THE PROCESS OF DEMILITARIZATION AND THE REVERSIBILITY OF THE PEACE PROCESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The process of militarization has permeated Northern Ireland society both overtly and in more subtle and pervasive ways. Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, reductions in state military personnel and infrastructure have been made and several acts of paramilitary decommissioning of weapons carried out. However, the political culture and discourse remains combative and bifurcated as the democratic institutions and processes struggle to achieve viability. Support for the Agreement has faltered as the raised expectations of improvements in quality of life, particularly in communities worst affected by the Troubles, have not been met. Vacuums such as the rolelessness amongst former combatants and gaps in policing have contributed to internecine conflict. As in South Africa, there has been a transition from political to criminal violence in local communities. A formal process of demobilization, demilitarization and reintegration of former paramilitary actors, combined with training in political skills would resolve some of these issues and ensure the irreversibility of the peace process itself.     

Interpretations of political violence in ethnically divided societies

This article challenges traditional interpretations of political violence in Northern Ireland. Based on a series of ethnographic studies undertaken in republican and loyalist communities in Belfast, Northern Ireland, I argue that it is the question of state legitimacy, not materialism, culture or religion, that is core to understanding the underpinnings and history of political violence in Northern Ireland. Research findings suggest that communal support for and tolerance of paramilitary groups and their tactics are underpinned by security‐related concerns and a crisis of legitimacy which renders the state unable to claim a monopoly on the use of force. In contradistinction to counter‐insurgency theorists, I argue that the basis for paramilitarism is not created by fear of reprisal or intimidation. Rather, intra‐communal fears of identity loss and threats (both perceived and real) from the outgroup have created a space for republicanism and loyalism in both its political and paramilitary forms.     

Ethnic Elites and Rituals of Provocation: Politicians,Pastors, and Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

Prominent theories of ethnic conflict argue that instrumental ethnic elites incite violence in order to promote their own power. Yet this approach focuses primarily on political leaders and ignores other ethnic elites, meaning that we know little about how other influential actors think about provocation. In this paper, I present novel data from Northern Ireland on diverse elite attitudes toward polarising Protestant parades with a long history of sparking ethnic violence. Using original surveys of Protestant elected officials and clergy as well as interviews with ex-paramilitaries, this paper demonstrates that these elite groups have different, often competing, interests and opinions regarding contested parades: while politicians tend to support provocative parades, the others do not. By addressing elite actors that are often ignored, I present a more nuanced picture of elite-mass relations and ethnic mobilisation in conflict.     

Loyalist Women Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland: Beginning a Feminist Conversation about Conflict Resolution

Research on war, conflict, and terrorism has traditionally focused on the motivations of male combatants to participate in political violence. Such a focus has largely ignored the role of women who wield political violence. This article revisits one of feminist International Relations (IR) most basic questions, “Where are the women?” and encourages an expanded view of security and conflict resolution that asks how combatant women might contribute to current scholarly understanding of conflict and conflict resolution processes. I argue that the thirty-year conflict remained intractable in part because of the exclusion of those Loyalist women who wielded political violence, seriously limiting the British and Irish governments' ability to understand and resolve the conflict. Included in the analysis is interview data collected in an eight-month empirical study conducted by the author in 2006 with thirty women who identify as past or present members or supporters of Loyalist paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland. The unique perceptions of Loyalist women combatants of four cross-border agreements between 1974 and 2006 are used to illustrate how a feminist approach to conflict resolution can serve as an innovating starting point in theorizing about and attempting to resolve conflict.     

Peace processes and Northern Ireland: Squaring circles?

The aim of this article is to review some of the issues involved in the current ‘peace process/talks’ in Northern Ireland. Despite the current euphoria over the talks, Good Friday Agreement and the Nobel Prizes there are still many serious issues to be resolved that leave the whole process in doubt. These are substantive issues that can often appear as trivial detail in the rhetoric and hyperbole of peace. Three issues particularly stand out: decommissioning of weapons, the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the role of terrorist activists. These, I argue, are key concerns that go to the heart of the Troubles, yet have not been resolved. And it is around these concerns that much of the current talks revolve. They also reflect seriously on the extent to which democratic government can engage in deals with terrorists, trading peace for integrity at what price?     

Lorenzo Vidino. Al-Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground for International Jihad

This article reviews the changing patterns of violence in Northern Ireland from the period just before the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994 through the duration of the years of the peace process. It provides an overview of data on activities including paramilitary activities, ‘punishment’ attacks, racist, homophobic and domestic violence, public disorder and rioting as well as serious and violent crime. The article then analyzes the changes, and offers some reasons accounting for them. This includes a review of the role of young people, paramilitary organizations and the police reform program in the ongoing violence, as well as an acknowledgment of a wider culture of violence that helps to sustain such activities.     

