The Independence Referendum and the Prospect of Social Policy Reform: Lessons from Home and Abroad

Abstract

With the referendum on Scottish independence taking place on the 18th of September, Scotland is at a crossroads. This panel - consisting of scholars from the Scottish Centre on Constitutional Change (SCCC) - presents a collection of papers each considering a particular aspect of the opportunities and challenges for social policy reform afforded by the current Scottish constitutional debate. The panel is interdisciplinary in nature, and spans a breadth of policy issues including welfare models, preventative spending, gender equality and fiscal policy. The common thread underpinning the panel is a desire to lay bare the processes of learning and diffusion currently informing the debate over Scotland’s political future. Analysing data gleaned from documentary analysis, elite interviews and policy process tracing, the papers paint a broad picture of policy actors and stakeholders learning across multiple levels, both domestically, across substantive areas and between devolved governments, and internationally, from other national models. Overall, this panel seeks to bring a deeper understanding to some of the issues at stake in the upcoming Scottish independence referendum.