higher modern studies scottish independence essay

29/12/23 UPDATE: Terrorism added in National 5 section; Advanced Higher content updated; revision strategy suggestions published.

Democracy in Scotland & the UK

Democracy in Scotland and the UK is Section 1 of the exam paper. You will use your knowledge & understanding of contemporary political issues in Scotland and/ or the UK to answer one question. The topics studied are detailed in the Course Assessment Specification (CAS), which is outlined below. Use the contents table below to click to relevant headings. 

Course Assessment Specification (CAS)

Candidates study aspects of the democratic political system in the UK including the place of Scotland within this system. Relevant case studies are used from either Scotland or the UK, or both Scotland and the UK.

possible alternatives for the governance of Scotland

implications of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU)

effectiveness of parliamentary representatives in holding government to account

strengths and weaknesses of different electoral systems used in elections within the UK

factors which influence voting behaviour including class, age and media

ways in which citizens can influence government decision-making, including pressure groups

Access National 5 resources for 'Democracy in Scotland'

PowerPoint presentations 

LAST UPDATED: 18th April 2023

To view a file, click the box and arrow symbol in the top-right corner of each tile. This should open the PowerPoint presentation in a new tab.

Governance of Scotland

This covers the arguments for and against the current and potential arrangements for how Scotland is/ could be governed.

Effectiveness of parliament

This covers the effectiveness of parliamentarians holding the Scottish and UK governments to account.

Voting systems

This covers the advantages and disadvantages of electoral systems used in Scottish and UK elections.

Voting behaviour

This covers some of the different theories of voting behaviour, which aim to explain the factors behind how people vote.

Citizen participation

This covers the ways citizens can get involved with decision making, and considers their strengths and weaknesses.

Please note, the content below was created ahead of the 2019 exam diet. Therefore, some of the information will be out of date. I have kept the attachments below available though in case the information is of use.  

Essay questions

The questions below are common essay questions, drawn from either past papers or made up to provide examples, based on the CAS at the top of this page. The essay answers below may be completed or provide you with the skeleton necessary to create a comprehensive response in the exam. 

Effectiveness of politicians in scrutinising government

Effectiveness of stv in creating fair representation, effectiveness of electoral systems in representation, constitutional options for scotland.

Kindly shared by Mr Beattie at Vale of Leven Academy.

Impacts of the UK leaving the EU

Fairness of an electoral system .

This materials have been shared by Mr Beattie at Vale of Leven Academy. These documents address the 'Governance of Scotland' section of the CAS. In an essay question to this topic, you would look at the options for Scottish politics in future, such as the status quo, devo. max, independence, etc.

Modern Studies - Higher Index

Online lessons for students in scotland learning higher modern studies.

• Governance of Scotland
• Leaving the EU
• Holding Government to Account
• Electoral Systems
• Voting Behaviour
• Government Decision Making
• Health and Wealth Inequality
• Political Ideology
• Government Policies
• Democratic Participation
• Political Instituations
• International Influence
• Skills Questions
• Essay Writing

Democracy in Scotland and the United Kingdom: Scotland is a democracy, being represented in both the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom since the Scotland Act 1998. Most executive power is exercised by the Scottish Government, led by the First Minister of Scotland, the Head of Government in a multi-party system.

Governance of Scotland: this lesson explains how Scotland is currently governed, what the advantages and disadvantages of this approach are.

System of Governance in Scotland: the Government in Scotland is structured into a number of directorates. Directorates and their related public bodies are responsible for putting government policy into practice.

Alternative systems of governance: this project considers the diversity of governance structures that exist outside of the formal apparatus of government that enable people to realise their goals.

Leaving the EU: Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020.

Impact of Brexit: this lesson explains the different issues, advantages and disadvantages that arise from UK leaving the EU.

Holding Government to account: the bill system allows for UK legislation brought forward by the government to be debated in both the House of Lords and Commons where amendments can be put forward and all legislation is dependent on passing both Houses. Select Committees and Public Bill Committees are useful sources for holding the government to account. Select Committees have specific areas: the Public Accounts Committee, for example, holds all public spending to account and frequently challenges ministers on their departmental spending.

Effectiveness of Parliament in holding Government to account: this lesson gives some examples of the parliaments of Scotland and the UK holding government to account, it also explores about how effective these methods are.

Electoral systems: an electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined.

First past the post: one type of electoral system. In the UK it is the system used for the election of MPs to the House of Commons and for some local government elections.

The Additional Member System: a mixed electoral system with one tier of single-member district representatives, and another tier of “additional members” elected to make the overall election results more proportional.

