Agree re positioning towards the English "other" but also surely heavily determined by the massive tax subsidies given to Wales / Scotland by English taxpayers. Each person in England on average benefitted from public spending worth £91 more than the taxes they paid: in Scotland, Wales the figures were £2,543, £4,412. Huge subsidised public sectors, given free money and indulged. The real test would be facing the fiscal realities absent massive subsidies and Welsh and Scottish public's having to actually pay for the various progressive policies and the nannying of bureaucrats.
Sorry but do you have a source for these figures? House of Commons Library has Wales spending per person at £13,976; Scotland at £14,456 and London at £14,486, which suggests Wales is getting a pretty poor deal, and certainly bears no resemblance to the dubious figures you seem to have based your arguments on. And besides services inherently cost more to run in rural areas due to the effects of geography and lack of economies of scale: that’s as much of a factor in the regional differences in spending than anything else. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04033/
Accounting rules massively skew measures of tax revenue in any case: for example all VAT receipts are listed as being raised wherever the head office is located (i.e. for vast number of companies london). So revenue generated by Tesco would for accounting purposes be on the books as being revenue raised in england irrespective of where the activity took place.
There is a similar puzzle re Canada, Australia and NZ, all of which are more monolithically progressive than the US or UK. On its face the size explanation doesn’t work quite as well for those countries, as you note re Canada. I wonder if there is a cultural component as well, specifically more conformism. This could work in conjunction with your theory re size by making it more difficult to disrupt the elite consensus constructed by activists. The US clearly has a strong libertarian streak, and I wonder if a culture of conformism explains the blue / red state divide. The class structure in the UK perhaps results in less conformism across classes?
Yes, the size explanation isn't quite so good in those contexts and, unfortunately, I don't know that much about them. A Canadian friend tells me that Canada's traditional status on the imperial periphery explains its eagerness to embrace fashionable ideas.
It would be interesting to observe how size works in a regional context. In England, regional governance isn't developed enough for there to be a major effect, with the possible exception of London. In the US, do small states tend to be more radical (in both directions) than the federal level/larger states? I don't know enough about the US to comment...
I think there are two questions here. Your post asks why Celtic governments are more progressive than their voters. My response essentially asks why some countries are more progressive than others. So perhaps it is actually true that size is the answer to your question even for Canada, Aus, NZ – it’s not clear to me that Canada’s gov’t is more progressive than its voters.
On the other hand, re the Celtic states, it is not just that they are more progressive than their voters, they are also very progressive compared to other countries. My impression is that the difference between Celtic states and England seems hard to explain by culture–though perhaps I’m wrong there, as I don’t know anything about those cultural differences. So size seems like a good explanation there. Different answers to the same question re US and Celtic states, suggests that more generally, both size and culture play a role.
Re the specifics, I don’t think Canadian status on the Imperial periphery is the answer. Wokism came from the US, not the UK. The idea that we are more deferential to elites seems like a better fit. After all, the Loyalists were exactly those people who were anti-populist. Purely anecdotally, ie my own experience, there is a lot of pressure here to not rock the boat with unpleasant truths.
I think this is especially true with a conservative government in Westminster - Brexit probably also plays a role.
I guess the model is that (small-c) conservative people who identify primarily as Scottish, and are pro-independence currently have mixed feelings. They think that the UK government (and public) is correctly conservative on economic and social issues, but they would also still rather be governed by a conservative Scottish party. So, whether they land closer to the conservative party or the SNP, they aren't feeling particularly impassioned on either side, so they become less politically active.
Progressive, pro-independence Scots, however, are currently doubly aggrieved, being ruled by a conservative in Westminster, who also happens to be an English "other'. This makes them particularly incentivised to be politically active in this period.
If we saw a genuinely progressive UK government, I suspect the trend could go the other way- I doubt the Scots would try to outdo the progressive English. Instead, conservative, pro-indy Scots would become more politically active, and we might see more conservative social policies across the Celtic regions. With a centrist Starmer government, it's hard to tell.
Good points. As someone said on Twitter, this also reflects the logic of party competition. Under FPTP, the Conservatives have fewer incentives to be competitive in Wales and Scotland.
