Further Reading
Ailsa and Richard are the authors of several books and their research is frequently reported in the media. They are also both well-known commentators, with their analysis appearing frequently in the blogs, interviews and commentary in the international and domestic press.
Writing the Union
In this authoritative book, Richard Wyn Jones traces the development of the political thought of Plaid Cymru from its birth in the winter months of 1924–5 to the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales in the summer of 1999. With a penetrating study of the political beliefs of Plaid Cymru’s most important leaders – Saunders Lewis, Gwynfor Evans, Dafydd Elis-Thomas and Dafydd Wigley – Wyn Jones charts the party’s emergence from the political fringe to the threshold of a devolved Wales. The development of the party’s constitutional and economic policies is given close attention, as well as its attitude towards the Welsh language; and from a vibrant discussion on the nature of nationalism and nationalist ideas, Plaid Cymru’s intellectual development takes its place within a broader historical and international context. The result reveals Plaid Cymru in a new and sometimes controversial light.
The Welsh criminal justice system is unique. While the country has its own devolved government and parliament, there is no Welsh equivalent of the Scottish or Northern Irish justice systems. Rather, the writ of England and Wales criminal justice institutions continues to run. Yet the extensive responsibilities of Wales’s devolved institutions ensure that they necessarily play a significant role in criminal justice. As a result, the Welsh criminal justice system operates across a ‘jagged edge’ of devolved and reserved powers and responsibilities. This book provides the first academic account of this system. It demonstrates not only that Wales has some of the worst criminal justice outcomes in western Europe, but that even if the will existed to try to address these problems, the current constitutional underpinnings of the Welsh criminal justice system would make it nigh-on impossible. Based on official data and in-depth interviews, this is an urgent and challenging book, required reading for anyone interested in Welsh politics and society.
Until the Brexit referendum, there was widespread doubt as to whether English nationalism existed at all, at least beyond a small fringe. Since then, it has come to be regarded an obvious explanation for the vote to Leave the European Union. Subsequent opinion polls have raised doubts about the extent of continuing English commitment to the Union of the United Kingdom itself. Yet even as Englishness is apparently reshaping Britain's place in world and perhaps, ultimately, the state itself, it remains poorly understood. In this book Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones draw on data from the Future of England Survey, a specially commissioned public attitudes survey programme exploring the political implications of English identity, to make new and original arguments about the nature of English nationalism. They demonstrate that English nationalism is emphatically not a rejection of Britain and Britishness. Rather, English nationalism combines a sense of grievance about England's place within the United Kingdom with a fierce commitment to a particular vision of Britain's past, present, and future. Understanding its Janus-faced nature - both England and Britain - is key not only to understanding English nationalism, but also to understanding the ways in which it is transforming British politics.
Drawing on data from the Scottish Referendum Study and subsequent Scottish Election Studies, this book provides the first in depth analysis of how voters engaged with the independence referendum in 2014 and what impact this has had on vote choice, polarisation and engagement in Scotland since then. The book contains eight chapters, and discusses how voters engaged with the referendum campaign, explains vote choice by examining reactions to the cues of parties, leaders and events, and compares the importance of these to calculations about risk.
Blogs and Podcasts
The Union faces several challenges, some seemingly permanent, others more attitudinal. We have a considerable amount of public opinion data to help us understand these, including Scotland-specific data (e.g. Scottish Election Study, Scottish Social Attitudes Surveys) as well as GB- and UK-wide surveys. These help us to understand levels of support for (and predictors of) constitutional change and independence, attitudes to future referendums (including the right to call and timing) and more general attitudes to the union. Five examples of how public opinion data can help us to understand Scottish constitutional attitudes are below.
Ahead of the Coronation of Charles III, the team looks at UK attitudes to the monarchy. Lucy and Phil are joined by Professor Ailsa Henderson of the University of Edinburgh, to look at how Scotland and the wider UK feel about King Charles and the monarchy. How do people's views vary by area, party, and constitutional belief, and how have opinions changed since the death of Queen Elizabeth?
