Politics and International Relations Research Collection

This paper examines Ireland’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the year 2020 with a particular focus on three important issues. First, we examine Ireland’s performance in relation to the target of achieving total ODA of at least 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI), and ODA to least developed countries (LDCs) of 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of GNI by 2030. Second, we document the factors behind a further shift towards multilateral aid over the period as shown by trends in ODA multilateral and bilateral spending. Third, we trace the composition of spending within bilateral and multilateral ODA with a focus on the allocation of spending in the context of gender equality; humanitarian assistance; climate change; and governance.

This paper looks at the concept of consociational government (or the principle of fully-fledged power sharing) as it has evolved in recent comparative studies of the politics of divided societies. It describes the stages through which this concept moved to the centre of the political agenda in Northern Ireland, based on contributions by policy makers, academics, journalists and others. It reviews the difficult history of efforts to translate this principle into practice, noting the challenge posed by strong political cultural resistance to any principle other than the majoritarian, Westminister model. It looks at the stages by which powerful objections to consociation—in particular from unionists—gave way to a more matter-of-fact acceptance of this principle, and considers the factors which lay behind this transition.

This article studies the ideological reactions of communist regimes to the advent of a post-communist world. It examines two cases of reformed communist regimes (China and Vietnam) with two relatively unreformed cases (North Korea and Cuba) to understand different legitimation strategies employed during and after the downfall of the Soviet Union. Theoretically, the article compares two ideal-type approaches to ideology in autocratic regimes. The first approach emphasizes semantic 'freezing' over time. The consistency and coherence of ideology is underlined. The second approach argues that the success of an ideology lies in its ability to be a dynamic, adaptive force that can react with changing circumstances. Four parameters help to distinguish the freeze-frame end from the adaptation pole: (1) the autonomy over semantic changes, (2) the timing, (3) the velocity and (4) the distance that an ideology moves. Using qualitative case-based analysis that is enriched with quantitative text analysis of communist party documents, this article compares these contending conceptions of ideology with each other in the four cases. Sharing similar starting conditions in the 1970s, the article shows how China and Vietnam harnessed a flexible legitimation strategy while North Korea and Cuba adopted a comparatively rigid legitimation approach.

Recent literature has come to little consensus on the impact of aid flows on governance in recipient countries. This article adds to the debate by developing a theoretical and empirical argument to help resolve the contradictory claims. The article suggests that the aid–governance relationship need not be linear, but rather, that aid may simultaneously improve and hinder governance. This relationship might be akin to an aid–governance 'aid dependence' Laffer curve wherein 'too much' aid can lead to counter-productive results. Inserting non-linear aid terms in established techniques for examining aid and governance reveals significant support for the potential of negative returns in aid and governance.

The emergence of China as a major development partner requires a reassessment of traditional donorrecipient dynamics. In addition to using new rhetoric like ”South-South cooperation” or ”Win-Win”, China has also eschewed classifications and practices of the traditional donors of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Donor Assistance Committee (DAC). Yet this ”new approach” and willful ignorance may not spare China from the same issues confronted by traditional donors. In this paper, we consider the extent to which Chinese development efforts disincentivize difficult economic reforms by providing recipient governments with a budgetry cushion. Using an instrumental variable approach with panel data covering 117 countries during the 2000-2014 period, we find that the presence of Chinese development flows, particularly those over which recipients have a high degree of discretion, inhibit broader economic reform. These findings are robust to a number of alternative specifications, data, instruments and approaches and are suggestive of an institutional aid curse ”with Chinese characteristics” as insidious as that which has plagued some traditional donor-recipient relationships.

This paper considers the extent to which the ‘Aid for Trade’ (AfT) initiative has been effective in promoting improved export outcomes at the firm level. Specifically, the paper uses geo-referenced data on AfT projects from the AidData database and firm activity from a survey of nearly 150 exporting firms in Nepal to spatially identify impacts of the projects on export performance. We find qualified evidence that proximity to (more) AfT projects improves export performance but that some projects may be more effective than others. These findings are supplemented by interviews with 21 exporting firms. The results suggest that the research approach could be utilized more broadly in order to draw more generalized conclusions about AfT and firm export performance.