It is striking in Ireland how the criminal justice system is so at odds with the majority view. It would only take people to express themselves and the policy would change pretty quickly but apathy is the activist’s best friend.
Regarding those that joind the EU as new acension members in the 2000s, I think there's obviously a degree of cultural and political inertia that comes with size. Modernising bureaucracy and infrastructure becomes massively more difficult when you are a huge country not a tiny Baltic state.
And all of the post Soviet/Communist states have long term issues with their pensions funds which are much harder to fix in larger countries.
Size does seem to lead to a natural degree of conservatism, simply because costs and difficulties seem to be cubed rather than doubled as you go up in population and land mass.
I think a large part of the issue is that the Celtic governments seek to define themselves as different from the British and English. This was very visible during COVID, where they always took a harder line than London government did. To some extent all the Celtic nations have part of their identity wrapped up in being different to England, so this is relatively logical.
As far as being more progressive than their people, it's worth remembering that these Celtic politicians in the UK are second tier, and during EU membership were third tier. There's simply not that many people who are worthwhile and talented career politicians in a country with only a few million residents. That means you're always skewing towards who is available and keen on a political career - hence the prevalance of the very progressive politician. Add in the fact that the best are taken up by the British system, and those on the right tend more towards more business oriented activies and the talent pool starts to explain some of the policy.
Yes, the motivation of being different is very important and was prominent during the Coronavirus crisis. On talent, that may have been true during the early years of devolution, but I think is unfair now. In the Senedd, the quality of personnel has improved greatly.
This interesting article reminds me of one from NYT's Ross Douthat which discusses why wokeness seems so powerful in Britain and Canada compared to America. I think it all comes down to Americanization. Small countries with greater consensus are more likely to pass through legislation.
That's a very ery selective reading of Irish politics - ignoring the Irish abortion and same sex marriages referendums which both showed the voters were more progressive then government.
Which elites? Political elites? As in James' reply, public opinion has proven more progressive than government opinion in both of the progressive referendums, which are surely the best yardsticks we have in this topic. Are you referring to some other type of elite? If so, who?
The Irish political issues mentioned in this article (hate speech and transgender laws) may have been controversial internationally but neither captured public attention in any meaningful way domestically beyond minor fringe groups.
I'm referring to political elites. Crucially, the referendums concerned traditional liberal causes, whereas the examples in the article concern social justice causes. Across the West, support for liberal causes tends to be higher than support for social justice causes. I haven't seen Irish polling on hatespeech and transgender laws - does it even exist (?) - but would be surprised if popular support is higher than elite support.
Neither abortion rights nor same sex marriage were seen as "traditional liberal causes" in Ireland. Abortion legislation was widely seen as the most divisive issue in Ireland for 4-5 decades and would have very easily fit the "social justice causes" label in its time. Just because it's an English speaking country does not mean that UK or US experiences of these issues neatly fit for Ireland. As you said yourself, there's no public opinion polling on hate speech (because the public cared very little entirely) or transgender laws (because there's been no new legislation on this topic passed since 2015/16), your perspective on the capture of Irish politics by these "elites" seems likely its mostly just an outsider opinion.
The ironic thing is, you'd have a much better opportunity to paint a picture of political capture by elites if you focused on topics such as climate policy for the agri sector or housing, where opinion (on housing broadly and climate/agri within those communities) differs strongly from political elites, but neither topic comes close enough to "social justice causes" to interest you.
V interesting, especially the point of Néolibéral Baltic States which is often overlooked. Wonder what you thought about Nigel Biggar's claim that obsession with decolonisation, ID politics etc in the Celtic nations is used as a buttress for independence, specifically through showing that you're not "evil" like England and it's past colonising sins? Would explain Wales' treatment of Thomas Picton (in this case Drakeford gov outdoing Plaid). Winger if situation in eg. Catalunya is similar?
Agree re positioning towards the English "other" but also surely heavily determined by the massive tax subsidies given to Wales / Scotland by English taxpayers. Each person in England on average benefitted from public spending worth £91 more than the taxes they paid: in Scotland, Wales the figures were £2,543, £4,412. Huge subsidised public sectors, given free money and indulged. The real test would be facing the fiscal realities absent massive subsidies and Welsh and Scottish public's having to actually pay for the various progressive policies and the nannying of bureaucrats.
