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As President of the United States, Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel served to heighten tensions in the Middle East and instantly undermined his stated goal of bringing peace to the troubled region. This paper will argue that there are important lessons to be gained from the political process in Northern Ireland to help bolster a peace process in the Middle East. Through an analysis of Unionist politics pre- and post- the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the paper will argue that there is a need to not only encourage militants to make peace, but also to incentivise regional hegemons into meaningful negotiations. The paper will highlight the important role played by international hegemonic powers as they seek to create a Strategically Benefical Moment for all sides in the conflict as they seek to 'ripen' the conditions for peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the discursive difficulties facing the advocates of a peace journalism that is proactive and oriented towards "win-win" solutions. The article focuses on a case study involving a nationalist and a unionist newspaper in Northern Ireland which joined together in a "peace journalism" initiative. This concerned a controversial Orange Order parade that takes place each year in the town of Portadown. The paper draws on this example to discuss some of the discursive shortcomings of a conciliation frame and the discursive attractions of a conflict frame. The case study illustrates how rhetorical and narrative structures shape and constrain the way in which newspapers report conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores traces of conflict in the arboreal landscape of Belfast, Northern Ireland, through three case studies that emphasize the difficulties for trees to serve neutral purposes in a contested city. These examples illuminate the diverse cultural, political, and physical dimensions of a divided society in its fraught transition towards lasting peace. By focusing on contested narratives of history, heritage, identity, and belonging, the paper examines how the urban forest has been harnessed to serve various political projects as it inscribes and mediates the public legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland. This paper concludes by reflecting on the role of trees in the complex, shifting processes of peacebuilding in a city struggling to emerge from violent conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiential learning is often seen as a central component of social education and pastoral programmes such as peer mediation; but the precise nature of experience as an educational, social and pedagogic/cultural process in schools is complex. This paper uses the notion of experiential learning to explore the impact of a peer mediation programme in a transforming integrated school in Northern Ireland. The programme was intended to mainstream the involvement of pupils in the process of creating a more integrated school ethos and was implemented by youth workers working as members of the school staff.The paper begins with a review of the theoretical basis of experience as educational. This is followed by an interpretative review of the results of a survey of pupils' attitudes to peer mediation and semi-structured interviews with pupils and school and project staff about their perception of the impact of the programme on ideas of social learning. One issue is the extent to which developing pupils' capacity for interactive dialogue can be seen as an experiential process, like learning a foreign language– hence‘peace talk’. Another is the process by which the perception of peer mediation training as‘experiential’ constituted an enabling‘pedagogic discourse’ which legitimized the programme for teachers and affirmed its beneficial impact on pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to political division within Northern Ireland, spectator sports, particularly Gaelic games, have been a contentious issue and, as result, have not been developed as a tourism product. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how politics can impinge on policies relating to sport, tourism and consequently sports tourism. The first section deals with the political situation in Northern Ireland and how it has affected local tourism and sport. The second section analyses the tourism potential of local sports now that the country has entered a new era of peace. The third and final section of the paper deals specifically with Gaelic games and recommends how Northern Ireland's tourism industry could capitalize on a sport which is unique to the island of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the principal parties' manifestos in UK statewide elections 1970–2010. It makes an original contribution by using a mixed methodology to examine the electoral discourse, issue-salience and policy framing associated with civil conflict resolution (CCR) proposals for Northern Ireland. Mandate and accountability theory suggest that party programmes may play an important role in understanding CCR. Accordingly, a series of hypotheses is tested and the findings used to advance an Electoral Discourse Model of Civil Conflict Resolution. The findings show that electoral politics matter in shaping CCR. Statistically significant inter-party differences in issue-salience and policy framing are revealed as parties seek to secure ‘issue-ownership’, influence voter preferences and secure a mandate for action. An iterative inter-party process is shown to lead to frame convergence over time, thereby providing an indicator of progress towards conflict resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While terrorism produces certainty that the 'other' intends to do harm, and chronic uncertainty about the potential for terrorist attack, trust requires the negotiation of uncertainty. This paper begins with a review of the existing literature on trust and terrorism, as a point of departure for analysing the usefulness of thinking about trust as the negotiation of uncertainty. The four substantive sections that follow examine the 1981 Hunger strikes, the beginnings of political dialogue, the construction of cross-border institutions, and the potential for developing emotional trust in the Northern Irish context. In each of the areas, the development of a rudimentary trust has hinged