Between 1960 and 1974, the Scottish National Party underwent a remarkable organisational expansion. Not only did the number of members, branches and constituency associations greatly increase, but by the end of 1974 the Party also succeeded in getting eleven parliamentary candidates elected to the House of Commons. This thesis is concerned with the two major organisational elements of this growth. The actual mechanics of change, this is, the structural, administrative and personnel dimensions. Secondly, we examine the nature of the intra-party power relationships as they evolved in the years under study. In essence, we argue that far from having a devolved power base, where decision on organisational matters such as publicity; Party finance; election strategy; and candidate selection etc., were taken only after consultation with the membership, the SNP had a highly centralised management structure. This view is contrary to most of the prevailing thinking on the subject. We summarise all of the major writings on the SNP's organisation in Chapter Two. We seek to show what factors in the growth of the SNP during this period, propelled it towards the centralisation of organisation decisionmaking. We utilise Party records to demonstrate that growth brought in its wake certain strains which could only be contained, and deflected, within a hierarchical management structure. With this in mind, during the course of the thesis we draw upon studies in organisational management which have been undertaken in other fields. These, we contest, confirm our hypothesis regarding the inevitability of the need for centralisation in a rapidly expanding organisation. In the specific context of political party management, we test the relevance of Robert Michels' view of the tendency towards 'oligarchy' even in parties with an ideological commitment to organisational democracy. We affirm the value and worth of Michels' views in so far as these can be applied to the SNP between 1960 and 1974. Our study is largely empirical. Consequently, we examine and analyse such critical organisational areas as the SNP's internal communications; finances; management committee structure; and election organisation. We also look at certain administrative aspects of the Labour and Conservative parties, to see how these compared in terms of centralisation etc., with the SNP. In other words, was the SNP, in the period under study, more decentra1ised, than the two major British parties? Most researcl1ers have answered that question in the affirmative. We conclude by summarising the factors which, we believe, led to the centralisation of organisational power within the SNP between 1960 and 1974. Explain what elements complicated intra-party power relations after 1974. And, finally, outline what has happened to the leadership's control of the Party in recent years. We relate this to our hypothesis regarding the SNP's growth and consequent leadership domination.

This thesis examines a range of issues concerning legal rights implementation in the field of Scottish housing law. This examination comprises three principle themes: firstly, an evaluation of the broad range of factors that can affect the implementation of legal rights. These factors are gleaned from an extensive literature review. Secondly, a critical analysis of key factors that affect the implementation of rights in respect of two Scottish councils, including assessment of the implementation of a select cluster of legal rights. Thirdly, drawing conclusions that identify the key factors pertinent to rights implementation. Legal developments in the field of housing have been diverse. But there has been little systematic study in the housing field of those factors that affect the implementation of legal rights. The thesis considers these factors in detail and reveals a complicated nexus of inter-relating elements that either contribute to or inhibit effective rights implementation. Political and ideological influences are shown to be significant, as is the influence of the legal process itself. But paramount in explaining rights implementation is the complex relationship that exists between council landlords and their tenants. Tenants, as key players in deciding to exercise their rights, often fail to do so; while landlords, charged by Central Government with the administrative task of implementing legal provisions, can be remiss in accomplishing their legal duties as a result of various organisational deficiencies. Organisational systems theory is applied to identify key organisational elements that are critical to ensure effective rights implementation. These elements are analysed in detail in the fieldwork that evaluates the organisational practices of two Scottish councils; this fieldwork incorporates analysis of implementation of four specific legal housing rights. Findings suggest that rights implementation is often ineffective, this failing attributable to a number of specific organisational deficiencies that include dearth of strategic planning, inadequacy of policy and procedural documentation, inappropriate work practices including lack of relevant performance indicators, ineffective communication systems and, crucially, under-developed training programmes for housing staff.

