Modifying them to treat vitamin a deficiency throughout the world. If we can get them the food they need, i say why not. Both the safety and nutritional value is inconclusive and highly disputed. There is no difference between a few eight oral if you ate organic and regular food. Who is determining responsible for determining whether the foods should be labeled or ignored . Join us during washington journal for the theme of the cody 15 two mccammond of thetary come 2015 student cam documentary competition. Onthey hosted a discussion Scottish Independence and recent survey data about the our about the issue. This is about one hour 30 minutes. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Wilson Center. I am a senior scholar at the center. I would like to ask that everyone turn off their cell phones. The Wilson Center is a nonpartisan place for tackling policy issues. The whole is forming actionable. Deas for policymakers the program on global europe addresses vital issues affecting the relationship through scholars in residence who. Rrived yesterday seminars, International Conferences and publications. These activities cover topics like European Energy security and europes role in setting Global Standards with governments and human rights. Today, we are focusing on a problem that has not existed in an active sense in europe for some years but is heating up again. Thats the issue of secession, notably scotland on the eve of the referendum for independence. This referendum will occur on september 18 and will decide whether the country will be the First Western european state in recent history to secede. After two years of campaigning, it would seem many of the issues are sorted out and the public has a good understanding of them and the media has shared that understanding with us. But our speaker today, using very recent data and the only large scale representative, comprehensive survey research in scotland will show where this general list of about scotts attitude toward that may be empirically wrong. After showing where the polls stand and what we may expect as polling day approaches, this will focus on how the attitudes of scottish people in International Affairs have often been misrepresented, in particular with relation to the European Union, scotlands role in the world and Nuclear Weapons in scotland. The talk will identify issues that will still move the in either direction before casting their votes will stop those of you who see the financial times, there are three stories today, provoked in part by a poll released on tuesday. It shows the race as closed and the polls at least to a 57 to a to 43 vote in favor of no that is the continuance of the u. K. This poll has a margin of error ofs or minus three, so if correct, it has closed quite a bit from the polls of at least three weeks ago which were showing an average of 18 to 20 gap. It is our privilege today to have the doctor with us to discuss this issue. He is a specialist on survey research and is currently the social and policy chair at the adversity of Edinburgh School of political science. Hes the Principal Investigator on to economic and social Research Council funded projects on the future of the u. K. And scotland. It is investigating the attitude of scots in relation to this referendum. It is a pleasure to welcome you here and we look forward to your comments. He has a powerpoint and we will go through some interesting slides which we can discuss in greater detail. Thank you and thank you for the opportunity to speak about the referendum. Its a great opportunity to speak about outside of scotland because the discussion becomes a more dispassionate and political at times, especially in the more heated context that we have right now. I want to give you a very brief background to the study. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. I want to outline the situation right now taste on our data and the data based on the polls we have conducted. Then i want to discuss what counts for voters because what has been said and certain topics have dominated the discourse, but what is crucial is what voters think and what differentiates yes from no voters. Specifically, looking at attitude towards the eu and scotlands role in the world. Finally, i close with two short bits the issue of referendum turnout which is crucial for the result, but for anyone interested in democracy, crucial because we may see items that go beyond the referendum and a specific item saw the voting age lowered to 16. The question might be whether that is a good idea or not . I will speak at most four 40 minutes so that we have time to speak afterwards. I will rush through the slides quite a bit but they will be made available if you want to study them in more detail. The idea is to give you a broad overview so that you can pick your topics for discussion afterward. The background, it is now 15 days away. In scotland, people are noticing, even people who have been researching this for two years, this is actually happening. We have been working on it for years and we have to Campaign Groups come a that you might know, the yes scotland focused her on the Scotland National party in government at the moment and have the majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament and could ask for this referendum to take place. It takes place in agreement with the u. K. Government, so it is not one directional. Both sides will accept the outcome of this referendum. If it is a yes vote, scotland will likely become independent. On the other side, theres a campaign advocating for a no vote and scotland staying in the union. That is largely made up of three unionist parties conservatives, labor and the liberal democrats and by alastair darling, former chancellor of the exchequer. The background is to projects. It is public funding that fund this research which means i am entirely politically neutral. We have been