The Scottish Parliamentary Elections and the Transformation of Electoral Behaviour

Abstract

The rise of the decentralisation or devolution reforms in Europe in the past decades brought scholars' attention to the voting behaviour in multi-level electoral systems. Some types of elections, such as local or regional, might be considered less important for voters than national ones. However, in some regions, the importance of the sub-state level of governance is rising, which might lead voters to change their perception of the regional elections. Since the beginning of the devolution in the UK, the Scottish parliament has become one of the most powerful regional parliaments in Europe. The study reviewed the main differences in electoral behaviour between general and regional elections in Scotland. The analysis used four aspects of the theoretical model of the second-order election. It focused on the turnout in both elections, the success of small and regional parties, the change of support for government and opposition parties and the main campaign topics. The results showed that the Scottish electoral behaviour went through a significant transformation at regional and state-wide level in the past two decades. The different electoral behaviour in regional elections was significantly influenced by the voting system that helped regional nationalist parties increase their support and become the main political force in the region that determines electoral competition. The transformation of electoral behaviour in the Scottish parliamentary election continued to the state-wide level. It determined that the regional elections, in the case of Scotland, cannot be perceived as less important and subordinated to the general elections.