That would certainly be an interesting experiment!!!
Sorry but do you have a source for these figures? House of Commons Library has Wales spending per person at £13,976; Scotland at £14,456 and London at £14,486, which suggests Wales is getting a pretty poor deal, and certainly bears no resemblance to the dubious figures you seem to have based your arguments on. And besides services inherently cost more to run in rural areas due to the effects of geography and lack of economies of scale: that’s as much of a factor in the regional differences in spending than anything else. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04033/
Accounting rules massively skew measures of tax revenue in any case: for example all VAT receipts are listed as being raised wherever the head office is located (i.e. for vast number of companies london). So revenue generated by Tesco would for accounting purposes be on the books as being revenue raised in england irrespective of where the activity took place.
There is a similar puzzle re Canada, Australia and NZ, all of which are more monolithically progressive than the US or UK. On its face the size explanation doesn’t work quite as well for those countries, as you note re Canada. I wonder if there is a cultural component as well, specifically more conformism. This could work in conjunction with your theory re size by making it more difficult to disrupt the elite consensus constructed by activists. The US clearly has a strong libertarian streak, and I wonder if a culture of conformism explains the blue / red state divide. The class structure in the UK perhaps results in less conformism across classes?
Yes, the size explanation isn't quite so good in those contexts and, unfortunately, I don't know that much about them. A Canadian friend tells me that Canada's traditional status on the imperial periphery explains its eagerness to embrace fashionable ideas.
It would be interesting to observe how size works in a regional context. In England, regional governance isn't developed enough for there to be a major effect, with the possible exception of London. In the US, do small states tend to be more radical (in both directions) than the federal level/larger states? I don't know enough about the US to comment...
I think there are two questions here. Your post asks why Celtic governments are more progressive than their voters. My response essentially asks why some countries are more progressive than others. So perhaps it is actually true that size is the answer to your question even for Canada, Aus, NZ – it’s not clear to me that Canada’s gov’t is more progressive than its voters.
On the other hand, re the Celtic states, it is not just that they are more progressive than their voters, they are also very progressive compared to other countries. My impression is that the difference between Celtic states and England seems hard to explain by culture–though perhaps I’m wrong there, as I don’t know anything about those cultural differences. So size seems like a good explanation there. Different answers to the same question re US and Celtic states, suggests that more generally, both size and culture play a role.
Re the specifics, I don’t think Canadian status on the Imperial periphery is the answer. Wokism came from the US, not the UK. The idea that we are more deferential to elites seems like a better fit. After all, the Loyalists were exactly those people who were anti-populist. Purely anecdotally, ie my own experience, there is a lot of pressure here to not rock the boat with unpleasant truths.
Yes, agreed.
I think this is especially true with a conservative government in Westminster - Brexit probably also plays a role.
I guess the model is that (small-c) conservative people who identify primarily as Scottish, and are pro-independence currently have mixed feelings. They think that the UK government (and public) is correctly conservative on economic and social issues, but they would also still rather be governed by a conservative Scottish party. So, whether they land closer to the conservative party or the SNP, they aren't feeling particularly impassioned on either side, so they become less politically active.
Progressive, pro-independence Scots, however, are currently doubly aggrieved, being ruled by a conservative in Westminster, who also happens to be an English "other'. This makes them particularly incentivised to be politically active in this period.
If we saw a genuinely progressive UK government, I suspect the trend could go the other way- I doubt the Scots would try to outdo the progressive English. Instead, conservative, pro-indy Scots would become more politically active, and we might see more conservative social policies across the Celtic regions. With a centrist Starmer government, it's hard to tell.
Good points. As someone said on Twitter, this also reflects the logic of party competition. Under FPTP, the Conservatives have fewer incentives to be competitive in Wales and Scotland.
Nice post.
It is striking in Ireland how the criminal justice system is so at odds with the majority view. It would only take people to express themselves and the policy would change pretty quickly but apathy is the activist’s best friend.
