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Who Wins Post-Conflict? Political Party Transformation In Northern Ireland During The Brexit Era, Shannon Henes

Politics Honors Papers

This paper delves into the dynamics of political parties in post-conflict societies, with a focus on Northern Ireland. It challenges the idea that electoral outcomes are solely determined by ethnonational identity, highlighting the emergence of alternative socio-political positions and shifting priorities among voters. Drawing on empirical research and mixed-methods analysis, the paper investigates the performance of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin (SF), arguing that parties failing to adapt to changing circumstances and emphasizing historical conflicts may fare poorly electorally. Through a comprehensive research design, including survey data and qualitative examination of party manifestos, the paper aims to …

Walking The Walk: Ex-Prisoners, Lived Experience, And The Delivery Of Restorative Justice, Allely Albert

Articles

Although the role of prisoners and ex-prisoners has recently received significant attention in restorative justice research, the literature typically treats them as the ‘offending’ party within restorative justice processes. This article instead focuses on ex-prisoners as facilitators of restorative justice, highlighting their ability to lead such programmes. Using a case study from Northern Ireland, the article examines the way that experiences of incarceration have directly influenced practitioners’ skills and their ability to uphold restorative justice principles. It is contended that qualities developed and honed in the prison environment ultimately translate to unique characteristics that can improve the restorative process. As …

The Politics Of The Northern Ireland Question: From The Good Friday Agreement To Brexit, Nora A. Hayes

Senior Theses

The Northern Ireland question still remains unanswered in 21st century politics in the British Isles. While the 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely brought an end to the decades long sectarian conflict known as the Troubles, the ethno-national debate still heavily underscores the region’s politics. After the Agreement, a period of normalization of the Irish-British-Northern Irish relationship began guided by the Agreement’s new system of government. However, the Brexit referendum of 2016 posed a new challenge for Northern Ireland and Ireland as the possibility of a return to a hard border between the two regions threatened decades of fragile peacebuilding. The …

Tourism's Power To Promote Peacebuilding In Post-Conflict Societies - A Northern Ireland Case Study, Margaret Walker

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the capacity of tourism to promote peacebuilding in post-conflict societies, specifically focusing on Northern Ireland. This study assesses the current state of conflict tourism in Northern Ireland by analyzing two tourist sites and considering variables that may impact peacebuilding in the greater Northern Ireland community. It measures the success of the Northern Ireland approach by comparing the effects of tourism in other post-conflict and conflict societies. This study culminates with the presentation of certain strategies that Northern Ireland should implement to positively impact peacebuilding through tourism. Curators must portray history in a balanced, sensitive manner that avoids …

Cardinal Cahal Daly: A Vatican Ii Bishop Seeking The Kingdom Of God, Maria Power

The Journal of Social Encounters

Cardinal Cahal Daly (1917-2009) was the only member of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland to hold office from the beginning of the conflict there in 1969 to the paramilitary ceasefires in 1996. He was well known for his pronouncements on the causes of the conflict and his use of Catholic social teaching to offer solutions. Political structures have played a key role in stabilising Northern Ireland since 1998 and Daly used Catholic concepts of democracy and statecraft to explore alternative possible futures for Northern Ireland in the years prior to their implementation. This article will show how much of his …

Managing The Atmosphere: Intelligence And Assessment In The Early Years Of The Northern Ireland Peace Process—An Interview With Sir John Chilcot, Graham Spencer

New England Journal of Public Policy

Though the Northern Ireland peace process was shaped by the involvement of many actors and participants, it is also evident that certain figures were central to its development. One such figure was Sir John Chilcot, who, based in the Northern Ireland Office in the formative years of the peace process, provided a point of focus for communicating with and managing a range of individuals and groups with the overriding objective of ending conflict in Northern Ireland. This article is based on an extended interview with Chilcot about the challenges he faced in assessing intelligence across a range of sources and …

Cultural Work In Peacebuilding Among Traumatized Communities Of Northern Ireland 1: Background And General Considerations, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