Victims of Terrorism and Political Violence: Identity,Needs, and Service Delivery in Northern Ireland and Great Britain

Terrorism and political violence exist fundamentally as communicative acts; inherently the acts themselves serve to inspire anxiety and fear. As the recipients of such a communicative act, victims of terrorism and political violence serve as the vehicle for the dissemination of these communications to both the intended and broader audiences. Their victimising experience is thus a complex interplay between a profound personal trauma and the political/communicative dimension of the attack. Given this complexity, this article addresses how victims’ needs are understood by victims of terrorism and political violence in both Northern Ireland (NI) and Great Britain (GB). Through engagement with practitioners, victims, survivors, and community activists, this article conceptualises the existing perceptions amongst these different groups regarding needs, the delivery of services to victims in NI and GB, and examines the origins of the different approaches. Results demonstrate that victims’ needs are highly context-dependent at a public level, but relate heavily to the experiences of other victims of terrorism and political violence at a private level.     

Terrorist Groups and Political Fronts: The IRA,Sinn Fein,the Peace Process and Democracy

By characterizing the relationship between political fronts and their terrorist organizations this article sets out to explain the underlying reason for the impasse that has come about in the Northern Ireland peace process over decommissioning. It argues that political fronts are subordinate to their terrorist groups and that dual membership between the two is a common feature. Sinn Fein, at least until the autumn of 2001, has been subordinate to the IRA Army Council and so was unable to deliver IRA disarmament. It is then suggested that this misunderstanding, or willingness to overlook the fact, in 1998 has led to the legitimization of Sinn Fein by three democratic states and this has been fundamental in bringing about the party's electoral advance. Loyalist disenchantment, with both this advance and what it has perceived to be the flood of concessions to republicans because of the implied threat of violence, could ultimately have led to violence on a worse scale than the 30 years of the 'Troubles'. The international strategic environment that the republican movement was confronted with changed this. The departure of President Bill Clinton from office and the election of George W. Bush, the Colombian episode, and the declared 'war on terrorism' following the 11 September attacks, were all significant factors behind the IRA's first act of putting weapons beyond use. The possibility, however, that the move was a tactical one-off merely to stave off American pressure and cement Sinn Fein's position in the new political dispensation (and thereby confirm Sinn Fein's status as a political front subordinate to the IRA) should not be discounted. It could also be argued, however, that, because of the apparent shift in control that took place within the Army Council after the events of August and September 2001 towards the 'Sinn Fein element' that supported putting weapons beyond use, the act represents the beginning of an incremental process that will, events permitting, lead to further such moves and the ultimate disbandment of the IRA. If this is the case then the autumn of 2001 is the time that Sinn Fein ceased to be a political 'front', and was henceforth the senior partner in the Republican movement. Nevertheless, the party would still have a long way to go before becoming a democratic party.     

Transitional justice in settled democracies: Northern Ireland and the Basque Country in comparative perspective

This article explores the concept of transitional justice in democratic states dealing with political violence. Although transitional justice was designed for paradigmatic transitions (from war to peace and from dictatorship to democracy), conflicted democracies such as Northern Ireland and the Basque Country could also benefit from this framework which brings a comprehensive human rights approach to the past and promotes the principles of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition. The article compares the transition from conflict in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country. It explores some of the specific features which characterise processes of transitional justice within settled democracies, such as the blurred break with the past, the fragmentation of initiatives aimed at dealing with violence and the mixture of ordinary and transitional justice. As well as contributing to the conceptualisation of the field of transitional justice, the study proposes that the conflict vs. terrorism divide and the clash of narratives associated with it are the key to understanding these types of transitions.     

Victimisation and Attitudes Towards Former Political Prisoners in Northern Ireland

The release of ex-combatants and the mechanisms for their re-integration within society has become an increasingly controversial issue in peace settlements. Yet to date, the view of victims concerning such arrangements in post-conflict societies remains unexplored. Mindful of this omission and using Northern Ireland as a case study, this article investigates the relationship between victimisation and attitudes towards the treatment of former political prisoners. Based on the 2011 Northern Ireland Social and Political Attitudes Survey, the results suggest that individual victims—those who directly and/or indirectly experienced violent incidents—are notably less supportive of a punitive approach towards the treatment of former political prisoners than non-victims. Moreover, this is particularly the case when victims from within the Catholic community are considered. The Northern Ireland evidence suggests that victims can act as a positive and inclusive force in terms of the rehabilitation and re-integration of former combatants in societies emerging from conflict.     

The problems of ‘pro‐state’ terrorism: Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland

The essay briefly outlines the careers of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the two largest Protestant, unionist and loyalist paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland. It argues that a range of apparently unconnected characteristics of the UDA and UVF can be explained by reference to the notion of ‘pro‐state terrorism’. When the state is perceived to be unable or unwilling to defend itself against its enemies, there is space for ‘prostate’ private initiatives in violence. If the state is not seen to be terminally weak or treacherous, the ‘pro‐state’ group is competing with the state itself. That competition explains many features of the history of the UDA and UVF.     

