Sovereignty and Nationalism in the Twenty-first Century: The Scottish Case

Entrenchment of unionist nationalism: devolution and the discourse of national identity in Scotland

“…Therefore, according to Jeffrey, the SNP now accepts 'devolution-max' as a second-best option that would nonetheless bring about the almost identical benefits to the Scottish nation (Jeffrey, 2009, 154Á155). This apparent 'change of heart' on the SNP's side is in fact not too surprising, since the SNP has arguably already come to terms with the reality of the high modern age where absolute sovereignty of the state is simply impossible by adopting the 'Independence in Europe' policy (Ichijo, 2004(Ichijo, , 2009. In other words, the Nationalist discursive structure was already reformulated before 1999 in anticipation of some of the consequences of devolution.…”

“…The author has pointed out elsewhere that the contemporary Scottish political discourse has converged to be nationalist in that most of political actors are expressing a nation-centric world view (Ichijo, 2009). This point is corroborated by Murray Leith's examination of Scottish and British documents in that both unionist and Nationalist parties in Scotland recognize Scotland as a nation and the United Kingdom as a state (Leith, 2010, 294).…”

“…The unionists are more nationalist than before in their clear recognition of Scotland as a nation but their commitment to the Union has been reinforced by devolution. This has been made possible because, in the unionist discourse, the supposedly self-evident link between national identity and sovereignty is obscured in a way to suggest that a conceptual separation of nationalism and sovereignty is underway (Ichijo, 2009). In short, it is in the unionist discourse that changes and transformations are taking place, not in the Naitonalists' in today's Scotland.…”

Scottish sovereignty and the union of 1707: Then and now

“…At other times Scotland was ignored in the decisions made by an emergent British polity that presumed a union which did not in fact exist, as with the setting up of a British Fisheries Company in London without consulting the Scottish government (Pittock, 2003a, 176Á177, 180;Macinnes, 1999, 47;Lynch, 1991, 264). The Union of the Crowns created a paradox with respect to Scottish sovereignty: within it Scotland both was and was not a state in the Westphalian sense (Ichijo, 2009).…”

Migration and identity in post-referendum Scotland

“…This view posits identity in concert with crisis, driven by the exigencies of neoliberalism. A range of literature addresses the confluence of national identity, nationalism and citizenship issues (Gellner, 1987: Smith, 2003: Achijo, 2009: Mitchell, 2014, The importance of cultural identity as it would pertain to nation states in particular can be usefully emphasised; "People are not only legal citizens of a nation: they participate in the idea of the nation as represented in its national culture" (Hall 1992 292). As contributors and 'carriers' of national cultures people are therefore seen as reproducing the meanings of 'the nation', sometimes through the creation of solidarities (Frodin 2013).…”