Peace in Northern Ireland today remains fragile despite the exhaustive peacebuilding efforts that have taken place since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Many aspects of the sectarian conflict have been embedded in cultural substrata of the respective communities, and cultural transformation is necessary to achieve comprehensive and sustained peace. The basic assumptions about the Other in this sectarian conflict have their origin in traumatic events that occurred more than three hundred years ago and have been reinforced by the more recent three decades of conflict known as the Troubles. These traumatic individual and collective experiences across the generations have …

Cultural Work In Peacebuilding Among Traumatized Communities Of Northern Ireland 2: Talking About Culture, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is the second of two that describe a psychodynamically informed understanding of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland and an approach to cultural transformation called “cultural work” aimed at building peace among the state’s traumatized communities. The conflict between Protestant and Catholic communities has extended well into the cultural domain and is often weaponized to attack the Other. Conversations about culture quickly become stuck in a quagmire of identity politics. This article describes a psychodynamic trauma–informed approach to cultural conversations involving an in-depth analysis of culture that avoids becoming stuck. It outlines a framework and set of preconditions …

Review Of Catholic Social Teaching And Theologies Of Peace In Northern Ireland: Cardinal Cahal Daly And The Pursuit Of The Peaceable Kingdom, Kathryn Lamontagne

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Religious Women And Peacebuilding During The Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, Dianne Kirby

The Journal of Social Encounters

The focus of this essay is on the critical and various roles, still largely unrecognised, played by religious women during the conflict in Northern Ireland. Working at the margins of society rather than in the corridors of power, they made important contributions to peace-building that ranged from grass-roots activism to secret talks. As well as contributing to the crucial work of community groups, educating the young and tending to the old, religious women established innovative and independent organisations offering succour and support to victims of the ‘Troubles’. Motivated by faith, they adhered to a value system that eschewed the violence, …

Safety Inside And Out: Why International Human Rights Standards Fail To Curb The Worst Excesses Of Police Policies And Practices, Dr. Mary O'Rawe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Exhuming Norms: Examining The Influence Of International Norms On The Independent Commission For The Location Of Victims’ Remains In Northern Ireland, Tamara Kathleen Hinan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Forced disappearances are crimes against humanity that occur when individuals disappear, often occurring during a period of political conflict. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the conflict among Irish nationalists and British unionists between 1968 and 1998, 16 people were disappeared by Irish nationalist paramilitary forces. In 1999, the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) was established to investigate the disappearances, locate the remains and return the victims to their families.

The ICLVR is not the first institution to conduct forensic human rights investigations into forced disappearances, these investigations have become the standard approach internationally. However, little …

Women Mps From Northern Ireland: Challenges And Contributions, 1953–2020., Yvonne Galligan

Articles

This article investigates women’s representation as Northern Ireland (NI) MPs in the House of Commons since 1953. The central argument of the study is that the political and cultural positions dominant at the formation of NI in the early 20th century reverberate through the generations and continue to inform women’s political under-representation today. The article provides an historical context for women’s political and public participation from the 1950s, highlighting the gendered political culture in which this engagement took place. It examines the additional freezing effect of the ethno-national conflict on women’s civic and political involvement from the 1970s–1990s. In terms …

The Cycle Of Insecurity: Reassessing The Security Dilemma As A Conflict Analysis Tool, David Mitchell

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article critically reassesses one of the classic ideas in International Relations, the security dilemma. It argues that the key insight of security dilemma theory has been obscured – by reductionist debates on single causes of conflict, inconclusive applications, and definitional disputes – and that the security dilemma’s enduring utility is as a model of the relational dynamic inherent in all conflict, the cycle of insecurity. Through a reappraisal of the literature, the article elucidates three essential dimensions of the cycle: an environment of structural uncertainty; interdependent collective identities; and an escalating and self-perpetuating dynamic. The power and validity of …

Waiting: History, Fear, And Healing In Ballynafeigh / The Upper Ormeau Road Of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Molly J. Hurley-Depret

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in one neighborhood of Belfast called Ballynafeigh / the upper Ormeau Road in 2006–2007, I argue we need to pay closer attention to the “inconspicuous transformations” that may have been occurring in parallel to the official peace process. Walter Benjamin notes that “refined and spiritual things” do “make their presence felt in the class struggle. They manifest themselves in this struggle as courage, humour, cunning, and fortitude.” Benjamin states that “the past strives to turn toward that sun which is rising in the sky of history. A historical materialist must be aware of …

