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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 …

The Role Of Youth In Post Accord Transformation In Northern Ireland, Christine Smith Ellison

Peace and Conflict Studies

Despite increased international interest in the contribution of education to peacebuilding, there has been a neglect of the role that non-formal youth programming can play in this process. This article examines three such youth programmes in post-accord Northern Ireland through the theoretical lens of their contribution to social, economic and political transformations. Given the sustained context of segregation and limitations of the formal education sector as a mechanism for transformation, the paper argues that the non-formal sector has played an important role in ensuring inclusion of multiple youth perspectives in a divided society. It also raises a number of critical …

Volume 21, Number 1 (Spring 2014), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

Economic Aid And Conflict Transformation In Northern Ireland And The Border Area: Respondents’ Perceptions Of Awareness, Fairness, Trust Building, And Sustainability, Peter Karari, Sean Byrne, Olga Skarlato, Kawser Ahmed

Peace and Conflict Studies

Intractable ethnopolitical conflicts emanate from the social, political, cultural, and economic marginalization of some community groups. To address these conflicts, the affected groups are often provided with life changing opportunities to enhance justice, equality, dignity and freedom. In the past, Northern Ireland has been a turbulent sea of violent conflict between Unionists and Nationalists. To address the underlying root causes of the conflict, economic aid through the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the European Union (EU) Peace II Fund is aimed at facilitating sustainable peacebuilding, reconciliation and community development. In this study, 95 community group leaders, civil servants, and …

The Role Of The European Union As A Peace Builder: Northern Ireland As A Case Study, Paul Arthur

Peace and Conflict Studies

The United Kingdom and Ireland joined the European Economic Community in 1973 at a time when bitter communal conflict engulfed Northern Ireland. It appeared to be a deviant case in a modernising Europe anxious to unleash the shackles of the first half of the twentieth century. In fact the unusual conjunction of conflict within a disputed region of the British/Irish archipelago and joint membership of the European Community offered an opportunity to move beyond the excessive intimacy of an ancient quarrel through different temporal and spatial lenses. This article addresses the issue of dealing with minority grievances in an inter- …

Volume 17, Number 1 (Spring 2010), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

The Ifi And Eu Peace Ii Fund: Respondents’ Perceptions Of Funded Project Success In Promoting Peacebuilding And Community Development In Northern Ireland, Sean Byrne, Chuck Thiessen, Eyob Fissuh, Cynthia Irvin

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article examines the views of ninety-eight study participants on community development and peacebuilding supported by the European Union (EU) Peace II Fund and the International Fund for Ireland (IFI). We elaborate the perceptions of community group leaders, funding agency civil servants and development officers regarding the role of both funds in Northern Ireland. Their experiences of the EU Peace II Fund and the IFI are discussed in the wider context of peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties. Furthermore, this article explores the importance of community development and cross-community contact through joint economic and social development …

Volume 16, Number 1 (Summer 2009), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Political Discourse In Conflict Transformation: Evidence From Northern Ireland, Katy Hayward

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article introduces this volume by constructing a model for analysing political discourse as an instrument of conflict and peace, drawing on evidence from the Northern Ireland case. It identifies three processes, or stages, in a peace process in which political discourse can play a unique and crucial role: (i) the construction of a (conceptual) framework within which negotiations can take place, (ii) the facilitation of agreement between moderate and extreme positions, and (iii) the forging of common ground. The motivating thesis of this research is that discourse analysis is a vital resource for deepening our knowledge of why, how …

“Faith, Crown And State”: Contemporary Discourses Within The Orange Order In Northern Ireland, James W. Mcauley, Jonathan Tonge

Peace and Conflict Studies

Despite a decline in membership in recent decades the Orange Order remains one of the largest and most significant organisations within civil society in Northern Ireland, representing a significant proportion of the Protestant population. The Orange Order claims a moral and political rationale to opposition to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and many of the political consequences that have followed. Drawing upon a large membership survey of the Orange institution (the first such survey ever undertaken), and abetted by in-depth semi-structured interviews, this paper examines core political and social attitudes of Orange Order members in a post-conflict environment. It identifies …

Dup Discourses On Violence And Their Impact On The Northern Ireland Peace Process, Amber Rankin, Gladys Ganiel

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper analyses the Democratic Unionist Party‟s (DUP) discourses about paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. Drawing on narrative analysis of DUP discourses reported in Northern Ireland‟s largest unionist newspaper, the News Letter (1998–2006), it explores the relationship between the party‟s identity, its discourses about republican and loyalist paramilitaries, and the impact of these words on the DUP‟s electoral success and on the peace process. The paper argues that these discourses may haunt the progress of peace-building, not least because the DUP will find it hard to disentangle itself from a history of scepticism and nay-saying even as it takes a …

“Humespeak”: The Sdlp, Political Discourse, And The Northern Ireland Peace Process, P. J. Mcloughlin

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper explores the vital role played by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in the formulation of a new political discourse and conceptual approach to the Northern Ireland problem. In particular, it shows how John Hume, party leader through the 1980s and 1990s, helped to propagate this discourse, and in doing so influenced policy-making in London and Dublin, and thinking within the republican movement. Although the paper emphasises the importance of this influence, it concludes by considering the reasons why the Ulster unionist community have remained so unreceptive to the political discourse of Hume and the SDLP.

