Table Of ContentThe
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FROM PROTEST TO POWER
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Edited by GERRY HASSAN
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The Scottish National Party has played a
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significant role in the politics of Scotland in the
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last 40 years. In particular it has contributed to,
and shaped the impact and dynamics of,
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devolution. This collection brings together R
academics, writers, commentators and analysts O
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of Scottish politics to address the nature of the
SNP: its position in Scotland, its influence on P
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devolution, its role as a minority administration
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and its relationship with other institutions in T
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Scotland, the United Kingdom and Europe. S
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Gerry Hassan is a writer, researcher and T
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commentator on Scottish and UK politics and
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policy. He is the author or editor of over a dozen
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books in the last decade on Scottish and UK W
politics, including The Scottish Labour Party E
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(Edinburgh University Press, 2004), The Political
Guide to Modern Scotland (2004) and After Blair:
Politics after the New Labour Decade (2006). GEREdite
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S
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ISBN 978 0 7486 3991 5 A
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Cover images courtesy of The Scotsman Publications Ltd
Cover design: Michael Chatfield
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Edinburgh University Press d
22 George Square inb
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The Modern Snp
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The Modern SNP
From Protest to Power
Edited by Gerry Hassan
Edinburgh University Press
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To Tom Nairn, Nigel Smith and Jean Urquhart –
for their inspiration, grace and principle
© in this edition Edinburgh University Press, 2009
© in the individual contributions is retained by the authors
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in Goudy by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
Athenaeum Press Ltd, Gateshead
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 3990 8 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 3991 5 (paperback)
The right of the contributors to be identifi ed as authors of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Notes on the Contributors vii
1. The Making of the Modern SNP: From Protest to Power
Gerry Hassan 1
2. The Early Years: From the Inter-War Period to the Mid-1960s
Richard Finlay 19
3. From Breakthrough to Mainstream: The Politics of Potential
and Blackmail
James Mitchell 31
4. Women’s Political Representation and the SNP: Gendered
Paradoxes and Puzzles
Fiona Mackay and Meryl Kenny 42
5. Devolution, the SNP and the Electorate
John Curtice 55
6. Who are the SNP Members?
James Mitchell, Robert Johns and Lynn Bennie 68
7. The SNP and the Scottish Parliament: The Start of a New Sang?
Colin Mackay 79
8. The SNP and Westminster
Isobel Lindsay 93
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The Modern SNP
9. SNP Economic Strategy: Neo-Liberalism with a Heart
Jim Cuthbert and Margaret Cuthbert 105
10. Social Justice and the SNP
Stephen Maxwell 120
11. The SNP, Cultural Policy and the Idea of the ‘Creative
Economy’
Philip Schlesinger 135
12. The Auld Enemies: Scottish Nationalism and Scottish Labour
Gerry Hassan 147
13. The Journey from the 79 Group to the Modern SNP
David Torrance 162
14. The SNP and UK Relations
Alex Wright 177
15. Degrees of Independence: SNP Thinking in an International
Context
Eve Hepburn 190
16. Nationalist Movements in Comparative Perspective
Michael Keating 204
Index 219
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Notes on the Contributors
Lynn Bennie is Senior Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics
and International Relations, School of Social Science, University of
Aberdeen. Her research interests include elections and political parties,
environmental politics and political participation. She is the co-author
of How Scotland Votes (1997) and author of Understanding Political
Participation: Green Party Membership in Scotland (2004).
John Curtice is Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, Research
Consultant with the Scottish Centre for Social Research, Deputy Director
of the Centre for Research and Social Trends (CREST) and Director of
the Social Statistic Laboratory. His publications include Has Devolution
Delivered? (2006) and Devolution – Scottish Answers to Scottish Questions
(2003), along with several studies of UK politics and voting, including
The Rise of New Labour (2001), Labour’s Last Chance? (1994) and How
Britain Votes (1985).
Jim Cuthbert studied mathematics, economics and statistics at Glasgow
University and then took a D.Phil. at Sussex University in probability
theory. After lecturing in statistics at Glasgow University, he joined the
United Kingdom civil service in 1974 and worked in statistics in the
Scottish Offi ce and the Treasury. He was latterly Scottish Offi ce Chief
Statistician. After leaving the civil service in 1997, he has pursued a
number of interests, including research and consultancy. His research is
particularly in the areas of Scotland’s public fi nances and the Scottish
economy, and in certain aspects of purchasing power parities. Much of
this research has been produced in collaboration with his wife, Margaret
Cuthbert. Copies of most of the papers they have co-authored since
1997 can be found on their website at www.cuthbert1.pwp.blueyonder.
co.uk
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The Modern SNP
Margaret Cuthbert is an independent researcher whose major area of
research has been public expenditure in Scotland. She edited and con-
tributed to Public Expenditure in Scotland, one of the few economics texts
on Scotland written in the period after the fi rst devolution referendum.
