Symbolic complexity and political division : the changing role of religion in Northern Ireland

Religious 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.