Forward to the Past? Loyalist Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland Since 1994

This article considers in detail loyalist paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland since the paramilitary cease-fires of 1994. The continuing nature of contemporary loyalist violence is documented with reference to sectarian attacks against members of the “Other”/Catholic community and associated symbols of that community, violence directed at other loyalists, and the potential for future violence given constitutional uncertainty regarding Northern Ireland's position within the United Kingdom. The article also challenges assumptions within the broader literature of an inability within loyalist paramilitary groups to move beyond violence in the post-cease-fire period with particular reference to their conflict transformation efforts.     

Belfast beyond Violence: Flagging up a Challenge to Local Government?

Abstract

Northern Ireland is emerging from violence but still living with conflict. The recent flags protests in Belfast represent a challenge to public administration to transcend the contested politics of local government in Northern Ireland and to navigate a way through a symbolic legacy issue. This article draws on a longitudinal hermeneutic analysis of empirical research conducted on Northern Ireland local government over a decade, where these concerns dominated much debate. Additional analysis of the research findings reveals broader problems applicable to any public administration faced with managing situations in which good governance in public participation and procedural correctness operates alongside fundamental political disagreement and distrust. These conclusions are particularly pertinent for local administrations in societies transitioning from conflict.     

Psychological Barriers to a Peaceful Resolution: Longitudinal Evidence from the Middle East and Northern Ireland

Does individual-level exposure to political violence prompt conciliatory attitudes? Does the answer vary by phase of conflict? The study uses longitudinal primary datasets to test the hypothesis that conflict-related experiences impact conciliation. Data were collected from Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Across both contexts, and among both parties to each conflict, psychological distress and threat perceptions had a polarizing effect on conciliatory preferences. The study highlights that experiences of political violence are potentially a crucial source of psychological distress, and consequently, a continuing barrier to peace. This has implications in peacemaking, implying that alongside removing the real threat of violence, peacemakers must also work toward the social and political inclusion of those most affected by previous violence.     

The Art of War: Instability, Insecurity, and Ideological Imagery in Northern Ireland’s Political Murals, 1979–1998

This article examines the purpose behind, and rhetorical content of, political wall murals produced during the troubles in Northern Ireland. I utilize a semiotic approach to analyze the ways that the symbolic content and physical placement of Northern Irish murals was used by actors on both sides of the conflict. I examine the major thematic traditions utilized by muralists on each side and situate them within the historical and political contexts of the conflict in Northern Ireland. This approach highlights the ways that murals did more than simply champion ideological causes, as earlier scholarship has argued, but served an active role in efforts to catalyze cultural support for organizations’ political goals. I argue that murals played a key role for organizations on both sides of the conflict, as they each struggled to craft a communal self-identification and legitimizing central narrative that furthered their ideological goals. Organizations on both sides used murals to mobilize cultural support for their political and military struggles. In this regard, murals functioned as a form of mythic speech, attempting to depoliticize highly political ideologies and make the rhetoric used by the competing groups seem natural and pure. The grassroots nature of the mural traditions is particularly telling in this regard, exposing the deep-seated insecurity of organizations on both sides. This insecurity is further reflected by, and served as a catalyst for, the paramilitary violence that was a defining characteristic of Northern Ireland for so long.     

Understanding Insurgency Violence: A Quantitative Analysis of the Political Violence in Northern Ireland 1969–1999

The main argument examined in this article is that the escalation of political violence in Northern Ireland between 1969–1999 resulted because of the state's reliance on repression and this had conflicting effects contributing to the rise in violence. Perhaps the most important finding reached by this research was that a state's reliance on repression is positively associated with more insurgent violence. This research suggests that variations in outcomes to the use of force by a democratic state may result because one may assume a linear model exists when in reality the true relationship maybe curvilinear.     

The Limits of Local Accommodation: Why Contentious Events Remain Prone to Conflict in Northern Ireland

This article examines the difficulties of finding local solutions to the problem of contentious events in contemporary Northern Ireland. In so doing, it offers a sociological perspective on fundamental divisions in Northern Ireland: between classes and between communities. It shows how its chosen case study—parades and associated protests in north Belfast—exemplifies the most fundamental problem that endures in post-Agreement Northern Ireland, namely that political authority is not derived from a common civic culture (as is the norm in Western liberal democracy) but rather that legitimacy is still founded on the basis of the culture of either one or the other community. Haugaard's reflections on authority and legitimacy are used to explore Northern Ireland's atypical experience of political conflict vis-à-vis the Western liberal democratic model. The Bourdieusian concepts of field illusio and doxa help to explain why it is that parading remains such an important political and symbolic touchstone in this society.     