accused of both sides by favoring the other, so that shows we are neutral come i think. I have no particular view one way or the other. Two bases here the cottage the Scottish Social Attitude survey that has been conducted we are partners in this together from the university of edinburgh. It is a highquality, face to face survey and the most comprehensive on Political Attitudes in scotland that goes through stringent design processes and with the funding we receive, we could develop large modules for specific questions on the referendum. We have a time dating back to 1999 that allows us to check how some of these things have developed since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. There is a website where you can access all the data on constitutional change from the survey. The aim is to create Research Output during the debate and it is run by the scottish social research. There is a specific survey of 19yearolds because when the voting age was lowered, young people are not engaged and will not vote, but we have been data because they are not usually part of the electorate. We are also one of the parents of the young person who was interviewed. We produced Research Results but have developed a set of teaching research. As i said, i want to keep this brief and Start Talking about the actual results. What is the situation right now . The first simply shows you a plot of all the polls that have then conducted since the referendum has been agreed. Should scotland be an independent country . I already got my voting ballot. What you see here is the nose, the bottom in blue, yes. What you see is there is no single opinion poll apart from the one commissioned that had leading questions and all other polls show no was in the lead and that has been consistent. We also see its a bit narrower toward the end. It also looks as if theres a lot of volatility. Why there is so much difference is the different polling institutes have come up with very different results and very different baselines. Some consistently polled at the higherend and some at the lower end. The reason it is so difficult to poll here is the turnout is expected to be very high. A lot of people who dont usually vote will be taking part. That is the reason polling institutes have come up with different results. It is hard to say which ones are right. It is very hard to assess, so what we usually do is use the averages. It doesnt mean the averages right, but a gives us the best view. If a lot of holes move in the same direction, we understand probably what is happening. We can do this for the time for which the question was agreed. What you can see first of all is in 2013, nothing happened. At the beginning of 2014, we saw the biggest shift in the polls. In the subsequent months, there was very little movement, so april, may, not much happened. In july and august, we saw a bit of an increase. But this is a view of all the polls that have been conducted in august. It looks like there is a lot of volatility but thats the difference between the polling institutes. Some are closer to 40 . But polls that have been conducted saw an increase in the yes vote. Most crucially, the poll mentioned yesterday is the most interesting. The single pull doesnt say much but it was close to a 40 yes vote and is now polling close to 47 . We have clearly seen a narrowing of the gap so they are looking on average of that east 45 to 55. The most recent polls, polling 47 to 53. This race is definitely a close race at this stage. This debate has been going on for some say at least 300 years. This focus on the process since scotland saw a vote in parliament. People could say it should be part of the United Kingdom, but i will summarize that as evolution. That is not evolution. This is a trend since 1999. You see in the middle, independents, at the bottom, those who say no to evolution. Independence was never the favorite option. Some of the people say we would like more devolution than we have had at the moment. What is clear is its somewhere between a quarter and a third. Lower levels were measured since 2007, which is when the s p became part of the Scottish Government. It seems at first slightly strange. Will stop we can show this that people evaluate it better since the snp is in power. Before 2007, it was always the case that people said it is less than its fair share of spending. Since 2007, the portion that says fair share is equal. People have a more positive evaluation, but people have a more positive evaluation that may convince them of independence. Who benefits more from the union, scotland or england . If you ask in england, you get the opposite view. But a larger group always used to say england benefits more than scotland. Since 2007, that has become much more even. But since 2011, we have seen a separation and more people saying england benefits from the union. Might not be surprising since 2010, we have a conservative government and the conservative party is not particularly strong. That is the big picture. What is happening now . Crucially, what counts for the voters. Im going to start by using an overused quotation, but it is the economy. It is very clear that nearly everyone who thinks scotlands economy would be better scotland became independent indicates they vote yes and nearly everyone who says it would do worse indicates they would vote no. I teach statistics classes and i will be using that as a reallife example as a nearperfect correlation. We can see this clear crystallization has increased throughout the referendum, so this has become the dominant issue that relates to peoples evaluation. Even in 2012, those who said scotlands economy would be a little better, only half supported independence at that point. They are nearly all voting yes. Its a clear crystallization of this process and we see the same for those who have a more negative outlook. The economy differentiates the yes