Democracy

What an independent Scotland can learn from Denmark

Author / Creator: Believe in Scotland

Media type: Article

Date published: 2023

Lessons for an Independent Scotland: Denmark


After the Coronation: Understanding the UK as a monarchical state

Author / Creator: Gerry Hassan

Media type: Article

Date published: 2023

The UK’s political system and state are defined by the values of pre-democracy


Sorted. A handbook for a better Scotland

Author / Creator: Commonweal

Media type: book

Date published: 2022

'Sorted' is a vision for a shared future in an independent Scotland.  A future which puts all of us first. It looks at what's possible and describes how we can make independence and Scotland successful.


Political inequality

Author / Creator: B Ansell

Media type: Report

Date published: 2022

Political and economic inequalities are related.


Scottish Independence And The UK Government’s Unreasonable Refusal To Negotiate

Author / Creator: Sionaidh Douglas-Scott

Media type: Article

Date published: 2022

The UK Government’s conduct in refusing to negotiate with Scotland on independence is reprehensible.


Renewing democracy through independence

Author / Creator: Scottish Government

Media type: Report

Date published: 2022

People who live in Scotland have the right to choose how they should be governed 


Arguing for Independence: Evidence, Risk and the Wicked Issues

Author / Creator: Stephen Maxwell

Media type: Book

Date published: 2012

This book offers a case for independence under six main headings


Independence Is Not About Process Politics. It Is About Democracy.

Author / Creator: Gerry Hassan

Media type: Article

Date published: 2022

Referenda talk concentrates on process rather than substance, misses the big picture here of democracy, and overlooks the nuances of public opinion.


Further Devolution Won’t Fix Scotland’s Democratic Malaise

Author / Creator: David Jamieson

Media type: Opinion

Date published: 2022

further devolution is not a meaningful response to Scotland’s democratic impasse.


A Very Modern Mythology

Author / Creator: Jonathon Shafi

Media type: Opinion

Date published: 2022

The appeal of the royal family is in its projection of a reformist ethos, where everything can change, but remain firmly within the bounds of the established order.


Scotland's New Choice: Independence after Brexit

Author / Creator: Eve Hepburn

Media type: eBook

Date published: 2021

 Opportunities and  challenges surrounding the prospect of independence for Scotland in the light of changes since 2014.


The age of British decline begins

Author / Creator: Gerry Hassan

Media type: Opinion

Date published: 2022

The state of democracy in the UK.  There are two strands. The first is the yearning for the firm hand of authority.  The second is a more historical fear of the potential implications of democracy that believes letting people take major decisions is misguided as they may make the 'wrong' decisions.


A Better Nation. The Challenges of Scottish Independence

Author / Creator: Gerry Hassan

Media type: eBook

Date published: 2022

A Better Nation aims to go beyond the superficial divisions and media noise in order to address matters of real substance.


The Queen’s Jubilee Is The Time To Have A Debate About Britain’s Atrophied Democracy

Author / Creator: Gerry Hassan

Media type: Blog

Date published:

The monarch comes from the core of what the Empire State..., and as long as it survives in its present form it validates and reinforces the continuation of the Empire State at home – entrenching the rotten, unreformed political system and culture which continues to fail us.


State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union

Author / Creator: Michael Keating

Date published: 2021

The United Kingdom has often been seen as a unitary nation-state. This book argues that it should be understood as a multi national union in which the key elements of people, state, values and sovereignty are contested.


Contesting the austerity and “welfare reform” narrative of the UK Government: Forging a social democratic imaginary in Scotland

Author / Creator: Jay Wiggan

Date published:

The Scottish government fuses nationalism with social wage and social investment concepts. It conjures up images of a prosperous, community led, egalitarian welfare state as a future reality.  It recuperates “welfare” as a collective endeavour.  It describes austerity as a poor distribution of resources between groups and within the UK as the “problem”.


Scotland, Brexit and Broken Promise of Democracy

Author / Creator: Klaus Stolz

Date published:

The perception of a democratic deficit began in the Thatcher premiership, long before Brexit. Scottish self government came to be positively linked with European intergation.


Brexit, Scotland, and the Continuing Divergence of Politics.

Author / Creator: M K Thompson

Media type: Academic Paper

Date published: 2019

Differences of politics in Scotland and England leads to claims that the Scottish people are being governed against their will.  This creates a constitutional crisis which has manifested in desires for self-government.  Brexit contradicts the 2014 referendum assurances that only by rejecting independence could Scotland stay in the EU.
 


Brexit and the inevitability of Scottish Independence

Author / Creator: Paul Cairney

Media type: Assessment report

Date published:

Only independence can remove the democratic deficit.  Scottish independence is the cosmopolitan choice.  There will be some economic damage, uncertainty, and a new currency.  No has, in some ways, a stronger case in the second referendum but a far lower chance of success: it will lose because there will be no-one out there able to tell the No story.


Minimizing the Cost of Union: Fiscal Autonomy and the Case of Scotland

Author / Creator: Paul Hallwood

Media type: Academic Paper

Date published: 2020

Argues for federalism in public funding where taxation is devolved.  This would improve the link between public finance and democracy.