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- PublicationBetween the devil and the deep blue sea : nationality, power and symbolic trade-offs among evangelical Protestants in contemporary Northern IrelandNational 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.
Scopus© Citations 19 1004 - PublicationDeducing rationalities and political tactics in the partitioning of Ireland, 1912-1925Partition is an intrinsically abstract and simplistic blunt instrument applied on a complex mosaic of peculiarities that constitute reality. There are very few modern states that are ethnically or culturally homogenous. In this context, partition is a subjective territorial tactic that can treat or exacerbate symptoms of historical, political, and geographical difficulties. While exhibiting comparative scope, especially to the role of the British State and the dynamics of national majorities and minorities, the circumstances concerning the partitioning of Ireland deviate from patterns gleaned from other examples as the evolving bases of its partition between 1912 and 1925 mutated at various stages with regard to geography, political status, and function. However, Ireland served as an important historical precedent in illustrating the disparity between the original intent and eventual result of its partition. Indeed, one can extrapolate from the Irish example that partition is better understood as a catalytic tactical process that radically reconfigures the political and geographical dimensions of conflict rather than as a decisive political instrument solving it.
Scopus© Citations 16 869 - PublicationDoes being Protestant matter? Protestants, minorities and the re-making of ethno-religious identity after the Good Friday AgreementThe Good Friday Agreement of 1998 gave an opportunity to remake not just political institutions but ethno-religious distinction in Northern Ireland. This paper looks at the how individuals reconstruct their way of being Protestant in Ireland and Northern Ireland in the context of social and political change. It shows individuals renegotiating their ways of being Protestant, attempting sometimes successfully to change its socio-cultural salience, blurring ethnic boundaries, distinguishing religious and ethno-national narratives, drawing universalistic political norms from their particular religious tradition. It argues that these renegotiations are highly sensitive to the macro-political context. Changes in this context affect individuals through their changing cognitive understandings and strategic interests which, at least in this case, are as important to identification as are social solidarities.
724Scopus© Citations 16 - PublicationEthnicity and religion : redefining the research agendaThis article maps some of the effects when ethnicity and religion overlap. Sometimes one category, with its related values and solidarity, is prioritised; this is expressed in the common view that religion is subsumed in ethnicity, and religious labels become markers of ethnic groups. Sometimes the effects are additive, each source of distinction and group solidarity strengthening the other. Sometimes there are interactive effects, with dynamic and emergent properties producing a more complex field of relationship. After tracing examples and arguing against a reductive approach, three avenues for future research are highlighted. First, mapping patterns of interrelation of ethnicity and religion in cultural distinction-making and group formation, showing the conditions and effects of each. Second, looking at the longer term historical, state and geo-political conditions for change in these relations. Third, reframing theories and concepts so better to grasp the range of ways religion and ethnicity function in social practice.
1168Scopus© Citations 14 - PublicationFluid or frozen? Choice and change in ethno-national identification in contemporary Northern Ireland(Taylor & Francie, 2006-12)
; ; ; This article works with in-depth interviews from research projects in Northern Ireland to show different processes of choice and change in national identity. It argues that situational variation in identity is quite compatible with unchanging and oppositional forms of identity. Significant identity change is possible but uncommon, it requires incentives and resources, and it is more likely to occur in conflict generating than in conflict resolving directionsScopus© Citations 32 1361 - PublicationHorowitz's theory of ethnic party competition and the case of the Northern Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party, 1970-1979This article uses Donald Horowitz’s theory of ethnic party competition in order to understand the development of the Northern Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) during the first decade of its existence. The main contention of the article is that Horowitz’s thesis, although based primarily on observation of party competition in divided societies in Africa and Asia, is remarkably applicable to the SDLP in terms of the party’s evolution against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland conflict in the 1970s. Horowitz’s theory helps explain why the SDLP failed in its original objective of mobilizing a cross-community constituency behind a radical, reformist agenda, and instead became what Horowitz terms an “ethnically based party”, representing the interests of only one side of the political divide in Northern Ireland.
