The Role of Civil Society in Promoting Peace in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement of 1998 endeavoured to create a political framework for governing Northern Ireland. Because the Agreement attempted to manage the conflict through consociationalism, or as some see it, power sharing among elites, it did not focus on mass-level politics and hence was not designed to overcome the sectarian division in Northern Ireland. The institutions of the new governing system were based on sectarian self-identification of elites and provided little incentive for politicians to transcend historic communal differences. Prosperity and peace were meant to improve both communities but not force them to live together. Many organisations have been created over the past few decades to encourage peace and societal transformation at the grassroots level. However, their effectiveness has been questioned, and many have criticised the community-relations industry. Most of the domestic as well as international efforts at fostering cross-community linkages have failed to do so. One exception to this general pattern has been the faith-based Church Fora that emerged around the time of the Agreement that strove to help develop civil society in Northern Ireland. This chapter builds upon recent scholarship that has developed theoretical frameworks to explain the resolution of ethnic conflict. The assumption of this research is that one cannot just deny or manipulate identities to reduce or eliminate conflict. Cochrane has demonstrated the difficulty of ending Civil Wars like the conflict in Northern Ireland due to the fact that civilians are both perpetrators and victims.