Memory politics and Scottish exceptionalism in the referenda of 1979, 1997, 2014, and 2016.

Abstract

Historical narratives play a vital role in the construction of national identity. But national narratives vary depending on who is telling the story and under what circumstances. National narratives therefore contain rival strands that compete for dominance within a discursive space. Duncan Bell describes this discursive space as the ‘mythscape’. According to Bell, the mythscape typically contains a ‘governing myth’ and ‘subaltern myths’, which interact in complex ways. This thesis applies Bell’s theory to Scottish memory discourse to evaluate the degree to which it conforms to his predictions. To this end, the thesis examines in detail the deployment by rival political actors of historical arguments during the course of four sequential referenda, all of which involved questions about Scotland’s place within the United Kingdom. These referenda were the Devolution Referendum of 1979, the Devolution Referendum of 1997, the Independence Referendum of 2014, and the Referendum on the United Kingdom’s Membership in the European Union of 2016. The thesis analyses and explains the changes and continuities of Scottish memory politics over five decades. Above all, it investigates the concept of Scottish exceptionality within the context of Scotland’s mythscape.