The Northern Ireland Experience of Conflict and Agreement presents a salutary warning to the international community against the fashionable view that there is an ‘Irish model’ which can be exported to cauterise ethnic troubles around the globe. The book draws on extensive archive research in London and Dublin on the 1970s power-sharing experiment, and on interviews with senior officials and political figures from the two capitals—as well as reconciliation practitioners—about the negotiation and chequered implementation of the Belfast agreement. It shows how stereotyped conceptions of the problem as a product of ‘ancient hatreds’, allied to solutions based on Realpolitik, have failed to transform Northern Ireland from a fragile peace, following the exhaustion of protracted paramilitary campaigns, to genuine reconciliation. The book concludes with practical proposals for constitutional reforms which would favour genuine power-sharing—rather than merely sharing power out—and set Northern Ireland on the road to the ‘normal’, civic society its long-suffering residents desire. It will be essential reading not only for academics and postgraduates interested in ethnic conflict but also for policy-makers who confront it in practice.

After three decades of violence, Northern Ireland has experienced unprecedented peace. This book, now available in paperback, examines the impact of the 1998 Agreement which halted the violence on those most affected by it - the Northern Irish people themselves. Using public opinion surveys conducted over a period of half a century, this book covers changes in public opinion across all areas of society and politics, including elections, education, community relations and national identity. The surveys show that despite peace, Protestants and Catholics remain as deeply divided as ever. The vast majority marry co-religionists, attend religious schools and have few friends across the religious divide. The results have implications not just for peacemaking in Northern Ireland, but for other societies emerging from conflict. The main lesson of peacemaking in Northern Ireland is that political reform has to be accompanied by social change across the society as a whole. Peace after conflict needs social as well as political change.

This book incorporates recent research that emphasizes the need for civil society and a grassroots approach to peacebuilding while taking into account a variety of perspectives, including neoconservatism and revolutionary analysis. The contributions, which include the reflections of those involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, also provide policy prescriptions for modern conflicts.

Essay from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - Region: Western Europe, grade: 2+ (B), University of Kent (Brussels School of International Studies), language: English, abstract: Six years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed and after a promising, although troubled start of the institutional framework it has put in place, Northern Ireland is, following the suspension of devolution on 14 October 2002, yet again under direct rule from Westminster. Centuries of conflict, decades of violent troubles and diametrically opposed demands of the groups involved make the Northern Ireland question to one of the most difficult conflicts of our time. Nevertheless, there was genuine optimism both among the parties involved and the international community that the Agreement would succeed and resolve the conflict. However, in the political reality of Northern Ireland, the Agreement soon reached its limits, and people realised that it takes more than an assembly and a power-sharing executive to overcome Ulster’s deep-rooted sectarian divisions. Internal disagreement in the unionist and nationalist camps over the direction the Agreement is likely to take them and the still unresolved question of IRA weapons decommissioning leave the future of the Agreement in serious doubt. The Agreement has been widely acknowledged as being consociational and consistent with the four principles of power-sharing identified by Lijphart. This paper will thus also discuss the theoretical foundation of the Agreement. Here, it will particularly focus on the role of the voting system (Single Transferable Vote) employed for the Assembly elections, which is unusual for consociational models. This paper will conclude that the Agreement is undeniably a major breakthrough. Even if the Agreement itself does not solve the conflict, by creating a prolonged period of peace in which political dialogue can take place, it could be a vital step towards a future settlement. But is the current situation in Northern Ireland really a transitional period likely to lead to a solution of the conflict in the future or is it what Trimble calls the ‘continuation of war by other means’? The Agreement was certainly not an overall failure as it has managed to bring parties together in political institutions which have refused to sit together in the same room for decades. But its limitations must also be clear: the war might be over but the conflict is far from ended. Since the Agreement has failed to address the underlying issues of the conflict and merely regulates violence, it cannot be regarded as a permanent and sustainable solution.

As Northern Ireland moves from conflict to tentative peace, ongoing violence and unrest underline that the province remains a turbulent and troubled society. This book brings together contributions from those directly affected by the Troubles who work for peace and reconciliation in their communities. The issues they raise are given poignancy and power by being grounded in human experience, and provide a necessary starting point for exploring the tensions which arise in the struggle to reconcile forgiveness and remembrance in order to create a more purposeful and meaningful future. They have important implications not only for Northern Ireland but also for other societies emerging from conflict.