The cattle trade of Scotland is generally considered as a very important element of early modem Scottish economy and society. After peace was established in the Borders, and along with the gradual pacification of the Highlands, a regular trade in livestock developed over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the principal component of which consisted of large-scale cattle exports to England. A number of obstacles stood in the way of the fledging industry. The credit economy was not sufficiently developed to accommodate the droving trade or to minimise the risk of dishonest dealers, bankruptcies and defaults. Also, smugglers and thieves regularly disrupted the trade, and the Privy Council repeatedly tried to curb illegal activities, especially in the Highlands. Yet, despite difficulties and regional differences, most of Scotland's territories appear to have engaged in the cattle trade. Previous research has often referred to the cattle trade. The few studies of the subject though, are either too concise to adequately explore the topic or lack the perspective of an economic history. In this thesis, wider economic factors such as the credit economy, lawlessness and Irish competition are discussed and related to price trends, export figures and general costs and profits. Present assumptions have been re-examined, and new research data has been collected and analysed along with existing evidence, in an effort to fill the gap in the secondary literature. It has been found in this thesis that both livestock trade and cattle prices followed similar trends. After decades of modest growth or stagnation in the first half of the 17th century, a market infrastructure developed by the 1660s, which allowed the cattle business to reach unprecedented levels. The growth was unevenly distributed in geographic and social terms, and was mainly accounted for by a small number of rich landowners/businessmen in the Southwest. Trade and prices stabilised to this new equilibrium for more than 80 years (with many fluctuations), until the mid-18th century when they grew significantly further.

This thesis is a sociological historiography which is concerned with human networks and how these evolved and adapted to social change and dislocation in the eighteenth century. The experiences of several Campbell kinship groups who comprised a stratum of minor landed elites in the southwest Highlands are explored and analysed and particularly with regard to the extent to which their network structures assumed a predominantly horizontal spread. This structural alteration was a result ofthe absorption of exogamous ties and also a tendency for interest groups and professional configurations to establish satellite networking cliques and clusters imitative of civic participation and engagement. Although these extraneous ties brought additional stocks of social capital to the networks, these were prudently secured between social peers with strategies of social closure continuing to preserve the integrity of the networks. The nature of the relationships which the ties secured are also considered with regards to a number of conceptual theories which deal with conditions of mutual trust, cooperation, reciprocity, obligations and honour. The greatest challenge to the durability of the networks occurred with the transatlantic migrations and an increase in the volume of colonial trade. From the localised immediacy and intimacy of the Highland kinships the networks adapted to conditions of distanciation so that a networking continuum was sustained thereby linking the transatlantic clusters and cliques. As it was the networking ties not only served as channels of information but as highways which facilitated and stimulated a great deal of mobility. Although these networks may well have mitigated against many of the risks inherent in colonial trade, social closure tended to inhibit access to the wider stocks of opportunity, expertise and knowledge which lay beyond the limiting parameters of what was effectively a closed market.

