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Initially introduced and hailed as means of offering more democratic and facilitative policing, but increasingly subject to question by protestors, Police Liaison Teams (PLTs) are one of the primary tactical options used by Public Order Police in the UK. This paper will analyse the deployment of PLTs over the 14 days of the global COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021. The police plan for the event emphasised Human Rights, dialogue and facilitation, but some protest groups accused PLTs of 'intelligence-gathering' and urged activists not to speak to them. This paper draws on participant observation and interviews with both police and protestors to analyse the deployment of PLTs at the summit and consider why some groups chose not to engage with the liaison officers. Responding to calls for more evidence-based analyses of PLT deployment, we highlight the difficulties of police-protestor liaison at a Global Summit and outline why protest groups might choose not to engage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COP26 Climate Summit held in Glasgow in November 2021 was expected to attract mass protests. Given the climate crisis and the increase in direct action in the UK, the police anticipated huge numbers with the potential for significant disorder. Despite this, Police Scotland insisted that they were committed to facilitating peaceful protest. Drawing on ethnographic observation and interviews with both police and protestors, this paper offers analysis of a contentious event during the large set-piece demonstration on Saturday 6 November. It focuses on the containment of a small group of Young Communists to ask what this tells us about 'facilitation', crowd theory, and police-protestor relations. Whilst fairly insignificant in terms of numbers, we argue that the YCL containment offers valuable insights into protest policing and facilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spring of 2024 saw further political turmoil in Holyrood. The Bute House Agreement between the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Scottish Greens came to an abrupt end, and resulted in the subsequent resignation of Humza Yousaf as leader of the SNP and, thus, as Scotland's First Minister. This editorial essay surveys the events contributing to the crisis and considers the prospects of a minority Scottish Government led by the SNP's John Swinney. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In advance of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) summit in Glasgow in 2021, Police Scotland insisted that human rights and facilitation would be central to their operation. When the event passed off peacefully, without any of the mass arrests and disorder seen at previous iterations of COP, the Police declared it a huge success. We draw on research with activists and officers to scrutinize this claim and analyse the policing of COP26. Literature on protest policing suggests that global summits are distinctive, because the interplay between the security of Heads of state and other dignitaries, the local community and protestors is heavily biased in favour of security at such events. We suggest that this remains the case, despite the police emphasis on facilitation. We conclude that the ‘human-rights-based approach’ to policing is poorly defined and unevenly implemented and means different things to police and protestors. A fundamental rethinking of existing approaches and priorities is required for it to be meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the enfranchisement of 16- and 17-year olds in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, much research continued to prioritise questions of how education influences young people's political engagement. By contrast, this paper advances an original focus on educational outcomes of youth political participation and investigates how political engagement might have educational consequences. Shortly after the referendum, we interviewed a strategic sample of first-time voters aged 16–20, who had voted 'yes' to Scottish independence. We re-interviewed a sub-sample 3 years on, facilitating longitudinal analysis and novel qualitative data. Our analysis demonstrates how, from the perspective of remarkably engaged participants, referendum engagement has three kinds of educational consequences. First, participants describe learning about politics through referendum participation and their subsequent reflection on it. Second, participants understood their political engagements as informing their trajectories into and through post-compulsory education, including subject choices. Third, participants discussed learning about themselves and their career aspirations, 'growing up' and developing 'mature' political attitudes, via ongoing, shifting political engagement. This article contributes significant new insights about youth political engagement and lowering the voting age, by showing how young people understand their political participation as influencing their formal educational pathways and informal learning, about politics and themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2009.01875.x Byline: Hugo Gorringe (*), Michael Rosie (*) Abstract: Abstract In 2005, the location of the G8 summit meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, brought the contested boundaries of the state and the nation to the fore. Confronted by the prospect of significant public disorder police forces in Scotland routinely flagged up a 'Scottish approach to policing'. Drawing on research with key police officers and others we explore the processes through which national identities come to be articulated, contested and acted out in the context of one particular institution: the police. We consider the claim that policing of the summit was 'Scottish' and assess the implications of this assertion. Whilst the police have been argued to be integral to the constitution and expression of nation-statehood we highlight the dangers in an uncritical acceptance of police philosophies and also point to the banal ways in which national identity is naturalised. Author Affiliation: (*)University of Edinburgh Article History: Received 18 June 2008Finally accepted 29 October 2009