For quarter of a century now the British Army has been involved in a bloody and protracted conflict in Northern Ireland. This book looks at the roots of the current struggle and of British military intervention, setting both in the longer perspective of the Anglo-Irish Troubles. It is, however, more than a chronicle of military strategies and sectarian strife: it seeks to place the use of the army within the context of the wider British experience of dealing with political violence, and to address the broader issue of how democratic states have responded to both ethnic conflict and the threat of `internal' disorder

The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace is the first multi-authored volume to specifically address the many facets of the 30-year Northern Ireland conflict, colloquially known as the Troubles, and its subsequent peace process. This volume is rooted in opening space to address controversial subjects, answer key questions, and move beyond reductive analysis that reproduces a simplistic two community theses. The temporal span of individual chapters can reach back to the formation of the state of Northern Ireland, with many starting in the late 1960s, to include a range of individuals, collectives, organisations, understandings, and events, at least up to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998. This volume has forefronted creative approaches in understanding conflict and allows for analysis and reflection on conflict and peace to continue through to the present day. With an extensive introduction, preface, and 45 individual chapters, this volume represents an ambitious, expansive, interdisciplinary engagement with the North of Ireland through society, conflict, and peace from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches. While allowing for rich historical explorations of high-level politics rooted in state documents and archives, this volume also allows for the intermingling of different sources that highlight the role of personal papers, memory, space, materials, and experience in understanding the complexities of both Northern Ireland as a people, place, and political entity.

“Performing the Northern Ireland Peace Process offers a nuanced and stimulating analysis which goes beyond standard explanations by exploring the motives and means used by those who made peace in Northern Ireland.” (Professor Timothy White, Xavier University, USA) “Paul Dixon has produced an impressive and challenging book. Dixon defends the Northern Ireland peace process as a carefully-crafted, drawn-out episode in realist, pragmatic politics. However, he pulls few punches in highlighting the moral deceptions which have kept the process in play. Provocatively, Dixon also challenges a wide range of academic interpretations of the processes and their associated political prescriptions. Thoughtful and well-researched throughout, Performing the Northern Ireland Peace Process is an essential read for anyone interested in conflict management.” (Professor Jon Tonge, University of Liverpool) “In this outstanding book, Dixon shows yet again the importance of the theatrical metaphor for Northern Ireland. More importantly still, he demonstrates that the adoption of a critically realist outlook actually enhances our capacity to think creatively about the political choices we face in international politics and the alternative policies and institutions we might construct.” (Professor Adrian Little, The University of Melbourne) This book is exceptional in defending the ‘dirty politics’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. Political actors in Britain, Ireland and the United States performed the peace process and used ‘political skills’, often including deception and hypocrisy, in order to wind down the conflict and achieve accommodation. These political skills, it is argued, are often morally justifiable even as they are popularly condemned. The Northern Ireland peace process has been highly successful in reducing violence and an accurate understanding of its politics is an important contribution to international debates about managing conflict.

The Troubles claimed the lives of almost four thousand people in Northern Ireland, most of them civilians; forty-five thousand were injured in bombings and shootings. Relative to population size this was the most intense conflict experienced in Western Europe since the end of the Second World War. The central question posed in this book is fundamental, yet it is one that has rarely been asked: Who was primarily responsible for the prosecution of the Troubles and their attendant toll of the dead, the injured, and the emotionally traumatized? Liam Kennedy, who lived in Belfast throughout most of the conflict, was long afraid to raise the question and its implications. After years of reflection and research on the matter he has brought together elements of history, politics, sociology, and social psychology to identify the collective actors who drove the conflict onwards for more than three decades, from the days of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The Troubles in Northern Ireland are a world-class problem in miniature. The combustible mix of national, ethnic, and sectarian passions that went into the making of the conflict has its parallels today in other parts of the world. Who Was Responsible for the Troubles? is an original and controversial work that captures the terror and the pain but also the hope of life and the pursuit of happiness in a deeply divided society.

Compellingly written and even-handed in its judgments, this is by far the clearest account of what has happened through the years in the Northern Ireland conflict, and why. After a chapter of background on the period from 1921 to 1963, it covers the ensuing period--the descent into violence, the hunger strikes, the Anglo-Irish accord, the bombers in England--to the present shaky peace process. Behind the deluge of information and opinion about the conflict, there is a straightforward and gripping story. Mr. McKittrick and Mr. McVea tell that story clearly, concisely, and, above all, fairly, avoiding intricate detail in favor of narrative pace and accessible prose. They describe and explain a lethal but fascinating time in Northern Ireland's history, which brought not only death, injury, and destruction but enormous political and social change. They close on an optimistic note, convinced that while peace--if it comes--will always be imperfect, a corner has now been decisively turned. The book includes a detailed chronology, statistical tables, and a glossary of terms.