Devolution and the Scotish national party

Abstract

This thesis addresses the issue of devolution and its relation to the Scottish National Party (SNP) through the lenses of historical institutionalism. It aims at answering the question, how and to what extent the devolution influenced the policies and political behaviour of the SNP as well as its internal organization. The change of the SNP is also viewed on the basis of various political theories and typologies of political parties. Because the primary aim of the SNP is to deliver independence to Scotland, the special attention is also paid to the mutual relation of devolution as a weaker form of self-determination and independence. It is possible to define three waves of the impact of devolution on the SNP. The last one leads to the establishment of Scottish autonomous institutions. Althoutgh the Labour Party tried to minimized the SNP in the political arena, the SNP took a full advantage of a new institutional setting and managed to form a Scottish government. Keywords New Labour, Labour Party, devolution, Scottish National Party, decentralization, Scotland