on the destabilisation of mutually exclusive identity categories, defined in conflictual opposition to the 'other', and the opening of a space for the construction of multiple and overlapping identities and the negotiation between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish border has historically been one of the most contested borders in Europe. In the context of the peace process and EU membership, co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been encouraged, supported and normalised, although internal borders of segregation stubbornly remain. This paper offers a conceptualisation of borders in conflict cases and a theoretical account of how European integration can affect their transformation. Analysis of the Northern Ireland case shows there are ambiguities within integration that allow for a 'rebordering' of identities at the same time as the state border diminishes in significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewed here are approaches to peacebuilding citizenship education in Northern Ireland and the USA, where social education has been responding to intergroup and structural violence. Strategies for peacebuilding have been developed and implemented in response to societal conflicts, government mandates, and available funding. Government support for peace initiatives in Northern Ireland is greater than in the USA, although they both are emphasizing the importance of citizenship education. In recognition of the pivotal position they have as model peacebuilders while educating children, this paper considers teachers' own citizenship training and experiences. Recommendations for teacher preparation and instructional guidelines follow the review of peace-oriented social education, as well as research on training educators and their students for proactive citizenship and democracy in contexts of multifaceted violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) aims to promote peace. This research investigates the saliency of a European identity for children from majority and minority groups in four conflict-affected societies in Europe (Croatia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland (NI), and Republic of North Macedonia (RNM)). These sites represent a range of relations with the EU (e.g., leaving the EU, an EU member, wanting to join the EU). Participants included 442 children aged 7 to 11 years, evenly split by gender and group status (Croatia n = 90; Kosovo n = 107; NI n = 60; RNM n = 185). After a draw-and-tell task to prime European identity (vs. ingroup or control condition), we measured children's identification with Europe, outgroup attitudes and prosociality. Although the European identity prime was not effective, children's strength of European identity varied by site and group status and related to more positive attitudes and prosociality towards the conflict-rival outgroup. Implications for the future of the European project are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish dimension of Anglo-American relations is a relatively marginalized aspect of the historiography of transatlantic studies. Historians have focused on the role of the Clinton administration in the Northern Ireland “peace process” but previous American contributions also warrant attention. As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill was one of the most prominent Irish-American politicians. This article demonstrates O’Neill's attempts to ensure that the American contribution to the Anglo-Irish process steadily increased, despite the transition from arguably his natural political ally in the President Jimmy Carter administration to President Ronald Reagan in 1981. O’Neill's interest in Northern Ireland and position as speaker helped ensure that Carter's promise of financial aid to Northern Ireland in 1977 following progress in the political process was fulfilled in March 1986. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores lesson sharing between local civil society peacebuilders in the Korean and Northern Ireland peace processes. It presents reciprocal empowerment, a concept primarily utilized in women's empowerment literature, as a useful conceptual framework to be developed for examining interactions between local civil society peacebuilders who have mutual self-interest to overcome obstacles in top-down peace processes. Recently, historical similarities and concurrences in the peace processes have been increasing the lesson sharing visits between Korean and Northern Irish peacebuilders. Based on the in-depth empirical research on these visits, this article argues that comparative consultations between peace processes would not only generate useful lessons for each context, but also empower local peacebuilders, civil society in particular, provided the comparisons and interactions are reciprocal, not unidirectional or hierarchical. In this sense, this article contributes to the conceptual and practical discussions of every day, emancipatory peacebuilding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the thirty-year period (1968–1998) known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, 3500 people died and thousands more suffered physical disabilities and psychological trauma. Belfast, among other conflict cities, helped inspire the term 'dark tourism' in 1989. The country continues to be in conflict but is officially in a period of peace. Northern Ireland has been the theme for much peace and reconciliation research, but literature to date concentrates on polarised discourses rather than rural representation. Toward meeting and expanding the UN SDG16 peace goals, this research explores how what we term emotive peace tourism can be used as a methodology to affect emotional reconciliation registers in a unique rural Northern Ireland visitor experience. Bringing domestic tourists from Catholic and Protestant communities into face-to-face contact through a liminal participative 'out-of-place' visitor experience, we choreographed and performed a series of "Troubles" events: a guided night walk through a checkpoint, an IRA Wake, a UDA Funeral, and a Mixed-Marriage. Contributing to the debate as to whether tourism is more of a 'peacekeeper' than a 'peacemaker', our research demonstrates that an in situ liminal, emotive peace tourism experience, can generate sustainable tolerance, respect, trust, sympathy, and empathy towards others in post-conflict Northern Ireland and