The Dynamics of a Divided Regime

Abstract

‘L'Irlande est une petite contreé sur laquelle se débattent les plus grandes questions de la politique, de la morale, et de l'humanité.’Gustave de Beaumont, 1839IT IS MUCH EASIER TO EXPLAIN THE COURSE OF A FULLY LEGITIMATE, a fully repudiated or a fully coercive regime than to explain what goes on in a regime that is persistently divided. Northern Ireland is an excellent case study of a regime that lacks the stability or quasistability of these three familiar types of political authority. The regime there has always been divided, i.e., the constitution is supported by only a portion of the population, and a substantial fraction of its nominal subjects are inclined to disobey basic political 1aws. It is particularly striking that this should happen in a land where the institutions of government are explicitly modelled after the Parliament of the United Kingdom to which it is bound, and the culture permits the easy assimilation of its emigrants to life in Britain and America. To understand why industrialization and urbanization together have not produced a fully legitimate regime, one must look back into the history of Ireland, and examine the strategy of political leaders who commenced governing in less than ideal circumstances. Then one can begin to understand the multiple and extreme challenges to the regime today.