The Ineffectiveness Of Peacekeeping And The Absence Of Crucial Peacebuilding Initiatives In The Kashmiri And Northern Irish Conflicts, Alexandra Stephanie Brennan

Senior Theses

The presence of peacekeepers, whether they are mandated by the international community or used internally by a sovereign nation, has a limited effect on the ability to achieve a lasting peace and may even function as an obstacle, as seen through a comparative study of the conflicts in Kashmir and Northern Ireland. Because of this, they are of limited utility as the final step towards a society that has reconciled with its past conflict due to the fact that the peacekeepers (efforts work towards short-term peace) do not act as peacebuilders (efforts work towards long-term peace). The regions of Kashmir …

History, Security, And Peace: A Comparison Of Sectarian Conflicts In Northern Ireland And The Middle East, Ahmed I. Hamed, Noah Chamberlain Spicer

Student Symposium

“The Troubles,” a violent conflict that began in Northern Ireland in 1968 and lasted until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, saw high levels of violence and terrorism on both sides--Protestants and Catholics--of the socio-political conflict. While major issues of violence were addressed by the Good Friday Agreement, many key ontological issues remain very much alive and active, resulting in “peace walls” which separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Northern Ireland. The impediments to peace stem not just from these issues of violence, but also from the minimal attention paid to ontological security in peace negotiations: the security of oneself, …

A Call To Peace: How Third-Party Actors And Frameworks Impacted The Peace Processes Of Northern Ireland And Colombia, Esther K. Holm

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

Northern Ireland and Colombia both serve as excellent case studies on how the end of the Cold War impacted peace processes. Both countries experienced conflicts that begun in the Cold War era and underwent peace processes in the post-Cold War era. As such, studying them reveals characteristics of post-Cold War peace processes. For example, both Northern Ireland and Colombia showcase the important role that third-party actors play in modern conflict mediation. Both countries benefited greatly from mediation conducted by international organization, other countries, and individuals. Furthermore, both countries demonstrate the importance of frameworks in any successful peace negotiation. This paper …

Contemporary Civil War In Northern Ireland, The Long-Term Effects On Children, And Resulting Interventions, Danielle Bolden

Honors Projects

This paper examines the consequences of violent civil conflict for children, including academic inequality, increased behavior problems, and increased mental health disorders, as well as the interventions directly related. Focusing on The Troubles, a brief history of the conflict in Northern Ireland is presented along with theories about the causes, then the consequences of The Troubles are compared to the consequences of other civil conflicts. The interventions in Northern Ireland include integrated schools and housing, community programs revolved around open dialogues that encourage participation from both Catholic and Protestant members, and widely available mental health services. I conclude interventions like …

“Tribal Trenches”: A Qualitative Critique Of Consociational Design In Northern Ireland, Sarah Hollmann

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

How does consociational power sharing impact ethnic divisions in Northern Ireland? Though those in the consociationalist school would claim that the lack of active political violence in Northern Ireland is a powerful argument in favor of consociationalism; I argue that active violence has been replaced by increasing political polarization and ethno-national tensions. Using data gathered from twenty-four semi-structured interviews in Northern Ireland, this project critiques the hypothesis that ethnic divisions lose their salience after the implementation of consociational power-sharing agreements after ethno-nationalist conflict. Despite the growing literature on the long-term effects of consociationalism, scholars have largely focused on quantitative methods, …

Poetry In A Troubling Time: Analyzing Several Poems Inspired By The Troubles In Northern Ireland, Michael Mccarthy

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Most of the news about Northern Ireland for the past year has been about what effect Brexit will have on the North’s relationship with the Republic of Ireland. The discussion of eliminating the “soft-border,” and replacing it with a “hard- border,” which would see the reinstitution of checkpoints along the 500-kilometer border, continues to dominate international headlines. The EU has been attempting to allay concerns, and in March, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, traveled to Dublin and reaffirmed the EU’s commitment to avoiding a hard border and maintaining the peace process in the region (Stone, 2018). At the …

A Comparison Of The Models And Methods Of Surveillance In East Germany And Northern Ireland And Their Relevance To Modern-Day Securitization Of Society, Cliodhna Pierce