Scopus© Citations 5 1163 - Publication"Humespeak" : the SDLP, political discourse, and the Northern Ireland peace processThis 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.
425 - PublicationMediating the European ideal : cross-border programmes and conflict resolution on the island of IrelandThe designation of state borders as essential lines of division in Europe is disputed by the logic of European integration. But does the actual impact of EU membership quantifiably defuse the conflict potential of these borders? The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of the European Union on the resolution of the conflict in Ireland/Northern Ireland through cross-border activity. The primary data for this research is taken from a series of semi-structured interviews with individuals directly involved in the implementation of EU cross-border programmes. Interviewees include politicians, policymakers, and representatives of the community and voluntary sector – all of whom may be viewed as ‘mediators’ of the European ideal of cross-border cooperation as a means to peace-building. The analysis contained here covers three main dimensions of the EU’s role, namely the conditions, context, and consequences of its approach to the border conflict.
645Scopus© Citations 24 - PublicationNational identity in transition? Moving out of conflict in (Northern) IrelandThis thematic section of Nations and Nationalism starts from a question of substantive political importance: How does institutional change - in particular reforms towards ethno-national equality and the opening of borders - affect national identification in divided regions? It takes the case of Northern Ireland where a radical process of institutional change is underway. It uses new approaches to national identity to map different aspects of change and continuity – in categories of identity and in their interrelations and contents, in elite and in everyday popular identifications (for useful overviews, see Abdelal et al, 2003; Ashmore et al, 2004). It examines the trajectory of the Protestant minority in the Irish state to show possible repertoires of change. The authors look respectively at self-reported categories of identity, official discourses of identity, and popular understandings of nationality. The introduction outlines the relevance of this research to current comparative and theoretical debates.
Scopus© Citations 10 1586 - PublicationNational territory in European space : reconfiguring the island of IrelandThe meaning and significance of borders in nation-statehood and European integration are integrally linked in a process of change. Uncovering such connections in a case study notable for its recent transformation, this article explores the way in which the narratives and models of European integration have been used in the discourse of Irish official nationalism. Its central thesis is that participation in the space of European Union has facilitated the conceptualisation of a common Irish space in which borders (specifically the Irish border) are not conceived as barriers to be overcome but rather as bridges to the fulfilment of interests. Thus, the Irish governmental elite have used the language of European integration to reconfigure traditional ideals of latent anti-partitionism for a context of peaceful settlement.
Scopus© Citations 9 1009 - PublicationThe nature of meaning of identity in Northern Ireland after the Belfast Good Friday Agreement(Wiley Blackwell, 2007-02)
; ; ; ; Social identification processes can be seen as the basis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. During the conflict it can be argued that preferred social and political identities became increasingly oppositional and entrenched. This paper reviews this evidence using population level studies. It also explores trends in preferred identities since the 1998 Agreement as well as examining the patterns of preferred identity across generations with particular attention being paid to the responses of young people. In an attempt to elucidate the meaning of these identities, a series of inter-related qualitative studies that have examined constructions of national, political and religious identification are reported. These suggest a fluidity, rather than entrenchment, in post-Agreement respondents and point to the variability and complexity of identity phenomena in Northern Ireland.Scopus© Citations 84 2657 - PublicationNorthern Ireland : from multi-phased conflict to multi-levelled settlementThe origins of the Northern Ireland conflict fall into three temporally distinct phases, each of which creates a particular socio-structural context that defines a set of protagonists with conflicting interests, more or less defined aims, and a given temporality of conflict. Each is superimposed on the previous phases, further defining and intensifying conflict. The result is a multi-levelled conflict and a multiplicity of aims for protagonists. This provides a useful frame for explanation of the difficulties of negotiating and of implementing an agreed settlement and for assessment of the successes and failures of the 1998 agreement.