Legitimizing Through Language: Political Discourse Worlds In Northern Ireland After The 1998 Agreement, Laura Filardo-Llamas

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper employs the hypothesis that one of the functions of political discourse is to legitimise a perceived point of view by promoting certain representations of a socio-political reality. It could be argued that the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement creates a paradoxical reality in Northern Ireland because its language is so vague that it can be interpreted in different ways. This paper analyses linguistic categories used in the text of the Agreement to reveal the type of peaceful reality promoted and the constructive ambiguity used to facilitate agreement. It argues that the success of the peace process depended to …

Narratives Of Legitimacy: Political Discourse In The Early Phase Of The Troubles In Northern Ireland, Sissel Rosland

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article examines the discursive construction of legitimacy in the early phase of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The empirical material covers the debate on internment without trial from 1971 till 1975 – a debate which involved conflicting claims of legitimacy. Some strongly defended internment as a legitimate step in the fight against the IRA, whilst others regarded it as an illegitimate measure employed by a corrupt political regime. These conflicting claims of legitimacy entailed a conceptual battle concerned with the construction and authorisation of political order. The article explores this battle along three dimensions: law, violence, and democracy.

The Maintenance Of Republican Ideology And Tactics In The Discourses Of Ira Former Prisoners, Peter Shirlow, Jonathan Tonge, James W. Mcauley

Peace and Conflict Studies

The debate concerning ideology and ideological shifts during peace-building in Northern Ireland has generally failed to account for the attitudes and opinions of former combatants concerning the nature and meaning of discursively constructed identities and political strategies. This invisibility is peculiar in that debates concerning ideological shifts have been driven by academic analysis or by those former combatants who maintain that the Irish peace process is paralleled by core ideological abandonment. The material presented within this article indicates that former Provisional Irish Republican prisoners do not view the peace process as involving ideological ditching but instead that their commitment to …

Volume 15, Number 1 (Summer 2008), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

Volume 14, Number 2 (Fall 2007), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

Abstracts only.

The Role Of Economic Assistance In Conflict Resolution In Northern Ireland, Sean Byrne, Cynthia Irvin, Eyob Fissuh, Chris Cunningham

Peace and Conflict Studies

External economic assistance from the International Fund for Ireland and the European Union Special Support Program for Peace and Reconciliation assisted in setting the context of the Northern Ireland peace agenda, and holds out the promise of a new civic culture. This article explores people’s perceptions of economic assistance of conflict amelioration in Northern Ireland. Some of the findings, in respect of inter-community differences in perceptions of the utility of external economic assistance in building the peace dividend, are discussed in the paper.

Volume 13, Number 2 (Fall 2006), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

University Students From Four Ethnopolitical Conflict Zones: An Exploratory Study Of Perceptions Of Self And Country, Sean Byrne, Colleen Mcleod, Brian Polkinghorn

Peace and Conflict Studies

This exploratory comparative case study examines hopes and fears for self and country of 300 students attending university in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. Students report living in stressful societies where ethno political and state violence were the norm. The results of this qualitative study indicate that while the young people are optimistic about their life changes, they are concerned that the conflicts could re-ignite and spiral out of control. In particular, the students’ images indicate the importance of the self-society relationship and that these young adults relish the challenge of being productive citizens in their post-conflict …

Metaphors For One Another: Racism In The United States And Sectarianism In Northern Ireland, John Alderdice, Michael A. Cowan

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article explores the possibility that an analysis of racism in the United States and sectarianism in Northern Ireland inspired by literary, psychotherapeutic, religious and philosophical conceptions of metaphor might yield new insight into the two situations by attending carefully to similarities and differences between them. Following brief summaries of the current state of racism in the U.S. and sectarianism in Northern Ireland, the article offers two perspectives from the field of psychotherapy that seem particularly germane to both situations. Then we turn to the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt for a reflection on the unpredictability and irreversibility of human …

Volume 11, Number 1 (Spring 2004), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

Ceasefire: The Impact Of Republican Political Culture On The Ceasefire Process In Northern Ireland, Montgomery Sapone

Peace and Conflict Studies

Excerpt

On August 31, 1994, the Provisional IRA (PIRA) declared a cessation of military operations. For the past thirty years, the conflict in Northern Ireland has been raging almost without pause.1 British security forces have attempted to control the violence by establishing road blocks, conducting house searches, altering the judicial system to allow conviction on informant testimony, instituting internment without trial for paramilitary suspects, garrisoning over thirty thousand British soldiers in Northern Ireland, instituting broadcasting bans of Sinn Féin, and conducting intensive interrogation of suspects. Despite the best attempts of the British government over the past few decades to thwart …

Volume 7, Number 1 (May 2000), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

Excerpt

The “Post-Cold War” world presents staggering contrasts. On the one hand, the threat of annihilation has receded, totalitarianism seems to be in retreat and there is greater interest in such issues as sustainable development, human rights and good governance. On the other hand, however, political and economic instability seem chronic in many regions, and there is a sense of drift both within many countries and at the global level. Prominent on the “new agenda” of world politics is the apparent rising tide of communal conflicts around the planet: a trend which has both positive and negative aspects. Communalism is …