Economic Aid, Marginalization, and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

Faith-inspired civil organizations (FICOs) are growing in recognition for their relational and sustainable approaches and contributions to peacebuilding, especially in areas where religious or cultural identities have complicated contexts of violent conflict. The capacity of FICOs to penetrate the deeper and long-term obstacles to peacebuilding is largely a consequence of their underlying faith-based motivations and methods for intervention. This article explores one particular FICO: the Corrymeela Community, which has played a notable public role in the work of peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. In examing the theological roots and operational character of Corrymeela, this article explores possible answers to three important questions. First, as a Christian-inspired organization emphasizing an ecumenical, interfaith approach to sustainable peace, where does Corrymeela locate its theological understanding of violent conflict and purposeful intervention? Second, how does this theological understanding inform and shape its operational strategies for strategic peacebuilding in Northern Ireland? Finally, in a “post-Troubles” Northern Ireland, what is the way forward for such an organization? How might its work and lessons-learned as a FICO continue to impact Northern Ireland, while at the same time contribute to the convoluted work of reconciliation in other regions confronting religiously-fueled violence?

A number of consociational power-sharing initiatives are compared to explore some of the reasons why the elite conflict regulation model has not settled the Northern Ireland conflict. In the period 1972-85, four attempts by the British government to formulate and implement a power-sharing government within Northern Ireland failed as a result of the recalcitrance of one or other of the mainstream political parties. The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) ended the Unionist veto and included the Irish government in the political process to find a solution. Since 1985, four efforts by both governments to establish a devolved power-sharing government have included previously marginalized political groups in the political process. In this article, I argue that since the 1985 AIA the bilateral external ethnoguarantors - the British and Irish governments - have contained the conflict by using a coercive consociational approach to elite conflict management. Since 1985, four efforts to promote contact between Unionists and Nationalists at all levels and all points show promise in reframing the conflict from resources and interests to identity needs. Such a transformational approach is necessary to open up thinking about conflict and in constructing a multimodal, multilevel contingency approach to peace-building and conflict settlement in Northern Ireland.

The last 30 years of the twentieth century saw the most intense violent conflict over national identity in Northern Ireland experienced anywhere in Europe during those years. Over 3,500 people were killed and about 48,000 injured. The social and economic costs were formidable, exemplified by high levels of spatial and social segregation between Protestants and Catholics, matched by deep distrust, and significant levels of poverty and gross inequalities in wealth and income. Northern Ireland is among the most unequal regions in Europe. By the 1990s, civil society organisations saw themselves and were seen by government as a vehicle for achieving a peaceful society in Northern Ireland. Beginning in the early 1990s this promise seemed to be a reality. There were a series of self-conscious attempts by government to support the development of, and then engage with, elements within civil society to help manage the conflict, address some of its social consequences, and help to build the peace. Once the power-sharing government was formed in the wake of the 1998 ‘Good Friday’ Agreement, however, the significance and influence of civil society organisations declined. The decline is a puzzle since both social theory and government policy in the UK suggest that if civil society organisations are strong, they will play an important role in governance and also in furthering community integration. That this has not happened, we believe, shows a misunderstanding of the roles civil society organisations may play in national politics and of the significance of civil society organisations as primary actors shaping society.

This research sits at the nexus of women, peace-building and the news media in order to decipher how the representations of women and peace-building in post-conflict Northern Ireland affect women’s social situation in divided societies recovering from violent ethnonational conflict. Women are habitually associated with non-political community-level reconciliation through an assumed innate and feminine propensity to peace. This is amplified through gendered news media portrayals which serve to reinforce patriarchal social knowledge, and in turn, this disenfranchises women by foregrounding their femaleness rather than political expertise; and damages peace by marginalizing a significant demographic of the population and intensifying social inequality, which is the foundation for conflict.

This paper focuses on how peacebuilding in Northern Ireland is a slow process based primarily on generational replacement. Because Northern Ireland did not experience a Truth and Reconciliation Commission or a formal process of reconciling those who experienced “The Troubles,” older cohorts have not redefined their identities or are as likely to change their identities as younger cohorts. However, especially among Protestants, there is evidence of significant generational differences in identity emerging in Northern Ireland. This paper will highlight how the peace process itself counted on this process of intergenerational change in Northern Ireland and how it offers the best hope for transforming historically sectarian conceptions of identity into less reactionary or hostile identities that open up aspirations for new relations across the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland. Thus, the slow process of reconciliation may accelerate in future decades and residual support that continues to exist for republican dissidents and loyalist paramilitaries slowly dissipate over time. Of course, many potential intervening events (i.e. period effects) could overwhelm this slow process of social and identity change in Northern Ireland.

