Expert explores 'missing voices' of Scottish independence referendum

Maike Dinger, based at the universities of Stirling and Bournemouth, has suggested while the campaign became “synonymous” with grassroots activism, there are still certain groups of society – including women and Gaelic speakers – the cause could have engaged better with. 

She wrote a chapter for the publication Silenced Voices and the Media entitled The Missing Voices of “indyref”: Media representations, (Dis)empowerment  and Participation During the 2014 Scottish Referendum Campaign.

It largely focuses on a perceived failure of the referendum to reach disengaged voters, while it criticises the lack of effort to frame a new Scotland as a “feminist opportunity”, and speaks of a “neglect of minority cultures and languages”. 

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Dinger – whose research focuses on political representations in the media and political activism  –  makes the case that while the referendum was successful in engaging a range of people in politics, it arguably fell short in its attempts to reach the “missing Scotland”, a crucial target group who had stopped voting in elections.

Though engaging these voters was also a problem for Better Together, Dinger suggests it “disproportionately affected” the Yes side, given there was more pressure on those activists to convince people to vote for a new Scotland.   

Dinger told The National: “My argument is that it was an engaging and positive narrative, this idea of everyone’s included, and there were definitely attempts to be more inclusive in the way we talk about politics, but there were specific groups that were not reached. 

“I focused on the Yes side because the independence movement had this idea of being more progressive. There are similar drawbacks on the No side but the pro-Union side never made the argument of being more progressive, so you’re measured against what you’re hoping to achieve.”

Dinger (below) starts out by highlighting a potential paradox that was formed at the launch of the Yes campaign when celebrities were brought in to promote the independence message, giving it a “notably elite character”.

She wrote: “The juxtaposition of elite legitimisation and popular sovereignty reproduces a model of representative democracy. Additionally, it limits the idea and agency of popular participation via the ‘largest and most exciting community-based campaign in Scotland’s history’, promised by the organisers of Yes Scotland and then first minister Alex Salmond.”

(Image: Maike Dinger) Dinger then moves on to stress that while some voters who had not engaged in politics for a long time, such as the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC), were motivated to push the cause forward, there were still some disengaged parts of the electorate the Yes campaign didn’t reach.

Focussing on the mass canvassing organised by the RIC in deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland’s cities, she wrote: “These events were meant to contribute to large-scale voter registration.

“While they raised awareness for the ‘class’ argument in the referendum debate, it is difficult to determine their impact in addressing the so-called ‘missing Scotland’, who no longer participate in national elections.”

Coined by Gerry Hassan, the idea of the “missing Scotland” became a key slogan to promote a need “to politically empower ‘forgotten’ and disengaged segments of society in the referendum discourse”, Dinger said.

But she argues this term became so “trendy” to talk about on both sides of the campaign that it resulted in certain societal groups being sidelined.

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She said: “We did see from the turnout that loads of people that don’t usually vote participated, but in the way that some of the discourse worked they weren’t necessarily included in the debate.

“In some of the discussion that we saw, a lot of the people who always engaged in politics got really excited. So that’s why I’m mentioning radical left, maybe they had been disenchanted with politics in a way, but this excitement came back.

“[However] if you’re in that bubble, you feel like everyone is taking about politics, and then these are often the people who write about politics, and then it spirals and some of the people who don’t usually engage in politics are left on the sidelines.

“That’s not to say they were actively excluded but there’s not enough effort to speak to them directly.”

Gender is another issue which Dinger argues “escaped meaningful engagement” during the referendum.

She points out how women were primarily viewed in terms of their “hidden” voting potential, or threat, to security an independence majority and, although the structural underrepresentation of women in politics could have “easily aligned with notions of a more democratic” future Scotland, Dinger says the referendum was “rarely framed as a feminist opportunity”.

She argued both Scottish Labour’s Red Paper and the Scottish Government’s White Paper “failed to link the referendum debate to feminist concerns”.

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“I think one of the drawbacks was women in the beginning were seen as vote winners,” Dinger added.

“There was this idea women might vote more conservatively so we have to convince them to vote for independence.

“I think women were sort of seen as pawns in vote winning strategies rather than thinking about how we can talk about politics in a way that matters to women.”

(Image: PA) Gaelic and Scots speakers were also “linguistic exclusions” of the referendum campaign, Dinger suggests, as an emphasis on progressive and civic politics of national difference “coincided with the neglect of minority cultures and languages”.

She highlighted how the Scottish Government “arguably undermined” the status of Gaelic when it refused to provide a bilingual ballot paper – even after a public petition demanded one.

Furthermore, official voting information about the referendum was not provided in Scots.

The chapter goes on: “This lack of concern expressed towards Scotland’s different national languages arguably takes the shape of a culture-political statement which reinforced levels of exclusion within the context of this debate”.

She suggested the failure to accommodate minority languages revealed “the limitations of the progressive vision discursively promoted as part of the referendum”.

Dinger added: “It does seem like a missed opportunity [to include Gaelic and Scots speakers more]. 

“It maybe didn’t quite fit with this progressive notion of civic nationalism, this idea of bringing it back to values of inclusion.

“I think it was maybe a bit heavy on the culture and that was kind of avoided in the referendum. There wasn’t a lot of emphasis on cultural differences."