Scopus© Citations 5 788 - PublicationPath-dependence in settlement processes : explaining settlement in Northern IrelandThe recent literature on path dependence provides a model that can be used in explanation of ethnic conflict and settlement processes. Using Northern Ireland as a case study, this article identifies path dependent patterns of conflict embedded in long-term processes of political development whose change may interrupt these patterns. It highlights the importance of long-term state trajectories in constituting and reproducing these patterns, the generation of ‘endogenous’ processes of change and the impact of wider geopolitical processes in strengthening these. It shows how and why factors such as power, perception, networks and institutions vary in their impact on conflict and explains when they work together to produce settlement.
Scopus© Citations 53 1602 - PublicationProtestant minorities in European States and nationsLittle attention has been paid in the recent scholarly literature to Europe's old religious conflicts - particularly those that stem from the Reformation. Yet for a long time religiously informed conflict was the principal source of internal state division and the major perceived threat to state stability and security. This article looks at the institutional changes and cultural renegotiations that allowed traditional religious oppositions, rivalries and conflicts to fade in most contemporary European societies. Focusing on the Czech, French and Irish cases, it argues that neither modernisation, democratisation nor secularisation were enough to resolve deep-set tensions. The long-term resolutions involved a restructuring of polity and nation in a way consistent with minority, as well as majority, culture. In the past - and perhaps also in the present - such opportunities were rare and demanded choice, strategy and political fortune.
309Scopus© Citations 7 - PublicationReiterating national identities : the European Union conception of conflict resolution in Northern IrelandThe Haagerup Report commissioned by the European Parliament in 1984 was the first major initiative taken by the European Union on the situation of conflict in Northern Ireland. It embodied a conceptualisation of the conflict as between two national identities defined in relation to the Irish border. The EU’s self-ascribed role towards a settlement in Northern Ireland since that time has followed this vein by supporting the peaceful expression of British and Irish identities rather than reconstructing them or creating alternatives. This nation-based approach is encapsulated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the governments of the UK and Ireland and political parties in Northern Ireland. Through detailed analysis of the Haagerup Report in the light of the peace process in Northern Ireland as a whole, this article assesses the implications of conceptualising Northern Ireland as a clash of national identities for resolution of the conflict and argues for a subsequent reconsideration of the EU’s role in conflict resolution.
Scopus© Citations 32 1103 - PublicationSocial transformation, collective categories and identity changeChanges in collective categories of identity are at the core of social transformation. The causal linkages between identity change, institutional change and change in modes of practice are, however, complex. Developing and adapting ideas from Pierre Bourdieu’s work, this article shows the coexistence in tension of a plurality of elements within each collective identity category. On this basis, it proposes a typology of responses at the level of identity to socio-political change. This allows an explanation of patterns of identity change in terms of wider social processes and resource distribution, while remaining open to the sense and complexity of the individual’s experience and the moments of intentionality which arise when individuals face choices as to the direction of change. The worth of the model is shown by analysis of modes of identity change in a society presently experiencing radical change in socio-political structures - post-1998 Northern Ireland.
Scopus© Citations 99 2370 - PublicationSymbolic complexity and political division : the changing role of religion in Northern IrelandReligious distinctions, ethnic oppositions and national differences intersect in Northern Ireland. In this article I explore how this symbolic complexity has fed political conflict. I argue the institutional structure of Northern Ireland encouraged the generalisation of religiously-informed values across the fields of ethnicity and politics which in turn feed back to tighten and constrain available religious repertoires. The recent process of institutional reform has interrupted this process. While this is only one factor which contributes to the reproduction of conflict, it allows us to make sense of otherwise paradoxical features of everyday division in Northern Ireland, and to explain the seemingly inchoate processes of change in the post-1998 period.
Scopus© Citations 11 1287 - PublicationTrajectories of identity change new perspectives on ethnicity, nationality and identity in IrelandThe cultural social sciences work at the point of intersection of social structure, institutional change and change in mass public perceptions and collective identities. They look for the links between power relations, collective action and social and symbolic boundaries. Marx theorized this for class relations. The most exciting area of the cultural social sciences today, however, is ethnicity, where some of the insights developed in class analysis are used to look at the constitution of ethnic categories and collectivities and the ways the categories of ethnicity and nationality are embodied, manipulated, strategically adapted, and transmitted.
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