Voting Behaviour: a form of electoral behaviour. Understanding voters’ behaviour can explain how and why decisions were made either by public decision-makers, which has been a central concern for political scientists, or by the electorate.

Voting Behaviour Part One: social class is a measure of a person’s status or position within society. Social class usually takes account of an individual’s income, wealth, occupation, education, etc, although different classifications use different criteria.

Voting Behaviour Part Two: newspapers, television, radio and the internet are also said to influence voting behaviour.

Government decision making: this section explains how citizens influence government decision making and pressure groups.

How citizens influence Government decision making: this lesson teaches how individuals can influence decision making, trade unions influence decision making and how media influences decision making.

Pressure groups: the pressure group is defined as a special interest group which seeks to influence Government policy in a particular direction.

Social issues in the United Kingdom: social inequality. What is social inequality in the UK? Explore differences in incomes, ie rich and poor, gender, ethnicity, disabilities and health issues, age, ie children, young people, middle aged, pensioners.

Health and wealth inequality: one of the fundamental causes of health inequalities is the unequal distribution of wealth across the population. Wealth is the value of an individual or group’s money and/or material assets.

Causes of income and wealth inequality: income and wealth inequality can be caused by differences in the growth of income of different social groups. Changes in employment and taxation and government policy can also affect levels of inequality.

Lifestyle choices impacting on health: a variety of lifestyle or health related habits (behavioural factors) can have a major impact on a person’s health. These include smoking, alcohol, poor diet leading to obesity or malnutrition, lack of physical exercise, sexual behaviour and problems resulting from drug taking.

Other causes of health inequality: lifestyle choices are not the only cause of poor health. Health can be influenced by factors outside of anyone’s control.

Impact of inequality on women: this lesson explains how UK inequality impacts on women as a group, and the main statistics on jobs and pay.

Impact of inequality on ethnic minority groups: this lesson explains how minorities are impacted by inequality and the stats and facts about the impact of inequality.

Political ideology: a certain set of ethical ideals, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class or large group that explains how society should work and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order.

Individualism and collectivism: Individualism stresses individual goals and the rights of the individual person. Collectivism focuses on group goals, what is best for the collective group.

Government policies: the three main types of government macroeconomic policies are fiscal policy, monetary policy and supply-side policies.

Government policies to tackle inequality (Part One): Governments can intervene to promote equity, and reduce inequality and poverty, through the tax and benefits system. This means employing a progressive tax and benefits system which takes proportionately more tax from those on higher levels of income, and redistributes welfare benefits to those on lower incomes.

Government policies to tackle inequality (Part Two): Governments can intervene to promote equity, and reduce inequality and poverty, through the tax and benefits system. This means employing a progressive tax and benefits system which takes proportionately more tax from those on higher levels of income, and redistributes welfare benefits to those on lower incomes.

International Issues: World Power – USA: this section explains the political system of the USA, its political institutions and international influence.

Democratic participation: this section explores whether the US is a democracy and how US citizens participate in democracy.

Is the US a democracy? The United States is one of the world’s developed democracies where third parties have the least political influence. The federal entity created by the U.S. Constitution is the dominant feature of the American governmental system.

How US citizens participate: citizens have a wide range of opportunities to put forward their views, including voting, standing as candidates, joining political parties and joining interest groups.

Political institutions: those bodies – parties, legislatures, and heads of state – that make up the whole mechanism of modern governments.

Powers of the US President: The Constitution explicitly assigns the President the power to sign or veto legislation, command the armed forces, ask for the written opinion of the Cabinet, convene or adjourn Congress, grant reprieves and pardons, and receive ambassadors.

Limits on the powers of the US President: the US President cannot declare war, decide how federal money will be spent, interpret laws, choose Cabinet members or Supreme Court Justices without Senate approval.

Inequality: The lessons in this section include health inequality in the US, in the US education and the US Justice system.

Health inequality in the US: health disparities include mortality, life expectancy, burden of disease, mental health, uninsured/underinsured and lack of access to care.

Inequality in US education: this lesson explains the reasons why there is inequality in the US Education system. Statistics show that white Americans and Asians consistently outperform Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans in terms of educational attainment.

Inequality in the US justice system: this lesson teaches the inequalities in relation to crime in the US, the different experience of prison and policing for African Americans and government action on these issues.

Income inequality in the US: this lesson teaches how inequalities around income impacts all Americans and how it impacts African Americans. Income disparities are so pronounced that America’s top 10 percent now average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent.

