Case 365 - Scotland and the United Kingdom: “Breaking up is Hard to Do”

Professor Lynda K. Barrow. This case examines the historical and present-day political debate around Scottish independence. Against the backdrop of Brexit, a volatile global economic and security climate, and 300 years of intimately shared history, Scotland’s independence movement had special salience in 2014 and again a decade later. The issue is whether the UK can survive as a geopolitical entity and whether Scotland can thrive as a sovereign state (or as part of the EU). How these questions are resolved could have implications for separatist drives everywhere.