State, Civil Society and National Development: The Scottish Problem

Abstract

Capitalist sodeties in the post-war period have been characterised by nationalist revivals, regionalism, movements for ethnic minorities and subculturalism. Movements for political autonomy are responses to the uneven development of the capitalist economy in which spatial coali tions take shape under the banner of linquistic, religious and cultural persistence. These theories of cultural nationalism and internal colonialism are critically reviewed with reference to Scotland. The conventional argument is that the political union of Scotland and England conserved the autonomy of Scottish civil society, fostering the political alliance of the Scottish and English bourgeoisie in the context of British imperial expansion. The global economic decline of Britain undermined this alliance and decimated the Scottish working class. Cultural nationalism thus arose on the back of a distinctive civil society as an effect of regional imbalances. These theories exaggerated the ideological unity of "civil society", treating the working class as incor porated. The appeal of nationalism had a very different significance for both class and intra-class formations. Scotland has in fact two cultures — Highland and Lowland — which limited the integrative role of any common culture.