The Monuments at Risk Survey 1995 (MARS) outlined rates and causes of identified monument loss in England, showing that 16% of recorded monuments had been completely destroyed by 1995, and that 95% of surviving monuments in England had suffered partial destruction. Hitherto, no equivalent research has been undertaken in Scotland. Using a 17% random stratified sample of 779 field monuments surviving in 1850 within a study area encompassing much of the local authority areas of Perth and Kinross, Fife and Angus, the present research has analysed the distribution and quantified loss of archaeological monuments since 1850 in relation to a number of variables including land use, Land Capability for Agriculture, elevation, local authority area, monument period and material construction. Results show that monument distribution within the study area varies most noticeably according to land use and elevation. The highest densities of extant monuments are found in semi-natural woodland (17.2 extant sample monuments per 100km2) and non-intensive land uses such as unimproved grazing and moorland (13.8 extant sample monuments per 100km2). The lowest density of extant monuments is found in arable and improved pasture (4.5 extant sample monuments per 100km2), although this is offset by a recorded density of 11.5 cropmark sample monuments per 100km2. By elevation, monument densities are highest below 100m OD (24.4 monuments per 100km2) and between 250m OD and 400m OD (21 monuments per 100 km2)with a pronounced paucity of recorded monuments between 100m OD and 200m OD, particularly on improved and arable land. For each sample monument, a condition history has been constructed through a desk-based study using data from the National Monuments Record of Scotland. This desk-based study has recorded the greatest causes of monument loss since 1850 as unknown causes (28% of loss), archaeological excavation (24% of loss), farming (15% of loss) and development (11% of loss). The monument condition histories created through the desk-based study have then been augmented and calibrated for a subsample of 258 monuments by means of an accuracy assessment, using information from vertical and oblique aerial photographs, survey reports from Historic Scotland Monument Wardens and a programme of field survey. Using these additional data sources, the accuracy assessment has identified the largest causes of monument loss within the study area since 1850 as forestry (31% of loss), farming (28% of loss) and development (12% of loss). Analysis shows that among monuments extant in 1850, a minimum of 38% have been reduced in extent, with at least 5% destroyed. Loss has been greatest among monuments found in arable and improved land (39% reduced, 27% destroyed), forestry (79% reduced, 9% destroyed) and developed land (63% reduced, 27% destroyed), and lowest among monuments found in permanent pasture (91% undamaged), semi-natural woodland (75% undamaged) and rough grazing and moorland (85% undamaged). Although the use of a desk-based study and accuracy assessment has proved successful in identifying trends in the loss of visible monuments, it has been necessary to employ alternative methods by which to assess damage at buried monuments represented by cropmarks. To this end, a programme of excavation, topographic survey and soil depth recording has been undertaken at five locations in Perth and Kinross. Analysis of the results from this programme of excavation and survey has identified statistically significant relationships between land surface curvature and topsoil depth at three of the five sites examined, enabling the mapping at site scale of areas which are likely to have been subject to greatest agricultural damage. Extrapolating from these site-specific maps, it has been possible to map probable damage and risk to cropmark monuments at a regional scale. Although the validity of this regional scale mapping has been limited by the 25m cell size of the digital terrain model on which it has been based, the potential of such a technique in enabling a rapid preliminary assessment of damage and risk to cropmark monuments has been demonstrated.

This study examines the development of policing in Glasgow from 1779 to 1846. It argues that while police reform in the city fits more closely with the revisionist view of police history than the traditionalist, neither, in terms of how they are presented in relation to England, do justice to the distinct and complex manner in which the police institution in Glasgow, or Scotland for that matter, evolved. The absence of obligatory legislative enactments and clear dividing lines between the old and the new police in Scotland, combined with the peculiar nature of the 'police' concept, resulted in a different course of development which neither model accommodates precisely. Police development in Glasgow, the study contends, was characterised by one dominant factor - namely, the middle class seeking to control and manage more effectively their city in the face of rapid urbanisation. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this took the form of establishing a new range of public amenity provisions that were essential to health and safety. However, while this commitment to the wider aspect of policing was never entirely superseded, the control and management of people rather than the environment became of increasing importance to police commissioners as the first half of the nineteenth century progressed. Although no one incident underlay this reorientation, the traumatic events of the post-Napoleonic period proved particularly significant, as the propertied classes sought a more effective form of law enforcement to protect them from political insurrection, industrial unrest and the expanding urban masses. The study will show that police affairs were embroiled in an ongoing struggle between different social and economic groups for control of local affairs. Throughout the period in question, issues of class, status and power were at the forefront of police management, as the local ruling elite sought to withstand the challenge to their political hegemony from, initially, the upper middle class and, latterly, the lower middle/self-employed working class.

Two glasshouse experiments were conducted to; (i) investigate the effects of soil mechanical impedance (MI) on individually grown plants of Lolium perenne, Trifolium repens (sown pasture species) and Agrostis capillaris (indigenous species); and (ii) investigate the effects of MI on the growth of L. perenne and A. capillaris grown in swards comprising pure stands and mixtures. The individually grown plants showed a significant (P0.05) reduction in dry matter accumulation in an impeding treatment (2.3 MPa PR) compared to a control (0.25 MPa) for all species. Each species showed significant (P0.01) correlations between root and shoot dry weight indicating that the root to shoot ratio was maintained across the different MI treatments. This suggested that MI caused some form of root to shoot communication which kept root and shoot growth in synchrony. L. perenne also shows significant reductions and delays in shoot development. This effect was less pronounced in the other two species showing that L. perenne was more sensitive to MI. MI also significantly (P0.05) reduced root length and axis numbers for both L. perenne and A. capillaris in both pure and mixed stands. Only in pure swards of L. perenne was there significantly (P0.05) less root dry weight in the impeding treatment (1.8 MPa) compared to the control (0.2 MPa). MI had no significant effect on any aspect of shoot growth of either species grown in pure swards. However, L. perenne grown in mixture with A. capillaris had significantly less shoot dry weight in the 1.8 MPa treatment compared to the control. These results reinforced the findings from the individually grown plants which also showed that L. perenne was more sensitive to MI than A. capillaris. From the evidence of the glasshouse experiments, it was concluded that the PR measured at the field sites, would have affected the growth of the sward species. It is also suggested that the greater MI at one of the sites would have played a role in the more rapid replacement of L. perenne by A. capillaris observed at that site. This is due to the greater sensitivity of L. perenne to MI compared to A. capillaris, reducing its competitive advantage.

