News and opinion

As an epic year for global public policy reaches its end, Richard Parry discusses the way that the pandemic has impacted other aspects of the political cycle. 

Ross Bond, University of Edinburgh, examines the demographic structure and history of Scotland, and the attitudes, identities and experiences of its people.

David McCrone analyses the politics of national identity in Scotland comparing it to England's sense of national identity for his chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Scottish Politics.

Michael Keating, University of Aberdeen, discusses requirements for small states to thrive, arguing that small states do equally or better than larger states.

It is commonplace in Britain to identify a “political class”, out of touch with the general population. It was promised that the Scottish Parliament would broaden recruitment of MSPs, becoming more representative to class, ethnicity, gender, education and former careers. But, Michael Keating, University of Aberdeen, and Paul Cairney, University of Stirling, argue that we have not seen such a divergence between MSPs and MPs.

Richard Parry discusses the way that the 2019 UK General Election bucked the trend for surprise results.

Instead of focusing on the success of the SNP, we should compare the Labour and Conservative vote share in Scotland and England since 1945, states David McCrone, University of Edinburgh.

Malcolm Harvey, University of Aberdeen, provides a rundown of the general election results in Scotland, asking is this the new norm?

Richard Parry assesses the prospects of Boris Johnson’s surpassing the electoral achievements of David Cameron and Theresa May.