This article describes three analyses of ethnographic interviews conducted with violent and nonviolent political activists. The findings show that the deliberations of violent and nonviolent activists focus on state violence and rational choice calculations (Studies I and II), while nonviolent activists moreover consider perceptions of themselves and state actors, among other factors (Study II). In a highly repressive setting, nonviolent activists choose individual over collective resistance (Study III). By revealing how violent and nonviolent activists reason about their behaviour, the findings complement statistical analyses of datasets on external factors, such as economic conditions, political institutions, social networks or political events. Such datasets are typically readily available or can be constructed from publicly available data, while interview transcripts are more time-consuming to assemble. Furthermore, replicable quantitative methods are not straightforwardly applied to qualitative interviews. This article instead applies Spradley’s ethnographic analysis (Study I) and Corbin and Strauss’s grounded theory (Studies II and III) to examine interview transcripts. In addition to the substantive findings, the analyses make a methodological contribution to qualitative studies of interviews by systematically identifying each factor addressed by an interview transcript.

Ireland has come to be seen as an exemplary case of the successful practice of austerity, both economically and politically. But these inferences would be misleading. The real story about fiscal adjustments in Ireland is more problematic, the reasons for recovery are more complex, and the political consequences are a good deal more nuanced. This paper sets the Irish experience alongside that of the other Eurozone periphery countries. It argues that these countries' recovery prospects depend on the EU economic policy framework, but that Ireland's connections to non-Eurozone economies also shape its growth prospects. Political stability is problematic in all the periphery countries, with the rise of challenger parties articulating values and priorities that may be difficult to accommodate within the current European policy regime. This is connected to a wider problem of the decay of older political identities and loyalties and the emergence of a new legitimation gap for EU member states.

Ireland has come to be seen as an exemplary case of the successful practice of austerity, both economically and politically. But these inferences would be misleading. The real story about fiscal adjustments in Ireland is more problematic, the reasons for recovery are more complex, and the political consequences are a good deal more nuanced. This paper sets the Irish experience alongside that of the other Eurozone periphery countries. It argues that these countries' recovery prospects depend on the EU economic policy framework, but that Ireland’s connections to non-Eurozone economies also shape its growth prospects. Political stability is problematic in all the periphery countries, with the rise of challenger parties articulating values and priorities that may be difficult to accommodate within the current European policy regime. This is connected to a wider problem of the decay of older political identities and loyalties and the emergence of a new legitimation gap for EU member states.

Autocracies craft and disseminate reasons, stories, and explanations for why they are entitled to rule. To shield those justifications from criticism, authoritarian regimes also censor information that they find threatening. While committed opponents of the government may be violently repressed, this book is about how the authoritarian state keeps the majority of its people quiescent by manipulating the ways in which they talk and think about politics. It argues that the legitimating messages of an authoritarian regime situated within a circumscribed public sphere limit political discussion, channel political imagination, and narrow public discourse to inhibit the formation of political alternatives. An authoritarian public sphere therefore augments the power of autocratic regimes. Yet no regime, regardless of its power, can completely stifle every criticism that citizens have and therefore relatively autonomous spaces furnish potential opportunities for people to transform private complaints into collective challenges to the regime's ruling ideology. This book evaluates these arguments in contemporary North Korea, Burma (also called Myanmar), and China. It explains how the authoritarian public sphere shapes political discourse in each context and examines three domains for potential subversion of autocratic ideologies: the shadow markets of North Korea, networks of independent journalists in Burma/Myanmar, and the online sphere in China. In addition to making a theoretical contribution to the study of authoritarianism, this book draws upon unique empirical data. From 2011 to 2016 the author conducted fieldwork in the region, including semi-structured interviews with North Korean defectors in South Korea, Burmese exiles in Thailand, and Burmese in Myanmar who stayed in the country during the military government, as well as an academic trip to North Korea and several visits to China. When analyzed alongside state-produced media, speeches, and legislation, interview evidence allows for a rich understanding of how ideologies influence everyday discussions about politics in the authoritarian public sphere.

