Supranational Union and New Medievalism: Forging a New Scottish State

Abstract

This study aims to understand why the Scottish National Party (SNP) accelerated to prominence after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following question: To what extent does the European Union (EU) influence the Scottish independence movement and does this trend support the theory of New Medievalism? Data drawn from interviews with members of the 4th Scottish Parliament, comments made by former First Minister Alex Salmond, and scientific polling tend to show that the EU’s increasing institutional powers have facilitated the modern Scottish independence movement’s growth by mitigating the Scottish people’s fears of independence from the UK. However the data also demonstrates that the SNP’s election victory in 2011 was not just an indication of Scottish nationalism, but was a result of the SNP’s competence in government. This investigation concludes that as the EU centralizes power in supranational bodies the process of New Medievalism is working its course by dissolving Westphalian nation states. This process is revealed in the rise of the modern Scottish nationalist movement as well as other subnational independence movements in EU member states. The culmination of this movement was the rise of the SNP and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.