This contribution to the theme of 'Scotland and the Two Irelands' takes the form of a discussion between Michael Rosie, editor of Scottish Affairs, and Professor Sir Tom Devine, the pre-eminent scholar of modern connections between Scotland and Ireland. In the discussion Devine unfolds the migrant autobiographies of the Devine and Martin families, from rural Ulster, through industrial Lanarkshire, and into Scotland's professional classes. The account sheds light both on the migrant experience, and on the centrality of secondary education for twentieth century Scottish social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2008.00189.x Byline: Hugo Gorringe (1), Michael Rosie (1) Keywords: Policing; protest; negotiated management; G8; flashpoints model Abstract: Abstract Recent analyses of protest policing in Western democracies argue that there has been a marked shift away from oppressive or coercive approaches to an emphasis on consensus based negotiation. King and Waddington (2005) amongst others, however, suggest that the policing of international summits may be an exception to this rule. This paper examines protest policing in relation to the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. We argue that 'negotiated management' cannot be imported wholesale as a policing strategy. Rather it is mediated by local history, forms of police knowledge and modes of engagement. Drawing on interviews and participant observation we show that 'negotiated management' works best when both sides are committed to negotiation and that police stereotyping or protestor intransigence can lead to the escalation of any given event. In closing we note the new challenges posed by forms of 'global' protest and consider the implications for future policing of protest. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh Article History: (Date accepted: December 2007) Article note: email: hgorring@staffmail.ed.ac.uk

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00147.x Byline: John MacInnes (1), Michael Rosie (1), Pille Petersoo (2), Susan Condor (3), James Kennedy (1) Keywords: Nation; state; identity; sociology; newspapers Abstract: Abstract Although globalization has highlighted the danger of conflating state, society and nation, sociologists remain insufficiently alert to such banal nationalism. Newspapers offer a strong test case of the extent of diversity in the construction of state, national and social boundaries, since Billig and Anderson have argued they comprise a special case where their orientation to an audience simultaneously located in a state, society and nation allows them to reproduce a sense of national identity. However, despite the commonsense obviousness of the term, it proves remarkably difficult to define what the 'British national press' might comprise. Circulation density of titles varies substantially across different parts of the UK and editorial copy is altered to address diverse 'national' readerships. 'British' newspapers also circulate in other states, especially the Republic of Ireland. After reviewing how newspapers might be defined as 'national' and/or 'British', we conclude that both Anderson and Billig over-estimate the congruence, relevance and obviousness of state, society and national boundaries. If the conceptualization of such boundaries is problematic in the case of the press, it follows that it must be still more so for most other objects of sociological analysis, including that of 'society' itself. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh (2)International and Social Studies Institute, University of Tallinn, Estonia (3)Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster Article History: (Date accepted: February 2007) Article note: email: John.MacInnes@ed.ac.uk

A recent article in Ethinic and Racial Studies by Walls and Williams makes inferences about religious discrimination in employment from interview data. We question the validity of treating lay people as experts and present large-scale data from two recent surveys and the 2001 Census which suggest that sectarianism is more a social myth than a social reality. Keywords: Scotland; sectarianism; discrimination; 2001 Census.

There are two problems with the existing account of the relationship between newspapers and national identity in the UK. The first is that although it is widely assumed that the mass media are central to the reproduction and evolution of national identity this has never been empirically demonstrated. The second is that exactly what comprises the relevant 'national' context in the UK is unclear. Content analysis of 2,500 sampled articles, together with qualitative comparison of different editions of the same newspaper titles and interviews with editors and journalists are used to show' the extent and nature of 'national' frames of reference in newspapers in England and Scotland. Paradoxically, devolution may have reduced the spatial diversity of news stories in the press in England and Scotland.

A detailed and contextualized analysis of the 2005 G8 Summit that was held in Scotland and the dynamic interplay between protestors and police is described. The preconceptions and assumptions underpinning police operations and a more interactive understanding of police-protestor relations are presented.