Territory, power and Scotland: a review of UK statecraft towards Scotland's secessionist impulse
Creators: name: Johnstone, George
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025

description: Statecraft theory can be found within a narrow body of literature and one of a type that also pays scant regards to Scotland or its secessionist impulse. This thesis helps addresses that gap in the literature. The United Kingdom, by design, is built on a space that has as an inherent feature, competing ideas on sovereignty, national identity, governance, and statehood. These features acquire political potency when a secessionist impulse emerges and starts to dominate the socio-political discourse. Specifically looking at Scotland, its post-1707 history tells of a country often restless at its political settlement, a position that has again taken precedence over recent decades. In the 1960s the country started to record incremental increases in support for independence. This secessionist impulse was sustained sufficiently for Scotland to reach the precipitancy in 2014. Recent decades also indicate a trend for secessionist impulses to be tested by referendums. However, as electoral vehicles referendums and their administration are vulnerable to politically expedient change. There have been three referendums in Scotland, each testing its political relationship with the UK, two focusing on devolution (1979; 1997), and the most recent being the 2014 independence referendum. This thesis reviews how statecraft was employed and engaged with at these points. This thesis investigates how Scottish secessionism has been influenced by internal and external statecraft and for their analysis a combination of process tracing and grid analysis is used. In line with the realist foundation, this thesis posits that the closer a secessionist impulse progresses towards the precipitancy stage, the more likely the state will respond with hard line realist tactics. By definition, the same should apply to the Scotland impulse. TO ths end, Scotland’s secessionist impulse is viewed in line with Wood’s (1981) comparative framework of secession and focus on three parliamentary debates that took place in 1978, 1997, and, 2013. In each case, the referendum franchise was targeted in one way or other, out of political expediency. Added, to gain a wider context, newspaper reportage of each of the debates were also interrogated and similarly reviewed via a statecraft lens. This thesis contributes to ongoing debates in five ways. Firstly, this thesis offers evidence that in its preparation for the 2014 independence referendum, the Scottish government backed an electoral strategy that served only to undermine its chances of victory. Secondly, this research found very limited evidence of newspapers being in favour of any change to the status quo - either through Scottish devolution or independence. Instead, this thesis provides further evidence to support arguments that through Whiggism, the state and newspapers are ideologically aligned. Thirdly, an effect of devolution is the emergence of ‘opposition craft’ where statecraft is practiced contrary to the national interest. The overall effect is that Bulpitt’s (1983) idea on the dual polity may no longer be relevant as an explainer for UK territorial politics and instead, it may be more appropriate to talk of a multi-polity. Fourthly, the Bulpittian perspective is Westminster-centric and does little to explain Scottish politics or politics in Scotland. As such, this thesis also identifies a need for a specifically Scottish perspective on statecraft. Fifth and finally, this thesis used criminalistics to create a model for interrogating multi-person transcripts.