To cajole or compel? The use of incentives and penalties in Northern Ireland's peace process

Abstract

The peace process in Northern Ireland lurched from crisis to crisis for almost a decade after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. This article examines the tools the British Government employed in seeking a breakthrough that would bring about the stable devolved government that was the goal of the Agreement. It demonstrates how the government's approach oscillated between seeking to cajole/persuade the parties to agree to share power by the use of incentives and concessions (carrots) and seeking to compel them to do so by the use of sanctions and penalties (sticks). The article demonstrates the problems with both approaches and argues that in Northern Ireland they were often applied in an inconsistent and counterproductive manner. The article demonstrates that their overuse in Northern Ireland led to parties becoming more willing to undertake brinkmanship once it was clear that threatened penalties may not actually be applied if parties failed to comply with ultimatums. Drawing from the Northern Ireland case the article offers an examination of the wider usefulness and limitations of carrots and sticks in peace processes.