No description available.

This thesis focuses on the role of the Church of Scotland's Board of Social Responsibility in the development and implementation of social work policy in Scotland. The thesis deploys a case study methodology and interpretive research methods to generate understanding of the Board of Social Responsibility and its intended purpose as a service-providing voluntary organisation. Links between the Board of Social Responsibility and significant social work policy developments are identified to determine the changing influence of both local authorities and central government upon the scope of voluntary social work service provision. The thesis identifies a process of incremental social work policy development in Scotland that has operated to encourage the contribution of service-providing voluntary organisations. The Board of Social Responsibility is identified as having operated as Scotland's largest voluntary provider of social work services throughout the period under review and to have implemented a changing pattern of social work service provision: first shifting from an innovative to a traditional model of participation, returning to an innovative model, and then, finally, shifting towards a developmental model of participation. The source of this changing pattern of participation is identified as individual agency allied. to interpretations of the organisation's faith-based ethos. The significant role of the Board of Social Responsibility in the development and implementation of social work policy in Scotland is established as that of provider of a range of replicative, alternative social work services. This role is related to Scotland's wider voluntary sector to establish that views of social work policy development existing within the Board of Social Responsibility are not indicative of views existing within other voluntary organisations. The Board of Social Responsibility's particular pattern of participation is also recognised to be distinctive. Ultimately the thesis finds that the approving model of governance adopted by the Board of Social Responsibility's higher-order collectives means the Church of Scotland has not exerted a significant influence upon the policy environment that has grown to control and regulate the social work undertaken by service-providing voluntary organisations operating in Scotland between 1948 and 2000.

This thesis explores the role of folklore in creating an online Orkney place, referring to key literature from the discipline of folklore and the study of place, including the study of island places. The research introduces the concept and theory of Virtually Filtered Places: places created in the digital environment which are related to identifiable physical places in the non-digital environment. Such virtually filtered places are created by multiple users, meaning they are subject to compounded subjectivity; and are created across a range of digital platforms, meaning a virtually filtered place is one which has a range of possibilities and multiples depending on the nature of the data collection, including which platforms are analysed. This theory is grounded in the fields of space and place research, and of potential relevance to a wide variety of disciplines which focus on the interaction and engagement of users in digital environments which are linked to places in non-digital environments. The research develops a methodological approach grounded in digital ethnography, focussing upon three case studies using the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. As a participant observer on Twitter, the researcher hosted a Twitter Hour discussing the #OrkneySupernatural, and hosted three Hosted Hashtags on Twitter, discussing three key themes that arose from early thematic analysis: the physical environment (#OrkneyAndPlace), the human environment (#OrkneyAndPeople), and the online environment (#OrkneyOnline). The researcher collated data from Facebook Groups and Pages as an invisible observer. Following iterative thematic analysis, nine sub-themes were identified. Referring to users' utilisation of platform-specific functionality and the themes and sub-themes identified, the creation of space and place relating to Orkney in the online environment is discussed, specifically considering the role that branding, media, and people play in the creation of place. The research considers the role of folklore in creating an online Orkney place (or a virtual Orkney), focussing on the importance of both the physical environment and the human environment. Finally, the features of this virtual Orkney are discussed, concluding with a proposal for how to approach the study of similar virtually filtered places. The research offers potential ways in which to investigate emerging and developing virtual places, and what folklore as a discipline can contribute to such studies in the context of place and the fluctuating digital environments in which these places are created.