In the latest in CIPS’ podcast series on international affairs, Srdjan Vucetic talks to political scientists Ailsa Henderson, Richard Wyn Jones, and Ben Wellings about Englishness. From conceptual and methodological issues to the Anglosphere and the upcoming Scottish election, we discuss what makes UK politics so contentious and its study so challenging. Plus we ask if the UK is heading for a breakup. Ailsa Henderson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. She researches comparative political behaviour and political culture in sub-state regions as well as civic engagement. In addition to co-authoring Englishness: The Political Force Transforming Britain (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2021) she has published five books and over 30 articles and book chapters, including Hierarchies of Belonging: National Identity and Political Culture in Scotland and Quebec (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007) and Nunavut: Rethinking Political Culture (UBC Press, 2007). Originally from Windsor, Ontario, she holds a BScSoc from uOttawa and was the Working Groups Chair for the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform in 2006-2007. Richard Wyn Jones is Director, Wales Governance Centre and Dean of Public Affairs, Cardiff University, as well as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and the Academy of the Social Sciences. He has written extensively on contemporary Welsh politics, devolved politics in the UK and nationalism and is considered to be one of the founders of Critical Security Studies in International Relations. With Henderson, he is the co-author of Englishness: The Political Force Transforming Britain (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2021). In 2014, he spoke at CIPS on the (first) Scottish independence referendum and contributed a CIPS policy brief on the same topic. Ben Wellings is a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Monash University. He researches the links between English nationalism and Euroscepticism that lie behind Brexit, as well as nationalism in the European Union and the politics of war commemoration. He has worked in the House of Commons and for a public affairs company in Edinburgh advising clients on the impact of Scottish devolution, as an assistant curator at the National Museum of Australia and as a merchant seaman on the English Channel. He is the author of English Nationalism, Brexit and the Anglosphere: Wider still and wider (Manchester UK: Manchester University Press, 2019) and co-editor, with Andy Mycock, of The Anglosphere: Continuity, Dissonance and Location (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2019). Srdjan Vucetic is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA-ÉSAPI), uOttawa. His most recent publication is Greatness and Decline: National Identity and British Foreign Policy (McGill-Queen’s, 2021).
The Conservative Party has a problem when it comes to the Union - how to describe its constituent parts. IN this blog for the UK in a Changing Europe research centre, Ailsa and Richard discussed how the Conservatives might tackle the problem that describing the UK's component parts as nations suggests that they are states in waiting.
Research in the Media
Mark Hennessy: Opinion in England, Scotland and Wales now favours Irish unity, according to major new research. In the past, research has tested the waters about opinions in Great Britain taken as a whole towards Irish unification. Now, however, new research sheds light on the differing attitudes held about such an outcome among the English, the Scots and the Welsh separately. The information is included in an analysis of the 2023 State of the Union survey probing attitudes towards constitutional issues in the UK carried out by leading academics, Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones. Instead of getting a simple Yes, No answer from those polled, people were asked to place their attitudes about unification and other issues... More at: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/03/21/england-wales-and-scotland-all-now-in-favour-of-irish-unification-research-shows/
Martin Shipton: The UK Government’s “muscular unionism” approach, aimed at putting the devolved nations in their place, is out of step with the majority of people and may backfire, according to research by leading academics from Wales and Scotland. Professor Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff University and Professor Ailsa Henderson of Edinburgh University have produced a report, The Ambivalent Union, which shows that fewer than half of voters in any of the four UK nations see maintaining the union in its current form as a priority. Another finding shows strong backing for common social and economic support across the UK nations, but it evaporates when voters are asked about sharing tax revenues. Equally, sidelining devolved governments is... More at: https://nation.cymru/news/westminster-governments-muscular-union-approach-may-backfire-report/
James Cook: When Scotland declared its independence from England, the words came from the heart. "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself." Seven centuries have passed since the Declaration of Arbroath, external, and Scottish nationalism now strikes a rather different tone. "We are a moderate left-of-centre party in the mainstream of Scottish public opinion," said the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader, John Swinney, as he unveiled his party's manifesto for the general election. Independence, he said, can deliver "a stronger economy and happier, healthier lives". Braveheart it was not. Nowadays, independence is presented not as a cry for freedom, but as a practical solution to financial hardship and inequality. That strategy has worked well for the SNP during a prolonged period of Conservative government at Westminster. More at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0447rxk7jxo
James Harrison: Ministers in Westminster feared Covid could become a “federalist Trojan horse” due to the closer working relationships with leaders in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Senior government figures including the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, were concerned about the amount of influence applied from outside Whitehall, according to documents submitted to the second module of the Covid inquiry. In evidence shown today, Johnson claimed it was “optically wrong” for him to hold regular meetings with the leaders of the devolved nations. More at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ministers-feared-federalist-trojan-horse-covid-inquiry-devolved-nations/
Public attitudes on the state of the state