Nicola McEwen
Associate Director of the Scottish Centre
on Constitutional Change
University of Édimbourg
In September 2014, Scots will be asked to decide on the following question: Should Scotland be an independent country?
This blunt proposition would normally be interpreted as a ‘hard’ referendum question, offering a clear and stark choice between political independence and the constitutional status quo. However, the Scottish Government’s vision of independence, set out in its White Paper Scotland’s Future, published in November, incorporates a nuanced understanding of how a small European nation-state might exercise its sovereignty when navigating its way in an inter-dependent world.