and no vote better than any other variable. If we dont use the word independence, we ask what is your ideal for how scotland should be governed, the Scottish Parliament should decide rethink stop or we could ask an offer that has maximum evolution. That is the most strong proponents are suggesting. What is crucial here is those who say the Scottish Parliament should decide everything for scotland, i. E. That people for whom their ideal would the, that number has increased substantially from 31 in 2013 to 41 in 2014. Thats a big jump of people who say my ideal is scotland governs itself. I call this group independence sympathizers. We are not only analyzing those people who say the Scottish Parliment should decide ridding themselves. Only 56 indicate they would vote yes in this survey. A small group says, about 10 no, and this is data from may to july, that they were still undecided. There is a sizable group and some of those undecideds are leaning towards yes or no votes. That is not a small group. The people who have as an ideal that they should apply everything, they are not indicating they would if only vote yes. Thats still 13 or 14 of respondents now. Thats a sizable group not acting on their ideal. Why is that should mark you might not be surprised, but its because of the economy. Those sympathizers indicate a would vote yes and nearly all of them think scotlands economy would be better after independence. They indicate they would either vote no or are not fully decided yet. That is a much more mixed picture. Crucially, what this says to us is when people have the idea of scottish selfgovernance, if they are not invent scotlands economy would do well, the may not act upon the ideal that its superimposed on other issues. There are a few other issues not as strongly related, but also very strongly related. One is the issue of social inequality. Scotland is a much more left leaning society, they are more likely to vote labor, but if you analyze peoples views, the Public Attitude towards benefits, then scottish views are only a few percentages more left than english people. They are always coming together in the same way. In 2012, only half of those who thought scotland would be more it will society indicated they support independence, but now were looking at 80 . This is the issue the yes campaign has been focused on and it is an issue that polarizes voters much more than it did before. So that is a success. Another issue people care about is scotlands role in the world. People who think scotlands voice in the world would be a lot stronger, by and large tend to vote yes. It matters, clearly, but it does not matter as strongly. Those who think its only going to be a little stronger there is something going on. People care about scotlands role in the world and i will come to issues of Nuclear Weapons in a little while. Its not a strongly related as the valuations related to the economy. This is what you get when you put different factors into regression modeling. All of the factors are related to each other, of course. Then we can look at what has the strongest effect. The top four issues that are and she yes and no voting are all issues that reflect on what people expect what happened to scotland after independence. What they think would happen the number one issue is the economy, scotlands voice in the world, the pride of scots, then the then there is a substantial gap and we get National Identity. National identity is correlated, but much less strongly than the economy, inequality expectations and what is scotlands role in the world. What is also less strongly correlated are the graphic issues. Men are more likely to vote yes but thats less strong than the pragmatic evaluations. Lets talk for a moment about National Identity, because that is a crucial issue. I did some work this week in berlin and german journalists tend to be disappointed when they come to scotland and report about it because they expect people with blue face paint shouting freedom out but thats not how the debate goes will that has to do with National Identity. Most scots have always reported that to some extent they are scottish and to some extent, they are british. Most people report multiple national identification. Only about 10 that has hardly increased. Scotland has not become less scottish. However, the group that says they are equally scottish and british has gone up and conversely, the group that says they are only scottish at the bottom in blue has gone down to only about a quarter. The scots are less likely to emphasize their scottish identity over their british identity, but they are much more scottish than british. That is how this relates to the referendum, to support scotland becoming an independent country. Even in 2014, only 60 of those who said they are scottish and not british at all indicated they supported independence all this relationship for a while there is a correlation, is much less pronounced than the previous correlations i have shown you. National identity matters but less to an extent of what actually will happen to scotland. Now, the European Union, obviously related to those issues, it dominated the media debate and political debate in january and february in scotland very much. The Better Together site emphasized the issue of the European Union affairs very much. There was a statement by the commission residence at the time about saying scotland would have to reapply and there had been implications about spain and belgium are going to veto scottish membership. Although, while a lot of spanish politicians have commented they would not make this an automated process, the Spanish Foreign minister has stated there would not be an automatic veto. The Scottish Parliment had a long hearing process and consultation on this issue with experts and the key thing is experts dont really agree. Most people agree there would not even an automated rss. Most