Rhetoric meets reality: Northern Ireland’s equality agenda

Abstract

In Northern Ireland the word ‘equality’ is frequently evoked, yet the society itself remains riven by social mistrust. It is not characterised by even a thin social solidarity, even though violence has mercifully diminished. This article teases out the very particular way in which equality has come to be defined in Northern Ireland – indeed, how battles over its definition have become part of continuing, even intensifying, sectarian political antagonism. This helps to explain why it has proved so difficult to secure stable devolution in the region, and why the serious challenges of social injustice seem always to be displaced by constitutional wrangling. There are echoes here of wider warnings about the consequences of a drift from a modernist politics of redistribution to a postmodern politics of recognition. An alternative policy agenda is outlined, which would see sectarianism and social exclusion in Northern Ireland subjected to combined political assault.