This book examines the role of local peacebuilders in Northern Ireland and some of the challenges they face. The work explores the perspective and experiences of local peacebuilders in Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland about their analysis and critique of liberal peacebuilding, their hopes, and concerns, and how they are aligned with external funders. It features interviews with a plethora of civil society organization workers, funding agency community development officers, and civil servants adjudicating the International Fund for Ireland and the European Union Peace and Rconciliation Fund, which highlight the participants’ local wisdom, practices, and values regarding creating sustainable livelihoods, peacebuilding insights, receiving recognition for their work, dissonance with internal and external actors, conflict transformation efforts, and and engagement with partners and allies. The rich empirical qualitative exploratory case study, situated in post-peace accord Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland, speaks to the respondents’ ideas about the creation, delivery, and efficacy of peacebuilding-funded initiatives as well as their hopes and dreams for the future. In exploring this central argument, the work offers an overarching structure in which to analyze the theory and praxis of conflict and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. More generally, it offers an important contribution to our understanding of local peacebuilders, and how economic assistance impacts on a divided society. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, sociology, and British and Irish politics.

This book examines the role played by one important external stakeholder, Atlantic Philanthropies, a limited-life foundation, in helping to build peace and promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is now referred to as a post-conflict society largely due to the absence of political violence and relatively stable political institutions. These are necessary but insufficient conditions for what Galtung has described as ‘positive peace’, which requires a more fundamental review of the structural inequalities that contributed to the conflict in the first place. Using detailed case studies the authors illustrate the role played by voluntary and community sector groups, funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, in influencing the public policy agenda and securing long term systemic changes. They also critique the work of Atlantic as a ‘pay to play’ organization whose original mission moved from funding the higher education sector on the island of Ireland to become a key foundation with a significant role in the peace process.

Since the troubles began in the late 1960s, people in Northern Ireland have been working together to bring about a peaceful end to the conflict. Building Peace in Northern Irelandexamines the different forms of peace and reconciliation work that have taken place. Maria Power has brought together an international group of scholars to examine initiatives such as integrated education, faith-based peace building, cross-border cooperation, and women's activism, as well as the impact that government policy and European funding have had upon the development of peace and reconciliation organizations.

However, it is important to note that economic aid to promote a change in Northern Ireland's economic well-being is also tied into the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which has, at its center, a comprehensive range of new political power-sharing institutions."

This book examines the role of economic aid in the management and resolution of protracted ethnic conflicts, focusing on the case study of Northern Ireland. The book describes the results of a study of the role of economic aid within Northern Ireland, through the viewpoints of citizens collected in an opinion poll as well as community group leaders whose projects received funding, funding-agency civil servants and development officers. The study explains the importance of economic and social development in promoting cross-community contact as well as within single-identity communities, and the need for a multitrack intervention approach to transform the conflict in Northern Ireland. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of how economic assistance impacts on a divided society with a history of protracted violence and provides important perspectives on the "peace through development" idea. One of the key unanswered questions relating to economic aid and preventing future violence is that of the significance of external economic aid in building peace after violence. By examining the respondents’ political imagery, this book expands on existing work on economic aid and peace building in other societies coming out of violence. Northern Ireland’s changing social-economic and political context reflects the fact that economic aid and sustainable economic development is a cornerstone of the peacebuilding process. The goal of the book is to provide a foundational knowledge base for students and practitioners about the role of economic aid in building the peace dividend in post-accord societies. The book will be of great interest to students of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, Irish politics, peace and conflict studies, and politics and IR in general.

Political accommodation in Northern Ireland, Israel and South Africa at the macro level may not, by itself, be sufficient to achieve the long-term goals of building peace and reconciliation. This book uses Lederach's peace-building model to explore issues which may provide a basis for transformation and a lasting peace in the three countries.

This book offers a distinctive perspective on peace processes by comparatively analysing two cases which have rarely been studied in tandem, Ireland and Korea. The volume examines and compares Ireland and Korea as two peace/conflict areas. Despite their differences, both places are marked by a number of overlaid states of division: a political border in a geographical unit (an island and a peninsula); an antagonistic relationship within the population of those territories; an international relationship recovering from past asymmetry and colonialism; and divisions within the main groupings over how to address these relationships. Written by academics and practitioners from Europe and East Asia, and guided by the concepts of peacebuilding and reconciliation, the chapters assess peace efforts at all levels, from the elite to grassroot organisations. Topics discussed include: historical parallels; modern debates over the legacy of the past; contemporary constitutional and security issues; civil society peacebuilding in relation to faith, sport, and women’s activism; and the role of economic assistance. The book brings Ireland and Korea into a rich dialogue which highlights the successes and shortcomings of both peace processes This book will be of interest to students of Peace and Conflict Studies, Irish Politics, Korean Politics, and International Relations.

Religion was thought to be part of the problem in Ireland and incapable of turning itself into part of the solution. Many commentators deny the churches a role in Northern Ireland's peace process or belittle it, focusing on the few well-known events of church involvement and the small number of high profile religious peacebuilders. This new study seeks to correct various misapprehensions about the role of the churches by pointing to their major achievements in both the social and political dimensions of the peace process, by small-scale, lesser-known religious peacebuilders as well as major players. The churches are not treated lightly or sentimentally and major weaknesses in their contribution are highlighted. The study challenges the view that ecumenism was the main religious driver of the peace process, focusing instead on the role of evangelicals, it warns against romanticising civil society, pointing to its regressive aspects and counter-productive activities, and queries the relevance of the idea of 'spiritual capital' to understanding the role of the churches in post-conflict reconstruction, which the churches largely ignore. This book is written by three 'insiders' to church peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, who bring their insight and expertise as sociologists to bear in their analysis of four-years in-depth interviewing with a wide cross section of people involved in the peace process, including church leaders and rank-and-file, members of political parties, prime ministers, paramilitary organisations, community development and civil society groups, as well as government politicians and advisors. Many of these are speaking for the first time about the role of religious peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, and doing so with remarkable candour. The volume allows the Northern Irish case study to speak to other conflicts where religion is thought to be problematic by developing a conceptual framework to understand religious peacebuilding.

Northern Ireland's Belfast Agreement has faced continual crises of implementation over a variety of security related issues. Too frequently analyses have neglected to study the wider changes that have occurred inside and outside Northern Ireland. These have had profound effects in changing attitudes towards violence, paramilitaries, the position of women and ideas of nationalism and sovereignty. This book places the implementation of the Belfast Agreement in a wider context to provide an analysis of why implementation has been so difficult.