Introduction

Summary

This chapter proposes the historical analysis of the formation, expression and impact of public opinion as an alternative to a Habermasian interpretation of the public sphere. This approach focuses on opinion politics to capture contemporary efforts to influence and make claims about extra-institutional opinions for political ends, paying particular attention to social participation and contemporary language. Attempting to avoid structural limitations and teleology, this assessment of Scottish public politics will show how religious and constitutional tensions created by the 1560 Protestant Reformation and 1603 union of the Scottish and English crowns motivated the crown and its opponents to harness the power of opinion at large, creating new ways to describe, assert, recognise and control collective opinion.