Status and Statehood: Exchange Theory and British-Irish Relations, 1921-41

Abstract

This article is an exploratory application of exchange theory to selective aspects of the British-Irish relationship as it evolved from 1921 to 1941. Conceptions of national status and their constitutional manifestation were central to both internal governmental authority and external relations with and within the British Empire. We are not suggesting that national status questions regarding full independence and territorial unity were necessarily more powerful than economic and strategic concerns, such as defence costs arising from participation in war, or economic costs associated with Irish unification. Instead, our more modest claim is that conceptions of national status are also decisive and should not be dismissed because they are less easy to quantify. They are important because a pre-condition for consensual conflict regulation is the recognition of a degree of conceptual status-parity ie, the perceived value and legitimacy of the national status of the other. For inter-governmentalism, relative parity creates potential for mutualist exchanges instead of the debilitating consequences of one-sided exertions of power associated with control regimes and overly rigid, statist, 'nationalising' projects.