Interesting point! Seems right: "But when agendas enjoy support among global and internal elites, small countries seem prone to radicalism"
Thanks :-)
Regarding those that joind the EU as new acension members in the 2000s, I think there's obviously a degree of cultural and political inertia that comes with size. Modernising bureaucracy and infrastructure becomes massively more difficult when you are a huge country not a tiny Baltic state.
And all of the post Soviet/Communist states have long term issues with their pensions funds which are much harder to fix in larger countries.
Size does seem to lead to a natural degree of conservatism, simply because costs and difficulties seem to be cubed rather than doubled as you go up in population and land mass.
I think a large part of the issue is that the Celtic governments seek to define themselves as different from the British and English. This was very visible during COVID, where they always took a harder line than London government did. To some extent all the Celtic nations have part of their identity wrapped up in being different to England, so this is relatively logical.
As far as being more progressive than their people, it's worth remembering that these Celtic politicians in the UK are second tier, and during EU membership were third tier. There's simply not that many people who are worthwhile and talented career politicians in a country with only a few million residents. That means you're always skewing towards who is available and keen on a political career - hence the prevalance of the very progressive politician. Add in the fact that the best are taken up by the British system, and those on the right tend more towards more business oriented activies and the talent pool starts to explain some of the policy.
Yes, the motivation of being different is very important and was prominent during the Coronavirus crisis. On talent, that may have been true during the early years of devolution, but I think is unfair now. In the Senedd, the quality of personnel has improved greatly.
This interesting article reminds me of one from NYT's Ross Douthat which discusses why wokeness seems so powerful in Britain and Canada compared to America. I think it all comes down to Americanization. Small countries with greater consensus are more likely to pass through legislation.
https://archive.md/9LiCS
Not sure that necessarily applies to Ireland?
You can check out some great works by Irish writer Conor Fitzgerald
https://www.conorfitzgerald.com/p/what-does-10-less-catholic-feel-like
That's a very ery selective reading of Irish politics - ignoring the Irish abortion and same sex marriages referendums which both showed the voters were more progressive then government.
Yet on the whole, it's difficult to argue that voters are more progressive than elites.
Which elites? Political elites? As in James' reply, public opinion has proven more progressive than government opinion in both of the progressive referendums, which are surely the best yardsticks we have in this topic. Are you referring to some other type of elite? If so, who?
The Irish political issues mentioned in this article (hate speech and transgender laws) may have been controversial internationally but neither captured public attention in any meaningful way domestically beyond minor fringe groups.
I'm referring to political elites. Crucially, the referendums concerned traditional liberal causes, whereas the examples in the article concern social justice causes. Across the West, support for liberal causes tends to be higher than support for social justice causes. I haven't seen Irish polling on hatespeech and transgender laws - does it even exist (?) - but would be surprised if popular support is higher than elite support.
Neither abortion rights nor same sex marriage were seen as "traditional liberal causes" in Ireland. Abortion legislation was widely seen as the most divisive issue in Ireland for 4-5 decades and would have very easily fit the "social justice causes" label in its time. Just because it's an English speaking country does not mean that UK or US experiences of these issues neatly fit for Ireland. As you said yourself, there's no public opinion polling on hate speech (because the public cared very little entirely) or transgender laws (because there's been no new legislation on this topic passed since 2015/16), your perspective on the capture of Irish politics by these "elites" seems likely its mostly just an outsider opinion.
The ironic thing is, you'd have a much better opportunity to paint a picture of political capture by elites if you focused on topics such as climate policy for the agri sector or housing, where opinion (on housing broadly and climate/agri within those communities) differs strongly from political elites, but neither topic comes close enough to "social justice causes" to interest you.
V interesting, especially the point of Néolibéral Baltic States which is often overlooked. Wonder what you thought about Nigel Biggar's claim that obsession with decolonisation, ID politics etc in the Celtic nations is used as a buttress for independence, specifically through showing that you're not "evil" like England and it's past colonising sins? Would explain Wales' treatment of Thomas Picton (in this case Drakeford gov outdoing Plaid). Winger if situation in eg. Catalunya is similar?