likely elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US Senator George Mitchell's principles of democracy and non-violence are synonymous with peace in Northern Ireland. Mitchell's subsequent deployment to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict armed with the same principles failed, and unwisely fell to a footnote in the history of Israeli-Palestinian interventions. When two US diplomatic initiatives to intervene in protracted conflicts mediated by the same individual reach different outcomes, what means of mediation mitigate failure? The 'Mitchell Principles' of democracy and non-violence are pillars of persuasion for protagonists of protracted conflicts. First successfully applied to mediate the Northern Irish decommissioning crisis in 1996, Mitchell's subsequent efforts to apply the principles to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in 2001 failed. By comparing the fates of the Mitchell initiatives this essay examines the importance of negotiating precedents, procedures, protagonists and the role of third party policy initiatives in determining the success or failure of the Mitchell Principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political settlement in Northern Ireland in 1998 included provision for the establishment of a Human Rights Commission in Northern Ireland and in Ireland, the latest in a growing number of such institutions world wide. This article describes the functions of the Northern Ireland body, its relationship with an Equality Commission to be established under the same Act, and its political context. It then explains the debate on whether there should be an equivalent Human Rights Commission for Scotland, England and Wales, a debate taking place in the context of the Human Rights Act 1998 which incorporates the ECHR into UK law. It suggests how UK human rights commissions could differ from those in the rest of the world but shows why there is nevertheless much that the UK could learn from their experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks whether civil society's inclusion/exclusion in peace negotiations shapes their involvement in peace agreement referendum campaigns. It seeks to answer this question through a qualitative comparative analysis of the Northern Irish Good Friday Agreement and Cypriot Annan Plan experiences. It finds that civil society's push for inclusion in Northern Ireland and in the Turkish Cypriot community was followed by their greater mobilization in the referendum that strengthened the overall "yes" campaign, while this did not take place in the Greek Cypriot community. Drawing on the literature on European integration referendums, it argues that peace referendums need to be preceded by inclusive negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are contrasting interpretations of the Northern Ireland peace process which have competing implications for the lessons to be drawn from the conflict. This article offers a Constructivist Realist critique of three leading perspectives on the peace process: Neoconservative, Cosmopolitan and Conservative Realists (or Consociationalists). The Neoconservative perspective emphasises the importance of security policy in defeating terrorists before negotiations. By contrast, Cosmopolitans and Conservative Realists emphasise the importance of constitutions and tend to ignore security. Constructivist Realists argue that all three accounts are over-generalised, provide inadequate understandings of politics and, therefore, the relative success of the peace process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While gender has been widely used as an analytical category to understand the dynamics of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland, surprisingly little has been written on the ways in which the conflict has shaped or constrained feminist organising. Singular focus on groups or initiatives like the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, Peace People or the Women's Support Network has overshadowed the contested history and intricacies of the wider feminist movement. Adopting a more holistic view, this article takes the concept of 'bridge-builders' as conceptualised by Ruane and Todd in The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland (1996) to examine the fractured development of the feminist movement in the North. It charts how 'bridge-builder feminism' became a distinguishable feature of the feminist movement during the Troubles and was used as a mechanism to transgress what Todd calls the 'grammars of nationality' (Todd, 2015). I argue that although this organising approach pioneered some changes in Northern Irish society, it overlooked key feminist struggles and thrived at the expense of an inclusive, intersectional feminism. Though the movement has undergone significant changes in the last two decades, the legacy of bridge-builder feminism continues to impact the capacities of the movement to address key feminist issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term ‘respect for diversity’ has gained prominence in many policy and curricular developments aimed at promoting reconciliation and pluralism. To explore the understandings of ‘respect for diversity’ held by children in a society that has both emerged from conflict and is increasingly multicultural, 15 group interviews were conducted with 7–11-year-old children in Northern Ireland. The behavioural aspects of respect for diversity articulated by the children were identified as: attention; offering time; equality of treatment; and acts of solidarity. Affective motivations for these actions were empathy and the pursuit of friendship; cognitive motivations were: a moral norm of inclusion; curiosity; internalised human rights principles; and egalitarianism (a belief that all persons are equal in fundamental worth or value). Findings are discussed in relation to theories of children’s prejudice development and moral development, and implications for the teaching and promotion of respect for diversity as part of peace education programmes are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bringing heritage resources to the forefront in communities can serve to help heal long-standing divides with impacts not only in economic dimensions, but also social and cultural. It is an ironic turn—some of the heritage resources in Northern Ireland have been the site of intense and violent conflict