"New Politics" in Scotland

Résumé du document

What does “New Politics” mean and what evidence is there for it?

From the late 1980s, the Campaign for Scottish Parliament was gaining an increasing power throughout Scotland. In fact, a long spell of dissatisfaction under Thatcher's rule, the awareness of a disjuncture between Scottish and English political demands, or a strengthening feeling of Scottishness over Britishness are explanations to this increasing support to the idea of a Scottish Parliament. In 1989 all this led to the launch of the Scottish Constitutional Convention which mobilised the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties as well as a broad part of Scottish civil society including local government, trades unions or the voluntary sector to plan the future Scottish Parliament and its future way of operating. It emerged from this the idea of a necessary “new politics” by opposition of the “old politics” from Westminster. Thus in its 1995 report, the Convention claims its hope “that the coming of a Scottish Parliament will usher in a way of politics that is radically different from the rituals of Westminster; more participative, more creative, less confrontational – a culture of openness which will enable the people to see how decisions are being taken in their name, and why” (Brown citing the Scottish Constitutional Convention's report, 2000:35). These idea was still present in the work of the Consultative Steering Group set up in 1998 after the referendum whose purpose was to recommend “standing orders and procedures to the new politicians once elected to the parliament in1999” (Brown, 2000:36). But as Keating highlights it, the meaning of new politics was not clearly spelt out and only defined by contrast with Westminster's politics (Keating, 2005:13).
So it brings to question the notion of “new politics” and to what extent this concept is implemented in today Scottish politics. In a first part, one will try to define precisely the notion of “new politics” in the Scottish context. Then, one will try to analyse the three key points of “new politics” (consensualism, working parliament, power-sharing democracy) in the Scottish political context to find to what extent they are implemented.

Extraits

[...] Yet the feasibility and consistency of all the expectations contained in the words politics” may be questioned. Bibliography Arter, D. (2004) Scottish committees and the goal of a Politics': verdict on the first four years of the devolved Scottish parliament”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, April 2004, vol no pp. 71-91 Brown, A. (2000), Scotland: the Challenge of Devolution, in A. Wright “Scottish politics after the election: towards Scottish political system?”, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.32-45. Cairney, P. (2006a), Lectures'notes of weeks http://www.abdn.ac.uk/pir/courses/level3/PI3546.php Cairney, P. [...]

[...] Yet saying to what extent this politics” has been implemented in Scotland since Devolution is difficult. Obviously, one can find evidence of it through the work of the committees, the effects of the new electoral system, the higher involvement of Scottish society with petitions, forum However all pieces of evidence of a new political style in Scotland must be qualified because of constraints, old practices Therefore, all that can be said is that there is evidence of new politics in Scotland but there is also evidence of old Westminster's political style remainder. [...]

[...] This suggests that the executive shows a healthy respect for the centrality of committees to legislative scrutiny. It does not try to subvert committee process. Moreover, the figures on substantive executive success at stage three suggest that at least as much time is spent addressing MSP committee concerns as introducing new amendments and whilst this effect is less apparent at stage two, still a significant number of amendments are introduced to address committee concerns raised at stage one. Then, at stage two, party influences clearly dominate the results on amendments which go to vote, but more importantly, there is evidence of some consensual relations between legislature and executive proved by the number of exchanged withdrawals by Labour MSPs and by opposition MSPs. [...]

[...] Thus the new politics envisioned by the Scottish Constitutional Convention and the Steering Scottish Group would has been implemented (Cairn, 2006a). But the Labour party chose to form a majority coalition with the Liberal Democrats. There has been a strong cultural presumption against minority government in Labour ranks (Arter, 2004:13). Therefore the policy style of the Scottish Parliament became similar to Westminster's with a governing coalition of two parties with numerical dominance ensured in both plenary and committees, and even some adversarial political style between the Labour party and the leading opposition party, the Scottish National Party. [...]

[...] Indeed, as has been said, the first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP) entails a single party dominance, inconsistent with consensualism, while a proportional one prevents it. Yet, a closer look to the additional member system (AMS) shows that it does not work well for proportional representation. In fact, with the AMS, each elector has two votes one for the FPTP seat and another for a regional party list. The regional list votes across all the FPTP constituencies in a region are added up. Each party's second votes are then divided by the number of FPTPseats already won plus one. [...]