Why the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland Is Not Consociational

Abstract

Segregationists and integrationists both support the power-sharing, Good Friday Agreement (1998) in Northern Ireland but for very different reasons. Consociationalists are segregationists who support the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) because they believe that conflict is best managed through the segregation of the communal groups and their consolidation into the pillars on which elites can build a settlement. Integrationists, on the other hand, support the GFA because they believe that power-sharing will lead to the integration of the communal groups and that will consolidate peace in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement, it is argued, is an integrationist form of power-sharing. It bears some superficial resemblance to consociationalism because integrationist power-sharing bears a superficial resemblance to segregationist power-sharing. But it is the conservative theory behind consociationalism's prescriptions that make those prescriptions consociational not just the prescriptions themselves. The thinking behind the Agreement is far more democratic, integrationist and ambitious than consociationalists prescribe.