Description
The period just after COVID and following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union left the Scottish government in search of a new strategy that reflected these new circumstances. During this period, some parliamentarians, in line with the Scottish Government, sought to promote Scotland's Feminist Foreign Policy. This vision sought to replicate feminist foreign policies of other countries, including Sweden and New Zealand, and reimagine them in a Scottish context, aligning Scottish external affairs with values similar to those of these model countries. Scotland's feminist foreign policy was greatly influenced by work within the committee system. The committee system sought to engage with outside stakeholders, engaging expert and NGO testimony in its creation. As noted during the committee process, feminist principles were not uniquely focused on external affairs; it also meant changing domestic policy. Scotland’s Feminist Foreign Policy, therefore, became part of an ambitious and broad-ranging realignment of Scottish policy. However, it quickly ran into problems. Domestic contestation over feminist values coincided with increased inter- and intra-party polarisation, upheaval at the executive level and greater intergovernmental tension. I argue that failing to maintain parliamentary legitimacy for this strategy would compound these issues and undermine the feminist approach to Scotland's external affairs. As such, I show that the Scottish Government's external affairs strategy is bounded by parliamentary legitimacy, with a corresponding lack thereof opening up Scottish Government strategy to a greater risk of failure.