Northern Ireland: 20 Years After the Cease-Fires

In the closing months of 1994, the principal paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland declared that their campaigns of violence were at an end. The cease-fires called by republican and loyalist groupings represented the most significant heralds of a complex process of conflict transformation that continues to unfold even twenty years on. In this introduction, we set out to map the key developments that have shaped the tortuous narrative of the Northern Irish ‘peace process’, thereby providing the historical backdrop for the articles that follow. While remarkable progress has been made over the two decades since the paramilitary cease-fires, the political context and future of the region remain rather more fraught than is often assumed abroad. It is perhaps best, then, to speak of the six counties in terms not of resolution but rather of ambiguity. Twenty years on from the optimism that greeted the paramilitary cease-fires, Northern Ireland retains the essential ‘inbetweenness’ of a political space that has moved from a ‘long war’ through a ‘long peace’ and into a profoundly undecided future.     

Terrorism in Britain: Threat,reality, response

Abstract

As international terrorism has intensified worldwide during the last two decades, Britain has become a primary target. Internationally, it is vulnerable because of its position as a leading member of the Western European Community; and domestically, it continues to be a target of the IRA's exportation of violence from Northern Ireland to England.

In an effort to confront this rise in international and domestic terrorism, Britain has proven herself willing and able to respond. This response has incorporated antiterrorist legislation, strong administrative measures, and an outstanding special military unit.     

Northern Ireland: 20 Years On

To speak of what is exceptional about Northern Ireland today requires a provocative sense of irony, for constitutionally it can be argued Northern Ireland has become one of the most stable parts of the United Kingdom. The fact if not the value of the Union has become more deeply entrenched as both the fact and the value of the Union have come more openly into play elsewhere, even in England. Nevertheless, Northern Ireland is not immune from larger political developments and fantastic uncertainties attend consideration of the next twenty years at different levels of analysis. This article considers these uncertainties according to two possible scenarios, one involving a nationalist narrative and the other involving a unionist narrative. The key issues in each scenario and narrative are the constitutional debate in the United Kingdom, especially the referendum on Scottish independence; the future of the European Union and the United Kingdom's relationship to it; and the changing electoral demographic within Northern Ireland. If Northern Ireland's future is inextricably linked to uncertainty this makes it the rule and not the exception today.     

A Review of: “Michael Hutt,Ed., Himalayan People's War: Nepal's Maoist Rebellion”

Abstract

Terrorism can be characterized as planned acts of violence, directed at civilians and carried out for the purpose of obtaining a political goal. This paper shows the changing patterns of terrorist murders in Northern Ireland for the period 1969 through 1984. The author proposes a model of motivation which will help to explain terroristic murders. In addition, terroristic violence has changed in its focus with members of the security forces becoming the prime target in the late 1970s and 1980s.     

“From Terrorists to Peacekeepers”: The IRA's Disengagement and the Role of Community Networks

Utilizing interviews with former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, Loyalists, and community workers, the article looks at how militants in Northern Ireland have helped to prevent terrorism and political violence (TPV) by adopting roles in the community. By using mobile phones, a network of former combatants emerged around interface areas in the late 1990s to contain trigger causes of terrorism, providing a unique role that the state could not. The structure of the network encouraged militant groups to follow the IRA's example to disengage—thus creating a domino effect—and the co-operation between senior militants has limited the opportunities for other groups to mobilize a campaign of terrorism.     

Politics and propaganda of the provisional IRA

Abstract

So long as the declared objective of the Provisional IRA's violent campaign was the abolition of the Protestant‐dominated Northern Ireland Government, many Northern Catholics gave political or moral support. Propaganda mobilized this audience and was also directed outwards, mainly towards America and Britain, utilizing ancient myths, current allegations or revolutionary fervor according to the taste of each audience. But once Stormont had fallen, the Provi‐sionals were unable to convince their supporters that the IRA had been wise to reject negotiations offered by the UK Government and instead to adhere to a strategy of uniting Ireland by force. Violence became an end in itself, appealing only to minority audiences held under propaganda's spell, and diminishing rather than enhancing the prospects of a united Ireland.     

The politics of post-conflict space: the mysterious case of missing graffiti in ‘post-troubles’ Northern Ireland

Why is there so little graffiti in Northern Ireland compared to cities in North America and Europe – including Great Britain, to which it is constitutionally connected, and Ireland, with which it is geographically connected? This question is particularly perplexing given the highly developed political mural tradition on both sides of the sectarian divide in the North, and the almost 15 years that have passed since the signing of the Peace Agreement ending some three decades of militarized conflict. This paper explores the connections between the absence of graffiti, and the street-level structures and processes of reconciliation or conflict – with a specific focus on the geopolitics of paramilitary control within communities throughout Northern Ireland. The contributions of the paper are three-fold: (1) it highlights the importance of graffiti as a (usually neglected) lens for assessing the degree to which the expected benefits of a peace agreement are experienced at the street level; (2) it addresses the methodological challenge of how to examine something that is not there (specifically, it studies the absence of graffiti in Northern Ireland by comparing it to the logic, mechanics and meanings of graffiti elsewhere); and (3) it questions the well-marketed representation of Northern Ireland as a unqualified case of successful post-agreement peace.     

