The Complexity of British–Irish Interdependence

Abstract

The transformation of British–Irish relations from dependence to interdependence from the 1960s to the 2000s occurred in an international setting dominated by both states' membership of the European Economic Community/European Community/European Union and their various relations with the US's global hegemony, politically and economically. This article interprets these changes by reference to complex interdependence and other theories in international relations. Northern Ireland was a central factor in this transformation, but was not its primary cause, as both Ireland and the UK have an abiding interest in normal, stable interstate relations aside from that conflict. Paradoxically, however, just as the official discourse of transformation reached its height the normalisation on which it was based was challenged by the dual constitutional question unsettling the UK: Scotland's vote on independence and a likely referendum on the UK's membership of the EU. Either or both outcomes would profoundly affect the improved relations with Ireland by virtue of the very interdependence that gave both states a new mutual influence on one another.