News and opinion

Coree Brown Swan and Daniel Cetrà, Fellows at the Centre on Constitutional Change, reflect on how Unionist voices have made the case for state unity during the Covid19 pandemic. 

What is the purpose of institutions in multinational states? Drawing on the experience of Quebec and Canada, Karlo Basta, University of Edinburgh, examines institutions as symbols, expressing specific visions of the state and the nature of the community it encompasses. 

Is devolution problematic to crisis management? In this guest blog, Jim Gallagher provides an overview of the UK and devolved governments' approach to COVID-19, and discusses how the pandemic is likely to impact upon devolution in the UK.

As the Scottish Government finally publishes a strategy for emerging from lockdown, it has been able to hold on to the maximum time and benefit from full restrictions. Richard Parry discusses how the tide has turned throughout the UK in favour of relaxations as governments try to control future events while being forced to justify their earlier decisions

Scottish politics is stuck in a constitutional rut in which issues are viewed through a narrow independence/Union prism. James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh argues that we have become obsessed with whether devolved policies are designed to undermine or sustain the union, perhaps we need to refocus on some of the basic policy-making questions and issues.

As the devolved administrations show increasing confidence in charting their own course, Richard Parry reviews a crucial few days in the UK's response to the virus.

Jack Sheldon and Michael Kenny consider why Boris Johnson’s televised address on a phased approach to easing lockdown has sparked public disagreements with the devolved governments, and the implications these differences might have for future relations between the governments of the UK.  

Richard Parry discusses the varied responses to the pandemic between the devolved nations in the UK and beyond, and what this tells us about the relationship between the political system and expert advice.

In a recent article for Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Coree Brown Swan (University of Edinburgh) and Daniel Cetrà (University of Aberdeen) compare unionism and nationalism in the UK and Spain. In this blog they've given us a teaser of what you can expect.