Arguing for Independence : Evidence, Risk and the Wicked Issues

Following an introductory chapter exploring why political argument deals in probability and plausibility across interdependent areas of social activity not certainty in individual areas, this book offers a case for independence under six main headings -- the democratic case, the economic case, the social case, the international case, the cultural case and the environmental case. Under each heading, the case is assessed against both the supportive evidence and the hostile evidence, from a variety of sources, concluding with a judgement of where the balance of the evidence points. The book concludes with a selection of populist objections to independence answered by summary rebuttals from the independence file.

STEPHEN MAXWELL was active in the debate on Scotland's political future for four decades. A native of Edinburgh, he studied at the universities of Cambridge and the London School of Economics before teaching and researching in international politics at the universities of Sussex and Edinburgh and at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. He was the SNP's national press officer between 1973 and 1977 and subsequently a Lothian Regional Councillor and director of the SNP's campaign for a Yes vote in the 1979 Scottish Assembly referendum. Until October 2009 he was Associate Director of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.

Owen Dudley Edwards is Hon. Fellow of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, at the University of Edinburgh where he taught History from 1968, having been born in Ireland and studied in the USA. His wife, Bonnie, is American and his three children are Scots. His most recent major monograph is British Children’s Fiction in the Second World War, his most recent collaboration Tartan Pimps, and he has edited several books including A Claim of Right for Scotland.