Scotland has thus far proved immune to the appeal read more of right-wing populism present in many European neoliberal democracies.This paper argues that changing tension balances in the crises facing the UK as a union state cannot be reduced to an understanding of the supposedly internal challenge of Scottish sub-state nationalism.Instead sub-state nationalism needs to be situated in the shifting long-term, inter-state power balances of Britain as a union state and a rising and falling world power.
Such an approach builds on the promise offered by the historical sociology tonic shower cap of Norbert Elias to account for the over-functioning of the normative humanist we-ideals of Scottish civic nationalism in the British and EU crises.