Democracy, Sovereignty and Populism in the European Union: the Emergence of a Scottish Nationalist Left

Abstract

With this article, we aim to analyse the emergence of the Scottish pro-independence left-wing movement. We shall do it by relating the enhancing of the demands for independence with broader responses to the systemic crisis that we are witnessing, not only in the European Union, but also worldwide. In so doing, we shall place the demands for sovereignty within the frame of the privatization of democracy and we shall study their populist articulation in relation to the capability of the pro-independence project to represent different “anti-status quo” demands. Although, in order to give a more general explanation, we are going to take into account the rise of the movement for independence as a whole, the specific object of our study will be the left-wing movement represented by the “Radical Independence Campaign” and “RISE”.