feature of political recruitment at the 2003 elections.

Opinion polling in Scotland: an analysisof the 2003 Scottish Parliament election

Opinion polling in Scotland: an analysisof the 2003 Scottish Parliament election

A ‘Wake Up’ Call to the Parties? The Results of the Scottish Parliament Elections 2003

A ‘Wake Up’ Call to the Parties? The Results of the Scottish Parliament Elections 2003

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Reality check: Scottish Executive director of human resources Mark Butler shadows emergency nurse practitioner Anne Grant at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary A&E following the launch of the RCN Nurses Deliver campaign in the run up to the Scottish parliamentary election in 2003.

The Numbers Game – 129 and the Scottish Parliament: Does Size Matter?

To bring the ratio of representation for Scottish Westminster MPs in line with that of their colleagues south of the Border, the Boundary Commission's report of February 2002 suggests reducing the number of Westminster constituencies in Scotland from 72 to 59 (MacLeod and Brady 2002). According to the Scotland Act of 1998, this would mean an automatic reduction of the number of both directly elected and list MSPs at Holyrood, effective as from the Scottish Parliament elections of 2007. Some authors have accepted this without questioning (McFadden and Lazarowicz 2000, p.21; Curtice 1998, p.41).

Politics and nationalism in Scotland: a Clydeside case study of identity construction

Abstract This article examines constructions of Scottish national identity and nationalist identity politics on Clydeside, focusing on the constituency of Paisley South. Seen as a ‘transition zone’ in Scotland’s political geography, I focus on the place-specific constructions of Scottish identity and one of its political expressions, nationalism, in the period between the September 1997 devolution referendum and the May 1999 Scottish Parliamentary elections. Using contemporary archival sources, statistical survey research and qualitative interviews, this article explores the construction of Scottish national identity in the area along three inter-related dimensions: class, nationality and culture, drawing on Paasi’s framework of region-construction to examine the role geography plays in this process, and the political effects and tensions created. I use work by Tom Nairn and Anthony Smith to argue that Scottish nationalism on Clydeside illustrates the problems of the simple ethnic-civic theorization of nation-construction and discourses that rely on a post-national understanding of identity politics. Instead, I suggest that we need to conceptualize Scottish nationalism in a different way: as a neo-nationalist movement that is having to adapt to locally-specific conditions and broader trends to construct Scotland as a geographically-coherent entity in the post-devolution era.

The Cultural and Commercial Representation of Scotland in Europe

I RESERVED SUBJECTS: THE CRUMBLING WALL? 'Interesting times', as in the old Chinese curse, confront the Labour party in Scotland. In late 2000 it looked as if it would consolidate its control of Scottish politics at the forthcoming Westminster elections, yet its reversal of fortune at the Falkirk by-election on 21 December makes their long-term implications for Scotland more difficult to call. The next Scottish Parliament elections are due, ineluctably, in May 2003, when there's likely to be a severe case of mid-term blues. So there is a good chance that the present LabourLiberal Executive (or 'Government' since 9 January) will try to strengthen its position by stressing the 'process' aspect of devolution, in order to avoid losing power to the SNP, in coalition with the Liberals, Greens or Scottish Socialists. Should the trend of the Falkirk by-election and subsequent local contests continue, however, even this might not work: the SNP could be the largest single party in the parliament. If the oil price rises (though this isn't easy to predict: it could be lowered by a severe US recession), it will have an important weapon to hand. Even sections of a Lib-Lab Government may invoke greater autonomy against any attempt to reduce Scotland's financial entitlement under the Barnett formula, and also to force greater concessions on other subjects. One central area of these will almost inevitably involve reassessing Scotland's links with British foreign representation, a 'reserved subject' in which the UK view is supposed to take cognisance of Scottish interests, but in practice has only done so in specific areas. The moralistic objections of the Scots elite to Nato and its 'weapons of mass destruction' have already been

Harbingers of new politics? The characteristics and attitudes of candidates in the Scottish parliament elections, 1999

Harbingers of new politics? The characteristics and attitudes of candidates in the Scottish parliament elections, 1999

Devolution and party change: Candidate selection for the 1999 Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly elections

The article analyses the candidate selection procedures of each of the major parties in the run‐up to the 1999 Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections, assessing the extent to which they reveal developments in party democratisation and decentralisation on the one hand, and evidence of countervailing central control on the other. Procedural innovations achieved greater openness in candidate nomination and gender balance in candidatures but developments in democratisation were contested and evidence of decentralisation was mixed. Surveys of candidates reveal a perception in the Labour Party that there was too much central influence, although its implications differed in Scotland and Wales. There were perceptions of unfairness and lack of internal democracy in the other parties as well, suggesting in particular a contradiction between central influence in all of the parties’ approaches to list selection and candidates’ expectations of such influence diminishing. Devolution, therefore, released tensions in all parties.

The state of two nations: An analysis of voting in the Scottish parliament and welsh assembly elections 1999

The following article compares and contrasts the elections for the recently devolved Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales.

Candidate selection, devolution and modernization: The selection of labour party candidates for the 1999 Scottish parliament and welsh assembly elections

Describes the selection of Labour Party candidates for the 1999 Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections.

Opinion Polls in Scotland July 1998 - June 1999

Opinion polls are not precision instruments, although they are frequently taken by newspapers and their readers to be such. Polls are, however, fairly crude devices for charting the general trends in public opinion as it forms and shifts around the major issues of the day. In recent years, polls have made the news as much as reflected it, as newspapers and political parties have tried to measure, and thus influence, public opinion. There has been no shortage of polls this year, in the run-up to the first Scottish parliamentary election. System Three has continued to carrv out its monthly nolline for The Herald supplemented by two in April just ahead of the May election. Its blockbuster poll of mid-April (with a sample size of 3255, three times the normal) headlined by The Herald as 'SNP in freefail' * appeared to have an independent effect on party endeavours and secminelv brought about a change in SNP strategy in the final three weeks of the campaign. T h e Scotsman's pollsters, ICM, carried out fourteen polls between July 1998 and May 1999 for The Scotsman and its sister paper Scotland on Sunday. Polls for The Herald's new sister paper, The Sunday Herald were carried out by MORI.

The 1999 Scottish Parliament Elections: From anti-Tory to anti-Nationalist politics

The 1999 Scottish Parliament Elections: From anti-Tory to anti-Nationalist politics

The Scottish Parliament Elections 1999: an Analysis of the Results

The Scottish Parliament Elections 1999: an Analysis of the Results

A reply to Michael Dyer

Employing the Additional Member System for Scottish Parliament elections is an insurance policy for the Labour Party against the SNP says John Curtice.