State and public mechanisms for the implementation of the historical and cultural heritage protection policy in Scotland

The authors substantiate the idea, that the historical and cultural heritage is a factor of identification stability for each country, and the effectiveness of the implementation of cultural protection policy allows not only to preserve heritage objects, but also to resist the destruction of traditional identities. The object of study is the state and public mechanisms for the implementation of cultural policy in the UK; the subject is features of the functioning of state administrative, legal and civil mechanisms for the implementation of the policy for the protection of historical and cultural heritage in Scotland. The aim of the article is a political analysis of these state and public mechanisms. In the framework of the aim, the authors discover the political and managerial content of the concept of «policy for historical and cultural heritage protection»; describe the development process of the relevant regulatory framework; consider the legally classification of protected objects; analyze the powers of state and public structures. The article presents the point of view, according to which the UK is one of the countries with the most effective system of protection of heritage. The authors believe that the national specifics of Scotland allowed creating its own effective model of interaction between the state and society in the implementation of the policy for the protection of heritage. The article contains a well-founded conclusion that the cultural heritage, historical memory and national identity of each nation is important in a variety of social processes, including the process of self-determination, which for Scotland is an extremely relevant topic of the national political agenda.