Economic aid has been a critical component of the peace process in Northern Ireland allowing for community-based interventions, employment, social inclusion and regional stability. With the second round of funding coming to a close this essay explores the thoughts and perceptions of civil servants, fund administrators and community group leaders in Derry, Belfast and the Border Area to consider peoples reflections on the outcome of funding, concerns for the future once funding ends, what vital work is still needed and what strategies exist to continue the work of peace after the cessation of Phase II.

When conflict, competing identities, and segregation collide; Identity, Segregation and Peace-building in Northern Ireland explores the implications for peace-building in Northern Ireland, and across

Book Review| January 01 2021 Review: Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal. New York: New York University Press, 2019. 320 pages. Black and white illustrations. $35.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-479-87845-1. John Thomas, III John Thomas, III University of Chicago Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar National Review of Black Politics (2021) 2 (1): 75–77. https://doi.org/10.1525/nrbp.2021.2.1.75 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John Thomas; Review: Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal. National Review of Black Politics 1 January 2021; 2 (1): 75–77. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nrbp.2021.2.1.75 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentNational Review of Black Politics Search In Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, Manal Jamal delves into the world of foreign aid, NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and civil society in postconflict situations to uncover why aid for democracy promotion works in some contexts but not in others. Departing from the quantitative studies that have informed discussions around foreign aid effectiveness, the author uses a structured, focused comparison of postconflict settlements in Palestine and El Salvador to uncover insights that can only be found through qualitative case studies. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and 1995 between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the government of Israel with the aim of ending the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the existence of a Palestinian state and specifically the First Intifada (1987–93), are characterized as a noninclusive settlement. The Chapultepec Peace Accords, signed in 1992 between the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the government... You do not currently have access to this content.

This essay will explore the contribution of integrated (mixed Catholic and Protestant) schools to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and it will highlight some of the challenges ahead in an increasingly diverse society with a legacy of conflict. It draws on and is illustrated by exemplars from the extensive data that I have gathered over more than ten years. The essay will focus on three particular areas – the long-term impact of attending an integrated school, variation in leadership approaches to integration within the schools and emergent models of good practice in response to the cultural diversity of students. A number of theoretical perspectives will be brought to bear upon the data, including social identity theory and political science perspectives on multiculturalism. I will argue that integrated education provides a unique opportunity, in a still segregated society, for children and young people to learn from each other, enjoy sustained engagement and interaction with other perspectives, develop empathy and build long-term friendships across the divide. At the same time, I will question whether the current approaches to integrated education hold equal possibilities for peacebuilding. The context for peacebuilding through education In divided societies like Northern Ireland, emerging from a period of intense community violence, the role of education in peacebuilding is complex and needs to be carefully contextualised not least historically, politically and socially. Looking first at history we see that prior to partition in 1922, the six counties of Northern Ireland shared a general Irish education system based on the National School system.

Economic Aid and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

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When the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was signed in 1998, those involved believed that they ‘were finally able to bring about peace in Northern Ireland’. The process of implementing the accord and resolving tensions between the various political parties began and on 7 May 2007, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein entered government together. Nine years after the Agreement was signed, this ‘historic’ day was heralded by the British and Irish political classes and the media as the end of the conflict in Northern Ireland. As noted by Blair in his description of that day, this achievement signalled the ‘normalisation’ of the region's politics to the British and Irish governments through a movement away from division: Every time we set foot in Northern Ireland there were protests … always showing how divided the politics of Northern Ireland was from that anywhere else. That day for the first time there was a protest not about Northern Ireland, but about Iraq. When I saw it, I felt that Northern Ireland had just rejoined the rest of the world. The British and Irish governments believed that the Peace Process, with its focus on elite political settlement, was complete and it was expected that the rest of society would follow the example set by their leaders and overcome divisions to work together. However, the resolution of conflict is not simple and, as will be demonstrated later in this introduction, Northern Ireland is not peaceful.

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This article examines Northern Ireland's peacebuilding process by analysing perspectives about economic assistance to determine if the peacebuilding process contributed to the reification of structure or the promotion of human agency. Economic assistance, a key pillar of liberal democratic peacebuilding, has been credited with creating a political economy of civil society peacebuilding in Northern Ireland by either incentivising or coercing community groups to participate in the peace process. Interviews with 120 community group leaders who received International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and/or EU Peace III funding are analysed to see how the respondents' perspectives reflect aspects of the structure–agency debate. Rules, resources, mental schemas and knowledge are used as criteria for evaluating statements from respondents to determine if community groups feel empowered, invested and capable of sustaining peace in post-peace accord Northern Ireland. The study concludes by discussing the implications for sustaining peace in Northern Ireland and other post-peace accord environments where liberal democratic peacebuilding methods are used.