Irish Communication Review

Despite increasing awareness of the rise in societal surveillance as a result of leaks by former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and subsequent revelations from Wikileaks, the damage of pervasive surveillance practices on the individual and on communities has yet to be measured. As John Gilliom has argued, ‘until we are able to generate sufficient research to make plausible sense of how differently situated people – welfare mothers, prisoners, students, middle-class professionals – speak of and respond to their various surveillance settings, we will be unable to devise a meaningful account of what surveillance is’ (2006, 126). Before we can examine …

Libraries & Turbulence: Poster Art During Social And Political Unrest, Lauren E. Robinson

Lauren E. Robinson

The Road To God Knows Where: Sustaining Northern Ireland Ngos In A Post-Agreement World, Karl Besel, Todd Bradley, Wolfgang Bielefeld

Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played important roles in the fostering of peace agreements within Northern Ireland. As violence has subsided somewhat since the late 1990s, these organizations have experienced cutbacks from both international and national public funding institutions. Decreases in governmental revenues for nonprofits have compelled NGO directors to become more adept in leveraging funds from private-sector sources. This article examines how successful these organizations have been in securing private-sector revenues since the Good Friday Agreement and provides insights with regard to how NGOs can become more sustainable in an era of fiscal austerity.

The Dynamics Of Conflict: Transforming Northern Ireland, Ronit Berger

Dissertations - ALL

The main goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of the process of conflict transformation. More specifically, I wish to examine what are the circumstances that push Dual Wing Resistance Organizations (DWRO), and particularly, the Irish Provisional Republican Movement to behave in one of four different ways: convergent towards violence, convergence towards cooperation, divergence and confusion.

My main argument is that in order to understand conflict transformation processes and what pushes an organization to behave in a particular way one must look into the interaction between factors at three levels of analysis: the context, organizational dynamics and …

From Fun Factory To Current Affairs Machine: Coping With The Outbreak Of The Troubles At Ulster Television 1968-70, Orla Lafferty

Irish Communication Review

THE INDEPENDENT TELEVISION NETWORK has received only limited critical academic analysis and, as a consequence, there is a particular dearth of research into commercial broadcasting in Britain, but more specifically commercial broadcasting in Northern Ireland. In their publication ITV Cultures: Independent Television over fifty years, Catherine Johnson and Rob Turnock (2005) attempt to address this lack of scholarly analysis of ITVs’ regional structure but Ulster Television does not factor in their study. Whilst UTV at 50, a publication released for the company’s 50th Anniversary in 2009, provides some interesting insights into its progression as a broadcaster, it is primarily anecdotal. …

Rté And The Coverage Of Northern Ireland On Television News Bulletins In The Early Years Of The Troubles, Gareth Ivory

Irish Communication Review

No abstract provided.

Relation Between Intergroup Anxiety, Depression, Intergroup Contact Quantity And Quality In Northern Ireland Adolescents., Austin L. Stethen

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Constructing A Shared Identity In Deeply Divided Societies, John M. Nagle

John M Nagle

In order to bolster sustainable peacebuilding in violently divided societies, a normative suggestion is that efforts should be made to construct a shared public identity that overarches ethnic divisions. A number of different centripetal/transformationist processes are identified as engendering a shared identity in comparison to consociational arrangements, which are accused of institutionalizing ethnic differences and perpetuating conflict. These transformationist approaches essentially rest on the premise that since ethnicity is constructed it can be reconstructed into new shared forms. Looking at Northern Ireland, we argue there are limits to the extent that ethnicity can be reconstructed into shared identities. By analysing …

Police Reform, Civil Society And Everyday Legitimacy: A Lesson From Northern Ireland, Branka Marijan, Dejan Guzina

Political Science Faculty Publications

In post-conflict zones, there is a need to better understand the role of civil society in building the legitimacy of reformed police institutions. Northern Ireland provides an instructive case in this regard, as community involvement and civilian oversight of policing structures were prominent in the reform process. While much has been achieved since the 1999 Independent Commission on Policing, the question of police legitimation is still largely unresolved. In order for police reform to be fully realized, and to ensure that everyday legitimacy is established, more attention must be paid to building relationships between the police and local communities.