Abandoning Armed Resistance? The Ulster Volunteer Force as a Case Study of Strategic Terrorism in Northern Ireland

This article explores the Ulster Volunteer Force's (UVF) decision in May 2007 to abandon its campaign of “armed resistance” and pursue “a non-military, civilianized, role” in Northern Ireland. It does so by analyzing the UVF's actions in light of the academic literature on strategic terrorism. The central argument advanced in the article is that the UVF's decision to put its weapons “beyond reach” and re-structure its organization along civilian lines is (a) internally consistent with its stated policy of countering “violent nationalism,” (b) symptomatic of the transformation in the sociopolitical context since the 1994 paramilitary cease-fires, and (c) the logical outworking of the group's lack of popular legitimacy among its core Protestant working-class support-base. The article concludes with an assessment of the risks and possible dividends that the end of UVF terrorism holds for the Northern Ireland peace process.     

Peace education and childhood

Peace studies and peace education are multifaceted processes focusing on diverse audiences from children in elementary grades to those involved in political negotiations at the highest levels. This paper addresses the foundational importance of including conflict embedded in adult-child relationships in peace education. It conceptually grounds assignments for university level courses designed to teach concepts linked to peace education through the vehicle of understanding violence against children. Such learning is designed to liberate students from the hegemony of adultism, the colonial relationship between adults and children and in turn to contribute to the advancement of peace education. Such pedagogy reflects the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’s call for educational measures to protect and support children’s human dignity. Such an approach is especially relevant for peace education, as a large body of research across disciplines has provided substantial evidence of a significant relationship between childhood experiences of violence and subsequent juvenile and adult behavioral and social problems including conflict and violence. The approach and assignments described in this paper reflect insights about the use of narratives of childhood experiences, the etiology and effects of violence against children and the reproduction of conflict and violence across generations.     

The Return of "Captain Moonlight": Informal Justice in Northern Ireland

In the working-class areas of Northern Ireland alternative forms of justice operating in parallel to the State's criminal justice system exist. This informal criminal justice system, administered by paramilitaries, includes threats, warnings, beatings, shootings, and executions. Informal justice mechanisms emerged in the early days of "the Troubles" and have continued to develop. This article maps the development of informal justice in both republican and loyalist areas of Northern Ireland and examines the ways in which paramilitaries "police" their communities and mete out "punishments."     

Black Tigers,Bronze Lotus: The Evolution and Dynamics of Sri Lanka's Strategies of Dirty War

Although much has been written on the Sri Lankan state's civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), less has been said about how the conflict's dynamics evolved. How did the parties come to utilize the methods they did? Why did the war become so brutal, characterized by a predisposition toward extreme violence on both sides? Using the typology of “dirty war,” this investigation seeks to address such questions, demonstrating how the strategic choices of the main belligerents shaped the conflict. The analysis shows that while the conflict emerged out of deep-rooted social and ethnic divisions, these factors do not account for how the war came to be defined so comprehensively by the methods of dirty war. It finds that dirty war developed from a sporadic tactic to advance political goals to dominant military practice by a reciprocal process of escalation that eventually internalized dirty war as the accepted mode of strategic communication.     

Terror in Ireland—and Britain's response

Abstract

Reacting to the last of four distinct terrorist cam‐paigns in Northern Ireland, the British Parliament in 1973 passed the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, which was amended in 1974. The act marks the first time in United Kingdom statute law that terrorism is defined as the use of violence for political ends. British efforts are aimed at the development of the police to the point where the military is no longer required. Terroristic acts in Great Britain, usually connected with Northern Irish affairs, have led to the introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, the powers of which are also described in this paper. The author also discusses the problem of the safeguarding of civil liberties as well as the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, drawn up by the Council of Europe.     

Threads intertwined: German national egoism and liberalism in adolf fischhof's vision for Austria

Bulgarian majority and Turkish minority relations have remained peaceful in the post Communist era despite a significant potential for civil strife. These antagonisms were a product of Bulgaria's historical political development.The most recent episode of forced assimilation policies under the Communist regime was a critical grievance contributing to the democratic transition in 1989. Unlike in neighboring Yugoslavia, communal ethnic conflict did not escalate to violence with political liberalization and the emergence of democratic political competition. A critical factor in the political formula for maintaining interethnic peace in Bulgaria has been Turkey's comparatively constrained behavior as a “motherland state” with regard to the Turkish Diaspora in Bulgaria.     

The Roots of Algeria's Religious and Ethnic Violence

Although the existing literature on Algeria's civil conflict recognizes the role of religious and ethnic violence in the crisis, it does not sufficiently explain the various reasons behind it. The main aim of this article is to fill in this gap to some extent by examining the main factors determining the emergence of armed religious and ethnic groups in this country. The basic conclusion to emerge from the analysis is that, although such factors as the closure of the country's political space, state repression, and the growth of atavistic sentiments remain important in explaining Algeria's religious and ethnic violence, economic collapse, religious spending, and diversionary politics are variables that should not be ignored when addressing the sources and sustainability of such violence.