The Independence Of Scotland

It is not often that a book by an academic political scientist comes with such a bold title. But enthusiasts for Scottish independence should not get too excited. Its author Michael Keating has long been established as a leading analyst of nationalism and regionalism in developed countries and currently holds professorial appointments at the European University Institute in Florence and Aberdeen University. The title notwithstanding, he has not suddenly discarded the intellectual acquis of an academic lifetime to pen a passionate polemic for Scottish independence. Rather his purpose is to locate the movement for Scottish independence in the wider context of globalisation and interdependence.

Keating is sceptical of the conventional explanations for the rise of political Nationalism in Scotland without ever quite deciding what the determining factors are. The decline of British identity based on Empire, relative economic deprivation, divergence of political or social values or in social and economic structures, are all rejected or at least deemed ambivalent in their effects. Nationality itself is discounted with a warning against assuming too close a correlation between self declared identities – Scottish not British, more British than Scottish and so on – with attitudes to Scotland's constitutional options.

The explanation which Keating favours is a version of 'territorial functionalism'. As globalisation has eroded the powers of existing states the locus of decision making has migrated at once upwards to new 'suprastate' entities such as the European Union or global actors such as multinational corporations and downwards to regional territories compelled to mobilise their instituional, social and cultural resources to compete effectively in the new open markets. In some cases these territories may have a national legacy of institutions and culture on which to draw. But while historic boundaries may define the territory, the defence of a national legacy is not the driving force of political development. Keating locates that force in an ambition to create as far as possible within the regional or national territories “global societies containing within them the full range of social institutions and actors rather than ethnic or cultural fragments”. And the new territorial entities are never likely to develop into classical nation states because in the new globalised world economic, cultural and social borders can never be more than approximately aligned. The task for the champions of change is then to develop and implement

a national 'project' of institutional reform which will give their particular society access to the best that global society can offer of culture, economic opportunity and lifestyle choice. And this is likely to be something closer to devolution 'max' than to independence as traditionally understood.

Keating believes that in pursuing this path to empowerment the SNP has so far failed to develop a persuasive and coherent national 'project'. In his contribution to another recently published book The Modern SNP: from Protest to Power (ed. Gerry Hassan Edinburgh University Press) he argues that SNP has “neglected nation building and failed to develop a narrative around identity, collective action, economic development and social solidarity” offering instead a “vision in which the the attainment of statehood itself will resolve its problems, calling in aid the oil wealth when the sums get difficult”.

Keating's analysis offers important insights. Its explanation of contemporary nationalism as an ambition to make the best opportunities afforded by “global society” available within the national territory fits SNP's philosophy of civic multiculturalism and its constant citation of the economic- cultural advantages not to mention the recurring overt and covert subsidies which London receives from its position as the UK's capital and sole global city.

But some other of Keating's judgements are problematic. The claim that sovereignty has no place in an interdependent world rests on the undeniable fact that states increasingly share their sovereign powers in federal, or more often confederal, structures. But that fact does not establish the end of sovereignty. Sovereignty continues to play a critical role in determining the status of peoples and the shape of the global community. A territory which fails to assert its sovereignty compromises its claims to equality of rights in the new structures with existing members and has to resign itself to an assigned and subordinate status. Moreover sovereignty, particularly in its democratic form of popular sovereignty, provides an insurance policy against the failure of the new structures. Thirdly the post sovereignty claim is a generalisation not a rule. It does not prescribe what powers any particular state should possess. Every state has to make its own judgement of where the balance of its interest lies in sharing its decision taking with its neighbours. Even Europe, the favourite hunting ground of the post sovereignty theorists, presents a diversity of inter state relations in monetary, security and trading arrangements, as illustrated by the different positions of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Keating's charge that Scottish nationalism has failed to develop a national project capable of sustaining a movement for radical change in Scotland's constitutional system is less exposed to criticism. Scotland's independence parties agree in promoting Scotland as the powerhouse of Europe's drive for alternative energy, as a key player in the campaign against nuclear proliferation, as an exemplar of multicultural democracy, and as a champion of greater economic equality. But as several contributors to Hassan's new book on the SNP point out the main independence party is caught, like the Labour Party, between the claims of its progressive social heart and the neo-liberalism of its economic head. Until it resolves that conflict Keating's charge that modern Scottish Nationalism lacks a coherent national 'project' stands.

M.Keating The Independence of Scotland Oxford University Press 2009

G. Hassan ed The Modern SNP:from Protest to Power Edinburgh University Press 2009

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