The significance of the cross-border dimension for promoting peace and reconciliation

This paper focuses on the significance of the cross-border dimension in promoting peace and reconciliation. Its central argument is that cross-border co-operation can help undermine the territorial “caging” which has been so central to the conflict in Northern Ireland. The paper begins by making the case that borders and border change are integral to conflict and its resolution. Secondly, it traces how the recent re-configuration of cross-border relations has challenged the architecture of “containment” which has both limited and intensified communal conflict in Ireland. Thirdly, it reports on some empirical research into the cross-border co-operation promoted by voluntary sector organisations funded under Peace II. Finally, it draws some tentative conclusions about the importance of transnational cross-border cooperation across the external and internal borders in undermining the territorialist zero-sum conflict which has long characterised Northern Ireland and which now assumes its most visible and antagonistic form at the interfaces bordering the two communities within the province.