The rise of China as a "non-traditional" development partner has been one of the most important phenomena in the field over the past decade. The lack of transparency in Chinese development projects, coupled with an uninterested stance towards governance, lead many to wonder if Chinese engagement will contribute to or undermine existing development efforts. This paper adds to the debate by inquiring as to the relationship of Chinese development efforts with perceptions of, and experiences with, corruption when projects are closely-located to those from a traditional donor, the World Bank. Taking advantage of spatial data, the paper evidences an association between the location of a larger number of Chinese projects and higher experiences with and, to some extent, perceptions of corruption when accounting for co-located World Bank projects. Likewise, while World Bank projects are associated with lower levels of corruption in the absence of Chinese projects, this relationship disappears when Chinese projects are nearby. However, these relationships only hold for Chinese projects which are not "aid-like," suggesting that the differentiation of Chinese overseas flows is an important consideration when studying China as a development partner.

I draw on the belief system literature and use a cognitive mapping methodology to compare Islamists from the nonviolent Muslim Brotherhood and from the formerly violent groups al-Jihad and al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya in Egypt. Using data from in-depth interviews conducted in Egypt, I identify seven combinations of beliefs antecedent to decisions for and against violence and make three main claims. First, decisions for or against violence towards the state are only made if an individual believes that the state is violent. Second, decisions against violence are logically preceded by beliefs about the superiority of state structures to the chaos of violence, the negative consequences of revenge, the potential success of peaceful action, and the impossibility of reaching goals through violence. Third, decisions in favor of violence are logically preceded by beliefs about transformatory goals, support for violence in the local environment, and ignorance of the state's reaction to violent resistance. I conclude with brief suggestions of how the kinds of belief-chains identified may be useful for understanding and responding to narratives supporting violence in the name of Islam. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

National identity is symbolically complex configuration, with shifts of emphasis and reprioritisations of content negotiated in contexts of power. This paper shows how they occur in one post conflict situation – Northern Ireland – among some of the most extreme of national actors – evangelical Protestants. In-depth interviews reveal quite radical shifts in the content of their British identity and in their understanding of and relation to the Irish state, with implications for their future politics. The implications for understanding ethno-religious nationalism, nationality shifts and the future of Northern Ireland are drawn out.

While research and innovation collaborations between NGOs and academic organisations can create considerable synergies with positive effects for the humanitarian sector, the inter-sectoral nature of such collaborations can generate challenges due to the varying mandates, objectives and ways of working of the organisations involved. By drawing on the experiences of a 4-year project involving a consortium of academic and NGO partners, this paper outlines three broad and inter-related ethical challenges that such projects can encounter and how they can be practically negotiated. Firstly, how are the knowledge-generation requirements of such projects addressed without engaging in the mere extraction of data from participants? Secondly, how are potential risks to participants arising from their participation balanced with the need to include their voices within the research project? Finally, how are the formal requirements laid down by institutional review committees, primarily within academic organisations, to be adhered to within field contexts in which there are well-established expectations and ways of working on the part of NGO partners and beneficiaries? While these dilemmas are merely illustrative of the potential ethical dilemmas that inter-sectoral collaboration might encounter, the paper highlights that ethical dilemmas ought to be addressed reflexively by all stakeholders in order to facilitate improved collaboration and, ultimately, better quality, more relevant and more ethically informed research.