International influence: this section teaches how the US influences other countries politically, economically and militarily.

How the US influences other countries politically: the United States Constitution has had influence internationally on later constitutions and legal thinking. Its influence appears in similarities of phrasing and borrowed passages in other constitutions, as well as in the principles of the rule of law, separation of powers and recognition of individual rights.

How the US influences other countries economically: the United States of America is the world’s foremost economic and military power. It has the third largest population in the world and its economy produces around one quarter of the world’s wealth – $17.97 trillion in 2015.

How the US influences other countries militarily: militarily, the US remains the world’s only superpower. Although the US does not spend the most in the world on defence as a proportion of GDP (3.8%), in absolute terms it spends vastly more than any other country.

Skills and essay writing: this is the most important part of the writing process. Organizing your thoughts.

Tone and voice.

Starting an essay.

Making an argument.

Supporting an argument.

Concluding an essay.

Skills questions: This section explores skills questions and how to tackle reliability, objectivity and conclusion type questions.

How to tackle the reliability question: this lesson explains how to tackle reliability questions, structuring a paragraph and writing a conclusion.

How to tackle the objectivity question: this lesson explains how to tackle objectivity questions, writing an answer and writing a conclusion.

How to tackle the conclusion question: this lesson explains how to tackle conclusion questions, and write an answer.

Essay writing: begin with what you are ready to write – a plan, a few sentences or bullet points. Start with the body and work paragraph by paragraph. Once you know what your essay is about, then write the introduction and conclusion.

How to write a 12-mark extended response: there are two types of 12-mark questions:

Evaluate questions: In this type of question you must come to a judgement on the main point of the question. You should make use of evaluative language. Analyse questions: In this type of question you must explain an issue in detail and identify the main points within it. If different points are connected you must explain that as well as detailing the implications of these different points.

How to write a 20-mark essay: There are two types of 20-mark questions: Discuss questions – you must provide information and ideas about the topic but you must also analyse and evaluate different views of the statement/viewpoint. To what extent questions- you will need to analyse the issue in the question and come to a conclusion(s) which requires an evaluative judgement that uses quantitative words.

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Voice: Scottish Independence Is a Security Problem for the United States

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Scottish Independence Is a Security Problem for the United States

U.s. president joe biden should use his voice to persuade scots to stay with the united kingdom..

• Azeem Ibrahim

Scottish politics in recent years has been consistently volatile, moving back and forth between scandals of incompetence, scandals of corruption, and even criminal scandals among its most prominent political figures. Yet throughout all that turmoil, the pivotal political question for the country remains whether to seek independence from the United Kingdom.

All that domestic turmoil, however, risks obscuring the most consequential aspect of Scottish independence—that it would be a geopolitical disaster for the United Kingdom, the United States, and Scotland itself. Scottish independence would effectively neutralize the U.K.’s military and diplomatic power on the global arena and deprive the United States of one of its most pivotal allies, an ally that remains a critical pillar of the United States’ defense structure.

Were Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, the U.K. would find its nuclear deterrent in disarray because Faslane, the royal naval base where the Trident nuclear submarines are located, is in Scotland. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is committed to decommissioning this base if Scotland becomes independent, and there is no location along the coast of England that is as well suited for a replacement base.

At the same time, the U.K. heartland on the island of Great Britain would become contestable territory should Scotland find alliances with powers that are hostile to the U.K. and the United States. To be sure, the prospect of Paris and Edinburgh joining together in the Auld Alliance is no longer the threat it once was. But small, desperate countries can have surprisingly radical politics, as Scotland has already shown.

Shortly afterward, the U.K.’s role and position in the global institutional order would be questioned. The U.K.’s permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council could be fiercely and credibly challenged by hostile incumbent members like Russia or emergent powers like India. And while the United Kingdom would be busy reorganizing its entire defense posture and capacity to reflect its new circumstances, its capacity to project any kind of military or diplomatic power internationally to resist any of these developments would be virtually nonexistent. Think of the effort that Brexit has taken, consuming the U.K.’s energy for years, and then multiple that many times over.

For its part, Scotland will find itself in an even more precarious position both strategically and fiscally. Thanks to its thinly distributed, and thus expensive, population, about 9 percent of Scottish public spending is directly subsidized by the U.K. government. With that subsidy gone, not only would Scotland struggle to quickly build its own defense infrastructure, but it would also need to look to just about any international partner possible for funding and investment to plug the gap and stem a likely political backlash against the SNP.

