Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2009
There is now a considerable literature about Scottish politics, most of it concerned with nationalism and devolution, but some of it consisting of institutional and administrative studies. The purpose of this article is to review the main books and articles in the field and to assess their successes and failures in accurately portraying and predicting the recent course of Scottish politics. I shall first consider the theoretical approaches which have been used. I shall then give an account of the principal texts, which will be evaluated with particular attention paid to their explanatory and predictive value. Lastly, some suggestions are made about the lines that future research on Scottish politics might take, in the light of the record so far.