The Frontiers of Legal Analysis: Reframing the Transition in Northern Ireland

British constitutional legal discourse is structurally limited in its capacity to capture the complexity of the Good Friday Agreement. Rather than assessing the Agreement in narrow devolutionary terms, it should be seen as a hybrid domestic and international law instrument, making an important contribution to accepted international law norms in relation to self-determination. The Agreement transforms and partly transcends the Northern Ireland conflict by substituting political contestation for violent conflict, and by defining the modalities of conducting that contestation. This analysis complements classical international law perspectives, and opens up the application of legal discourses associated with 'transitional justice' to the legal and political transformation in Northern Ireland. These discourses focus on the problem of reconciling the demands of peace with the imperatives of justice. The Agreement sits squarely in this terrain with its provisions on 'dealing with the past' and 'institutional legacies'. The insights gained here challenge orthodox thinking about conflict-management and the ongoing political process.     

Self-settled Refugees in Uganda: An Alternative Approach to Displacement?

This paper investigates the complex security and economic dynamicsthat influence the lives and opportunities of self-settled refugeesliving in Uganda. It focuses on the opportunities and problemsfaced by self-settled refugees, and questions the assumptionthat Uganda's current local settlement policy is best suitedto the country's social, economic and political realities. Itsuggests that far from being passive victims, self-settled refugeesare taking control of their lives without any additional externalassistance and are planning for the day they can return to theirhomeland. Consequently, the paper argues that there is reasonto believe that local integration is likely to succeed whereother models have failed.     

Quality of democracy in unrecognized states: lessons from Northern Cyprus

Scholars have recently debated whether non-recognition is a blessing or a curse for democracy. Some suggest that lack of recognition forces political elites to democratize and acquire internal legitimacy to compensate for the lack of external legitimacy. Others suggest that democratization is used as a strategy by which to acquire international recognition. Still others claim that non-recognition obliges unrecognized states to rely on a patron state which, in turn, hinders the quality of democracy. To contribute to this discussion, we have conducted an in-depth case study. Focusing on democratic quality in Northern Cyprus from 2010 to 2016, it is observed that reliance on a patron state leads to dynamics of tutelage, in turn hindering the quality of democracy.     

From rural rebellions to urban riots: political competition and changing patterns of violent political revolt in Uganda

Violent political revolt has been common in independent Uganda. For a long time, such revolts were exclusively expressed as rural-based rebel groups fighting the government. Since the mid-2000s, however, this seems to have come to an end. Instead, urban riots, very rare in the past, have become much more common. This article analyses these changing patterns of types and location of violent political revolt in Uganda under the National Resistance Movement government. It argues that the earlier prevalence of rural rebellions can be explained by the combination of a coercive and militarised state, and weak and ethnically factionalised political forces who took their violent resistance to rural regional bases. Over time, however, government counter-insurgency became more effective and the conditions for insurgency were undermined by withdrawal of external support. Furthermore, the reintroduction of multi-party politics in 2005 opened up new avenues for political expression. The changes to the political system were, however, more nominal than real in many respects. While the rebel option had become less attractive and feasible, a series of social, economic and political grievances remained which were only partly channelled through party politics. They also found expression through sporadic urban violent revolt.     

Does Moderation Pay in a Consociational Democracy? The Marginalisation of the SDLP in the North of Ireland

A central question in the debate between “centripetalists” and “consociationalists” concerns whether power‐sharing arrangements provide incentives for moderation. This article helps to formulate an empirical answer through an examination of the electoral decline of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) following the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in the North of Ireland. Drawing on primary qualitative interviews with key players, this article argues that the SDLP were electoral losers under a system of ethnic out‐flanking. Sinn Féin has successfully presented itself as the “greener” and more robust representative of nationalist interests, whilst simultaneously moderating its message and operating the institutions of Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin has taken ownership of the GFA and has positioned itself as the party best able to ensure its delivery. Sinn Féin’s rights‐based agenda, and vibrant electoral machine, has resonated with the nationalist electorate who are less sure of what the contemporary SDLP stands for.     

Just the Two of Us? Civil Conflicts,Pro-State Militants,and the Violence Premium

Quantitative literature discussing violence in civil conflicts tends towards a typical model of engagement between governments and revolutionaries. Whilst recent work has shown the significant impact of multiple anti-government groups, a further feature remains understudied—the role of pro-state militants. This article theorizes a “violence premium” when such groups arise, which leads to all connected groups devoting greater energy to conflict than they would in isolation. Employing duration analysis and data from The Troubles in Northern Ireland, where Republicans act as revolutionary insurgents, Loyalists as pro-state militants, and the British Army as government forces, the violence premium is empirically confirmed. Both Loyalists and Republicans deviate from their underlying strategies to attack more frequently when violence by their rivals increases, with Republicans and the British Army engaging in the same way. An extended analysis, accounting for the status of the victim, shows that the violence premium resulting from interaction between Loyalists and Republicans targeted only the civilian population of Northern Ireland, elucidating the sectarian component of The Troubles. These results show that including all conflict parties and considering how they are linked are important features in studies that aim to determine the net level of violence in civil conflicts.     

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.     

Was Idi Amin's Government a Terrorist Regime?

What does state terrorism look like? How do we distinguish it from other forms of mass state violence, such as repression or genocide? Based on the developing literature on state terrorism, this study presents three expectations that violence perpetrated by the state should meet if it is to be classified as state terrorism: these are (a) that the violence is perpetrated by agents of the state, (b) that the violence is visible, and (c) that state terrorism focused against a state's own citizens will be carried out by an autocratic, personalistic regime. Drawing substantially on a series of primary sources, this study demonstrates that Idi Amin's regime in Uganda from 1971 to 1979 did engage in state terrorism against its own citizens.     

Consociationalism and its critics: Evidence from the historic Northern Ireland Assembly election 2007

Critics of consociational power-sharing institutional arrangements in deeply divided societies argue that such arrangements solidify the underlying conflict cleavage and render it all-important for party competition and voter behaviour. I find evidence to the contrary in the case of voter behaviour at the historic 2007 Assembly election in Northern Ireland. At least in the unionist bloc, I find the effective disappearance of the ethno-national conflict cleavage as a determinant of voter choice. This suggests that consociational arrangements have led to both inclusion and moderation, rather than polarisation and ‘ethnic outbidding’.     

Getting to Peace? Negotiating with the LRA in Northern Uganda

Getting to peace is not a straightforward process. In Uganda, internal conflict has raged for more than 20 years between the Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The construction of a comprehensive negotiated settlement is at the mercy of conflicting ideologies and influences at the international, national and grassroots levels. This paper examines the Juba peace talks, the major actors in the negotiation process, and tension between prosecution and amnesty.