SCOTLAND.

In 1914, Scotland appeared to be a nation with a historic identity; a comfortable part of the United Kingdom, a powerful contributor to the British Empire; buttressed by an economy based on the production of raw materials and metal products. The Presbyterian churches were key institutions and their General Assemblies important forums. In politics, the general elections of 1910 had seen the endurance of a Liberal hegemony largely unbroken since 1832. By the end of the twentieth century, much of this had changed.

ECONOMY

Industrial strength hid latent weaknesses: superficially bolstered by World War I, recession struck in the interwar period. Problems were compounded by an antiquated structure and failure to develop new industries: the production of coal, metal, and textiles dominated. Although the coal and iron industries of the west of Scotland were closely integrated, the more important relationship between iron and steel was poorly developed, leading to endemic inefficiency in that sector. Closer links existed between Clydeside shipbuilding and the steel industry, but that proved problematic by the 1920s as the latter contracted.

Unemployment rose to unparalleled levels (27.7 percent in 1932), especially in areas of western and central Scotland where the bulk of these heavy industries were located. The bulk of Scottish output was destined for the export market, inducing extreme vulnerability to international economic fluctuations, but during the 1920s and 1930s the protection of home markets in Europe and the United States exacerbated this. The Scottish workforce, although containing a core of skilled workers, was poorly paid and unable to generate domestic demand for high-value products that would have aided economic diversification. Key sectors of the economy, such as the banks and insurance companies—so important to Edinburgh and the east of Scotland—and the indigenous railway companies were taken over by metropolitan concerns.

World War II further exposed these weaknesses with its demand for more sophisticated products, but they were also masked by the state intervention of that conflict and its aftermath. The program of nationalization undertaken by the Labour government elected in 1945 had a profound effect in Scotland where so much heavy industry remained, despite the vicissitudes of the interwar years. The influence of government profoundly affected the shape of the economy in the postwar years, through nationalization and the regional policies implemented from the mid-1960s to the 1980s.

The penetration of the Scottish economy by foreign multinational corporations, mostly in the electronics industry, has led to a swath of central Scotland being labeled "Silicon Glen." These enterprises have tended to conduct fairly low-level, branch-plant operations and have proved to be "footloose," as an early twenty-first-century rash of closures by firms such as Motorola has demonstrated. The sum total of these changes has been the alteration of an economy largely based on heavy industrial processes to one dominated by bureaucracy and services. There were nearly 750,000 workers in manufacturing in 1901, only around 350, 000 in the 1990s; services and administration employed just over 350,000 in 1901, but over 900,000 by the end of the century. A major change occurred in the late 1960s with the discovery of oil in the North Sea; this has had a particular impact on the regional economy of the northeast of Scotland, but indigenous enterprise has not fully capitalized on this and critics argue that the revenues have been squandered by U.K. governments.

SOCIETY

Despite economic confidence, there were massive social problems in Scotland in the early part of the twentieth century, most obviously shocking housing conditions. The rapidity of urban expansion in the nineteenth century, combined with the feudal nature of Scots land law, created extreme densities of population and massive overcrowding in the traditional form of Scottish housing: the tenement block divided into multiple dwellings. Although the nascent Labour movement sought to publicize these issues, real attention was not given to the problem until a series of rent strikes during World War I. During the interwar years, both Conservative and Labour governments passed legislation to subsidize local authorities to build houses for rent and to clear slums. These initiatives saw the establishment of the vast public housing sector that, augmented by further building programs and attempts at urban renewal in the twenty years after World War II, was such a distinctive feature of Scottish society. In some areas of Scotland, 70 to 80 percent of the population lived in such houses. This was undermined in the 1980s as the Conservative government reduced support to local authorities and encouraged sitting tenants to purchase their houses at a discount.

At the other extreme of Scottish society, there has been a small landed elite: much Scottish land is of low value and agricultural potential and, partly because of this, huge estates were built up in the nineteenth century. Although the government intervened to become a large landowner in the 1920s, private land ownership has remained an important part of Scottish society and, concomitantly, anti-landlordism is a key feature of Scottish political rhetoric.

Oddly, for a society characterized by such extremes, a persistent aspect of Scotland's view of itself was that of a "democratic society" characterized by social progress, especially through the power of educational attainment. Repeated sociological investigations have found little evidence for this, but have exposed the foundation of the myth in nineteenth-century Presbyterian ideology and idealized views of the Scottish education system.

Scottish demography has also been distinctive (as the table shows), with the key features being the massive emigration of the 1920s that resulted in a population decline in that decade, and the declining population, especially in western urban areas, since the early 1970s.

POLITICS

In 1999, a devolved parliament and executive was established with responsibility for most areas of Scottish domestic policy, with the exception of social welfare. A coalition of Labour and Liberal Democrat ministers has controlled the executive since 1999. Scottish political history over the course of the twentieth century, however, has not simply been a discussion of constitutional options, with most debate following a British agenda and focusing on the economy, social welfare, defense, and foreign policy.

Prior to World War I, the Liberals dominated; social change and shifts in the political agenda, notably over housing, led to a breakthrough by the Labour Party at the 1922 general election and the eclipse of the Liberal Party. From the 1920s to the 1960s, the Labour Party and the Scottish Unionist Party (as the Scottish Conservatives were known until 1965) dominated elections in Scotland. A notable result came in the 1955 general election when the Unionists polled just over 50 percent.

The Scottish political map became more diverse in the 1960s as the Liberals emerged from the doldrums and the Scottish National Party (SNP)

won its first seat since 1945—at Hamilton in 1967. The excitement peaked in October 1974 when the SNP won over 31 percent of the vote and eleven seats. This prompted the Labour government to consider Scottish Home Rule, but legislation was stillborn after an inconclusive referendum in 1979 and the subsequent election of a Conservative government. During the 1980s and 1990s, nationalism waned and Scotland remained loyal to Labour as the Conservatives governed by virtue of their U.K. majority: this was perceived by some to constitute a "democratic deficit." With the return of a Labour government and a modest nationalist revival in 1997, the way was clear for the implementation of devolution.

IDENTITY AND CULTURE

Much writing about Scotland in the twentieth century has been pessimistic, with justification; but flickers of optimism can be discerned in the survival of Scottish identity and in cultural activity. An institutional identity based on the troika of the church, law, and education systems is no longer so powerful; neither, it seems, is an ethnic identity. But newer forms of identity, based on historical memory, sense of place, and cultural traditions are developing. Scotland is a nation of interlocking cultures revolving around the English, Gaelic, and Scots linguistic traditions enlivened by European and Asian immigration.

Literary culture evolved markedly over the twentieth century, from a parochial and moralizing "Kailyard" school of writers, such as Sir James Matthew Barrie, to the realism of such as James Kelman. Scottish writers have consistently experimented with language; none more so than Christopher Murray Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid), the self-conscious publicist of the cultural "Renaissance" of the interwar years, poet and controversialist in English and Scots. Scottish Gaelic has produced the lyrical verse of Somhairle MacGill-eain.

Popular culture provides one of the areas where Scotland is most visible as an independent identity on the international stage at sporting occasions. This can be a unifying force, but also provides for intense local rivalries, such as that between Glasgow's two leading football teams, Rangers and Celtic, which is overlain with religious sectarianism.

See alsoBritish Empire; Ireland; United Kingdom.

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Ewen A. Cameron