Bosnia on the Border? Republican Violence in Northern Ireland During the 1920s and 1970s

Unionist politicians have argued that Republican political violence on the Irish border, during both the partition of Ireland and more recent Northern Ireland conflict, constituted ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Protestant/Unionist community in those areas. These views have been bolstered by an increasingly ambivalent scholarly literature that has failed to adequately question the accuracy of these claims. This article interrogates the ethnic cleansing/genocide narrative by analysing Republican violence during the 1920s and the 1970s. Drawing from a wide range of theoretical literature and archival sources, it demonstrates that Republican violence fell far short of either ethnic cleansing or genocide, (in part) as a result of the perpetrators’ self-imposed ideological constraints. It also defines a new interpretive concept for the study of violence: functional sectarianism. This concept is designed to move scholarly discussion of political and sectarian violence beyond the highly politicised and moral cul-de-sacs that have heretofore characterised the debate, and has implications for our understanding of political violence beyond Ireland.     

Monitoring the Peace?: Northern Ireland's 1975 Ceasefire Incident Centres and the Politicisation of Sinn Féin

During the Provisional IRA's (PIRA) 1975 ceasefire, two different sets of incident centres were established across Northern Ireland in order to monitor and avert escalation of violence between Republicans and Security Forces. While one group of offices was run by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) and administered by clerks in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, very quickly Sinn Féin (taking advantage of their decriminalisation in 1974) established their own incident centres to coordinate their communication with the government. This article argues that the establishment of the Sinn Féin incident centres set a precedent for the future political activity of the Provisional Republican Movement; that their activity during the 1975 ceasefire played an important formative role in the evolution of the group's political strategy; and that this experience, acquired from the work done during the 1975 truce, was of far greater influence than is appreciated in current accounts.     

‘THEY HAVEN'T GONE AWAY,YOU KNOW’. IRISH REPUBLICAN ‘DISSIDENTS’ AND ‘ARMED STRUGGLE’

The shift by the provisional Republican movement towards constitutional politics in Northern Ireland has caused splits among Republicans. The formation of the Continuity and Real Irish Republican Armies, pledged to continue ‘armed struggle’ against British rule in Northern Ireland, was predictable, given the historical propensity of Republicans to divide amid claims of ‘betrayal’ by the leadership. The odds against militarist Republican ‘dissidents’ appear overwhelming, as they lack weapons, members and support. Sinn Féin has carried most of the Nationalist constituency on its transition towards constitutionalism and the Irish Republic has abandoned its claim to Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, continued political uncertainty over the province's political future has contributed to the maintenance of a long-standing militaristic tradition within Irish republicanism.     

The Northern Ireland crisis in perspective

Abstract

The urban guerrilla warfare that has been taking lives in Northern Ireland for the past sixteen years cannot be regarded as an anachronistic settling of scores between “papists” and “prods” in an inferior remake of Europe's seventeenth‐century wars of religion. It is a conflict of our time and its distinguishing features cannot quite conceal a problem common to most divided countries, especially those—like Cyprus and Lebanon—which are shaken by similar convulsions.     

Economics of peace making: the case of The International Fund for Ireland

The civil unrest in Northern Ireland, which began in 1969/1970, formally came to an end on May the 8th 2007, when devolved government began in earnest in Northern Ireland, with Unionist (Protestant) and Republican and Nationalist (Catholic) political parties joining together in government. One of the reasons for this historical peace is related to the work of The International Fund for Ireland. This article will discuss the mechanisms this Fund used to transform structures of conflict, and to create economic foundations for peace in Northern Ireland. The author was Director (1989–1993) and Chairman (1993–2005) of the International Fund for Ireland.     

Informers,agents and the liberal ideology of collusion in Northern Ireland

There is now considerable evidence of systemic and institutionalised collusion between state forces and loyalists paramilitary groups during the Northern Ireland conflict, not least in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Focusing on a critical reading of the 2012 de Silva report into the killing of human rights lawyer, Pat Finucane, this article examines state collusive practices surrounding the handling of agents and informers as evidence of a culture of collusion extending into the highest echelons of state institutions. The article will argue that such practices evidence an approach to state counterinsurgency predicated on a “doctrine of necessity” and what can be understood as a “liberal ideology of collusion”.     

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami: Evaluating the Threat Posed by a Radical Islamic Group That Remains Nonviolent

ABSTRACT

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a transnational movement that currently finds support among young Muslims in Central Asia and Western Europe. It presents a complex challenge to both Western and Muslim governments because it calls for the unification of all Muslim countries into a single Caliphate but has consistently rejected violence as a tool of political change. In this paper we focus on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Uzbekistan, a country that is a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Central Asia, we find that social movement theories (resource mobilization theory, political opportunities theory, framing theory) cannot explain why Hizb ut-Tahrir has remained opposed to violence under the same circumstances in which the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the other important radical Islamic group in the region, has embraced violence. We suggest that ideology is crucial for understanding why Hizb ut-Tahrir remains peaceful, and consider several scenarios in which the group might reconsider its ideology and turn to terrorism.