Northern Ireland is an excellent test case of the impact of fair employment, affirmative action and equality measures on ethno-communal conflict. Given the complex interconnection of factors at play in conflict, the conclusion is not a simple one although the facts are clear. From deep and historically entrenched inequality on a multiplicity of dimensions, a disadvantaged Catholic population only very slowly – and with the help of a range of allies in the US, and emerging international equality norms – got increasingly strong equality measures enacted, and very unevenly moved closer to a position of equality and indeed power. This population had traditionally mobilised on a nationalist rather than an egalitarian platform. In 1968-9, however, a civil rights campaign (in which discrimination in public employment and housing, and a consciousness of social injustice more generally, formed an important part) triggered thirty years of violent conflict which quickly became framed in nationalist terms. In the 1980s, for reasons which we discuss below, issues of economic inequality came high onto the political agenda. Since 1998, there has been a political settlement on the basis of a substantive improvement in the condition of Catholics there on all measures – economic, political and cultural - while leaving the national question open for the future. Equality is neither perfectly assured nor stable, and national identities and oppositions remain salient, yet there is a discernible identity shift and change in the urgency of nationalist aims, which appear to be related to the equality measures. The intellectual challenge is to pull apart the various strands of causality, to see how equality (for the purposes of this paper, economic equality and in particular, affirmative action measures) contributed to this. This paper gives a broad overview of the relation between changing processes of collective mobilisation, changing policies and changing benchmarks of communal in/equality in the context of a radically changing economic structure. It argues that the politicisation of economic inequality was a phase in a longer process of communal struggle, one which lost intensity only when some of the most striking aspects of employment inequality were remedied, but well before complete equality was achieved: while wider forms of in/equality have become politicised, the achievement of substantive economic progress towards equality has changed the frame of struggle, significantly moderating nationalist politics and shifting unionist self-conceptions although not blurring communal boundaries.

This book is an ethnographic work conducted at Gamboa de Baixo neighbourhood in the Northeast of Brazil, a poor Black century-old fishing community. Keisha-Khan Perry’s study is centred on the daily struggles of the women in the leadership of this community, exploring the central role of community-based Black politics, specifically Black women fighting to avoid eviction from their land and for social rights such as water and dignified housing.

This paper considers the impact of borders on employment opportunities or barriers on the island of Ireland. In that context, it is about several senses of “border”: the creation of two borders on the independence of Ireland, east-west and north-south; disputed understandings of nationality; Commonwealth membership as the source of this dispute, yet also enabling east-west freedom of movement; conversely, the regulation of movement into the north; the complicated impact of common membership of the EU; and inward migration to the two countries, bringing new “borders of the mind”. The paper begins with the nationality and citizenship considerations lying behind the “bridging” of the two new political borders brought about by Ireland’s independence. It outlines the experience of workers freely crossing the east-west border and the regulation of movement into the north. It then turns to the perverse impact of the EU. After that, it deals with new patterns of crossing borders—the growth of migration into both north and south of a new range of peoples and the manifestation of new “borders of the mind”. In conclusion, it outlines new efforts to cross the border through cooperation to combat employment and other forms of discrimination against the new migrants.

Central to reaching peace and settlement in Northern Ireland was a sequence of British--Irish intergovernmental discussions and negotiations, dating from the beginning of the 1980s. British and Irish state cooperation and intervention has remained central to the stability of the settlement reached in 1998. The motives of state actors, however, have been unclear, and the role of the state in the political process has been the subject of some scholarly controversy. This paper looks at the types of evidence that can help to resolve such questions. It focuses on the value of elite interviews, arguing that they can constitute an important and irreplaceable body of evidence when used critically, but it also highlights the risks of excessive reliance on this type of source. It goes on to describe a major research project in University College Dublin whose aim was to record the experiences and interpretations of the actors who engaged in British–Irish negotiations over the last four decades. It discusses the resulting elite interviews and witness seminars and the methodological and ethical difficulties encountered. It describes how these were overcome, and outlines the conditions of confidentiality imposed.