With Jim Cuthbert she worked for a number of years on the philosophy
underpinning the determination of government expenditure and revenues
in Scotland (GERS), and on the improvement of the GERS data and
analysis. Current work includes critiques of the private fi nance initiative,
of devolved and reserved spending and their associated powers, and of free
care for the elderly.
Richard Finlay is Professor of Scottish History and Head of Department
at the University of Strathclyde. He is the author of Independent and Free:
Scottish Politics and the Origins of the SNP 1918–1945 (1994) and Modern
Scotland 1914–2000 (2004). He is currently working on Anglo-Scottish
relations since the Union of 1707.
Gerry Hassan is a writer, broadcaster and commentator on Scottish and UK
politics and the author and editor of numerous books and publications. His
books include The Scottish Labour Party: History, Institutions and Ideas (2004)
and After Blair: British Politics after the New Labour Decade (2007). He is a
Senior Research Associate at Demos and was head of their Scotland 2020
and Glasgow 2020 programmes leading to the publications Scotland 2020:
Hopeful Stories for a Northern Nation (2005) and The Dreaming City: Glasgow
2020 and the Power of Mass Imagination (2007). He is a Honorary Research
Fellow at Glasgow Caledonian University, an associate editor with the ideas
journal Renewal and a frequent contributor in the Scottish and UK media.
Gerry can be contacted at www.gerryhassan.com
Eve Hepburn is a Leverhulme Fellow in Politics at the University of
Edinburgh. She is Co-editor of Regional and Federal Studies and Academic
Coordinator of the ECPR Standing Group on Federalism and Regionalism.
Her research explores the dynamics of regional party systems, multi-level
governance, and nationalist parties in Europe and Canada. She has
authored Using Europe: Territorial Strategies in a Multi-level System (2010),
edited New Challenges for Stateless Nationalists and Regionalists (special
issue of Regional and Federal Studies, 2009) and published several articles
in journals such as West European Politics, Cambridge Journal of Regions,
Economy and Society and German Politics.
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Notes on the Contributors
Robert Johns is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Strathclyde. His
research is in the fi elds of political psychology and electoral behaviour, and
he has recently worked on major survey studies of the Scottish e lectorate
and Scottish National Party members.
Michael Keating is Professor of Politics at the European University Institute
in Florence and at the University of Aberdeen. Between 1988 and 1999
he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario
and before that was Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde. He
has taught in England, France, the United States and Spain. Author of
numerous books and articles on European politics, nationalism, regional-
ism and public policy, his most recent book is The Independence of Scotland
(2009) and a second edition of his book The Government of Scotland will
be published by Edinburgh University Press in 2010.
Meryl Kenny is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Politics
and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Current
research focuses on feminist and new institutional theory and gender and
political recruitment in the United Kingdom. Her recent publications
include articles in Politics and Gender, Scottish Affairs and Politics.
Isobel Lindsay was a national offi ce-bearer of the SNP during the 1970s and
1980s. She was Convener of the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament and an
executive member of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. Lecturer in
Sociology at the University of Strathclyde until she retired, she is currently
Vice-Chair of Scottish CND and Convener of Scotland’s for Peace.
Colin Mackay has been Political Editor for seven of Scotland’s biggest
commercial radio stations since 1999. Previously he worked for the BBC
producing Good Morning Scotland and Good Morning Ulster. After the
fi rst Scottish Parliament election Colin took up his current post covering
Holyrood for Radio Clyde, Forth, Northsound, Tay, Westsound, Border,
and Moray Firth Radio. He is also a regular political commentator on
television. He was IRN reporter of the year in the 2007 and his election
coverage has won two gold medals at the New York Radio Festival.
Fiona Mackay is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Edinburgh.
Current research focuses on gender and constitutional change in the UK.
She co-authored Women, Politics and Constitutional Change (2007), authored
Love and Politics (2001), and co-edited The Changing Politics of Gender Equality
in Britain (2002) and Women and Contemporary Scottish Politics (2001).
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