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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Young Scottish National Party (SNP) Members’ National Identity and Party Membership

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Scotland’s future in the United Kingdom seems to be uncertain. Even though a majority of Scottish people voted to remain in the UK in 2014, the EU referendum two years later fuelled the independence movement in Scotland. Scholars show that the Scottish independence referendum encouraged people to join political parties, particularly the Scottish National Party. This work focuses on young people. Party membership scholars agree that they are underrepresented in parties. Given that the SNP seem to be rather successful in appealing to young people, this thesis explores SNP youth membership and the reasons why young Scots make the decision to join the party. It shows that Scottish independence from the UK is the most significant reason for this. To a lesser extent, other factors such as political ideology (social democracy), political socialisation and an interest in politics generally speaking, influence young people’s decision to join the SNP. Then, this work examines the relationship between SNP youth membership and Scottishness. It concludes that young SNP members perceive their national identity from a socio-political perspective, not from an ethnocultural perspective. In other words, their discourse on Scottishness is based on social/societal, and political values. Thanks to empirical research (interviews and an online survey), this thesis sheds light on the relationship between young SNP members’ perceptions of their national identity and their political ideology, social democracy. Also, this work highlights the relationship between these young people’s campaign for Scottish independence and their visions of Scottish identity and Britishness. In that sense, this thesis builds an SNP youth party membership model, with Scottish independence and young members’ socio-political version of their national identity as two fundamental independent variables. In that sense, this work argues for the use of the concept of 'socio-nationalism' to refer to young SNP members’ political activism.