Introduction Political Science today places greater emphasis on hypothesis testing than the search for abiding causal laws of the sort associated with Duverger.1 Genuine social and political puzzles, however, are few and far between.  The single best example is both so good and so rare that it divides the discipline.  Michael Ross notoriously asked whether oil…

This, the second issue of We Are Not Rats, is themed ‘Method: investigating change from the ideological to the institutional’. Following directly from our original motivations for founding We Are Not Rats (which you can find here), this issue looks at the nature of ‘protest movements’ in general, as well as the lessons we could…

Joel White, Edinburgh University student, examines the role of music in political movements. A tour of contemporary musical counter-culture via the 60s, Form 696, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and the streets of London.

The vice-chair of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Isobel Lindsay, analyses three key stages in the history of CND, assesses their failures and successes, and asks what campaigners can learn from each.

Alan Bissett is an author and playwright from Falkirk, Scotland. His works include the one-woman show ‘The Moira Monologues’ (which he performed himself), and the novels ‘Boyracers’ and ‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’. He is the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Writer of the Year 2011. In this interview Alan discusses the role of literature in social and political movements. He has also allowed us to reproduce his own protest poem, ‘Vote Britain’.

Francis Antoine, a Québécoise student, chronicles the events of the Maple Spring. With the help of a cooking analogy, he sheds light on the components required for an equivalent movement to take off in Scotland.

Patrick Harvie MSP is the joint Convenor of the Scottish Green Party and a regional MSP for Glasgow (a position he has held since 2003). Here we ask him how party politics, and the Green Party in particular, can provide students with an opportunity to provoke change.

Liam Burns, incumbent president of the National Union of Students explains why the NUS often finds itself between a rock and a hard place. He defends his decision to try and attract the support of new faces, despite the criticism he has received from members of the old guard.