This vulnerability is extremely likely to serve as an opportunity for countries hostile to the United Kingdom and the United States, such as China and Russia, to come in and purchase influence and leverage with hard cash. This is not merely academic speculation. The SNP already has uncomfortably close ties to the Kremlin; former leader of the SNP Alex Salmond, effectively the father of the modern independence movement in Scotland who is embroiled in the current power struggle inside the party, has long had a political TV show air on RT, one of Moscow’s main propaganda outlets, while English-language Sputnik Radio is also headquartered in Edinburgh.

This should not be a surprise to anyone: The Kremlin will fund and signal-boost anyone who would undermine the strength of the Western alliance, from Scotland to Catalonia to any and every nationalist political force in Europe that is opposed to Washington and the European Union. Such ties are particularly visible with Scottish nationalists. At the very least, it means that the first government of an independent Scotland will already have a much more established relationship with Moscow than to Washington. That alone should set the alarms ringing in the White House.

And where the Kremlin already has political ties, China will be coming in with the money, capable of outbidding everyone else on that front and with an already established and refined method for checkbook diplomacy designed to ensnare its “trade partners” and bend them to Beijing’s geopolitical designs. If China were to fund and build a major port in Scotland as it did in Sri Lanka and Djibouti, that would already be a critical hole in the United States’ North Atlantic defense umbrella.

Could the United States move in as both Scotland’s and the remaining U.K.’s closest partner? Absolutely. And the remaining U.K. would need Washington’s backup by default—while also being able to offer precious little in return. But in Scotland, this would be an uphill battle. On top of preexisting ties to the Kremlin, Washington’s closeness to London would be regarded as suspicious. Culturally, Scotland leans much more toward the European social democratic model than the Anglo-Saxon political and economic model, so there would be inherent resistance to real and perceived expectations of the United States from a close economic relationship. Moreover, it seems extremely unlikely that the United States would, or indeed could, from a political point of view offer direct monetary benefits in the way China would.

For these reasons, mitigating the consequences of independence once it has already happened will be an extremely difficult and costly task. And that is why the independence scenario is a lose-lose scenario for everyone: Washington, London, and the people of Scotland themselves. It will only serve as an opportunity for Moscow and Beijing. And Moscow and Beijing are only interested in opportunities that will exclusively serve their own interests, not the interests of anyone in Scotland or anyone in the wider Western world.

From Washington’s point of view, the time and resources that would be absorbed by efforts to mitigate the geopolitical effects of Scottish independence have every chance to entirely derail what Washington really needs to be doing instead: rebuild the Western alliance after damage wrought by the Trump years.

U.S. President Joe Biden is already keenly aware of the importance of this project.

U.S. President Joe Biden is already keenly aware of the importance of this project. U.S. global power is in a downward spiral due to the unravelling post-World War II U.S. system of alliances, with consequences not just for U.S. interests but also its security. From climate change to global proliferation of political instability and consequent waves of mass migration, the consequences of the last decade’s lapse in U.S. leadership have been most visible in the Old World, yes, but they have already started washing up on U.S. shores in significant ways.

The only way to stem the tide of chaos borne of the global power vacuum left by former U.S. President Donald Trump is for the United States to rebuild a new, and hopefully improved, global rules-based order, guaranteed, once again, by U.S. military might and sustained by the U.S.-led network of alliances that have held the free world together since World War II.

The United Kingdom, in its current form, has been a crucial node in that network of alliances from the very beginning, and it remains such to this day. It is the only major ally that has remained unwaveringly devoted to this model of the world throughout the Trump years and as other traditional allies like the Europeans, the Japanese, and even Israel have begun to see their own interests as moving further away from Washington. But the prospect of Scottish independence threatens to render the U.K. powerless and thus useless in this project of global reconstruction, precisely at this critical junction when it would be most needed.

This is why the Biden administration needs to keep a very close eye on what is happening with separatism tendencies in the U.K., more than perhaps anywhere else in the world. Due to his closeness to Ireland, Biden is already keenly observing the consequences of Brexit in Northern Ireland. And he has already made a very useful intervention in that issue, when, during the presidential campaign, he threatened to block a future trade deal with the U.K. if the U.K. left the EU in a way that threatened the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Ireland.

Biden and his administration need to be equally alive to the real and imminent threat emerging from Scotland. But Biden would have a pivotal advantage if he engages with the issue in person: Trump was loathed by the people of Scotland while Biden’s dedication to the Good Friday Agreement is widely known and respected. Biden would come to this conversation with a very large pool of credibility and political capital—and the Scottish people would give him a fair hearing. That can make all the difference for the future of Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the Western alliance.

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