over long periods of time—and now serve as focal points for bringing together divergent groups, helping heal divisions in communities. Seventeen communities throughout Northern Ireland are examined, gauging impacts and perceptions of community regeneration and redevelopment processes. Results provide insights for addressing lingering conflict and finding points of coalescence, with heritage playing a role in transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The historic significance of the Good Friday Agreement and its role in ending organized political violence is acknowledged at the outset. The article then goes on to probe the roots of the political paralysis built into the architecture of the Agreement that are predicated on a misplaced political and cultural symmetry between the “two communities.” It is suggested that the institutionalized relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. facilitates a cross-party, populist, socio-economic consensus among the nationalist and unionist political parties on the welfare state, taxation and maintaining the massive British subvention to the region. This in turn allows them to concentrate on a divisive culturalist politics, i.e., on antagonistic forms of cultural and identity politics over such issues as flags, parades, and the legacy of the “Troubles” which spills over into gridlock into many areas of regional administration. The article argues for a much broader understanding of culture and identity rooted in the different, if overlapping and interdependent, material realities of both communities while challenging the idea of two cultures/identities as fixed, mutually exclusive, non-negotiable and mutually antagonistic. It then focuses on the importance of Belfast as a key arena which will determine the long-term prospects of an alternative and more constructive form of politics, and enable a fuller recognition of the fundamental asymmetries and inter-dependence between the “two communities.” In the long run, this involves re-defining and reconstructing what is meant by the “Union” and a “United Ireland.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article unpacks the variant meanings, perceptions, and experiences of violent enactment and stigmatic shaming among loyalists with regard to rejection, harm, and masking. What we locate is a landscape of variable emotions, experiences, neutralization techniques, dependences, and embedded forms of fatalism as well as resilience. Attending to those alternate positions and well-beings is important in considering the capacity of re-integration and the presently uneven nature of it. In adopting an account-driven format we present and analyze how involvement in violent conflict can, on the one hand, provoke persistence and senses of transitional thinking and on the other engender rejection and related fatalistic attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty years on from the 1994 cease-fires, Northern Ireland is a markedly safer place for children and young people to grow up. However, for a significant number, growing up in post-conflict Northern Ireland has brought with it continued risks and high levels of marginalization. Many young people growing up on the sharp edge of the transition have continued to experience troubling levels of poverty, lower educational attainment, poor standards of childhood health, and sustained exposure to risk-laden environments. Reflecting on interdisciplinary research carried out since the start of the “transition” to peace, this article emphasizes the impact that embedded structural inequalities continue to have on the social, physical, mental, and emotional well-being of many children and young people. In shining a light on the enduring legacy of the conflict, this article moves to argue that greater attention needs to be given to the ongoing socioeconomic factors that result in limited lifetime opportunities, marginalization, and sustained poverty for many young people growing up in “peacetime” Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article seeks to critically examine the political economy of the Northern Irish “peace process.” When the principal paramilitary organizations in the region declared cease-fires in 1994, it was widely assumed that political progress would be followed by economic prosperity. However, this “peace dividend” has never fully materialized. Those working-class communities that were at the center of the Troubles have derived little economic benefit over the last two decades. Indeed, if anything the already substantial class divisions in the six counties have become more pronounced over the course of the peace process. The article concludes by suggesting that these widening socioeconomic disparities have the potential to undermine the prevailing political settlement in Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the potential for human rights principles and practices to provide a foundation for building cross-community solidarity between the ‘two communities’ of Northern Ireland through an analysis of two case studies. The article draws on ethnographic and interview data collected in Belfast between 2005 and 2009. It begins with a theoretical examination of the relationship between two important concepts in the study of ethno-nationalist conflict and reconciliation – loyalty and solidarity. It then examines ways in which participation in human rights activities both recognises and challenges particularistic loyalties in divided communities, providing a foundation for an emergent solidarity between local communities. Finally the article proposes a theoretical model of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ solidarity as a way of understanding these processes in the context of the ongoing Northern Ireland peace process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Integrated schools in Israel and Northern Ireland create a shared educational environment for communities separated by intractable conflict. This article reports on comparative research undertaken in schools in each region that pursued how integration is understood and practiced. In my findings, I present the central values of integration, termed the ‘3Rs of integration: respect, recognition and reconciliation’ and explain the regional differences in how the 3Rs of Integration shape the unique educational alternative provided by the schools. The discussion highlights transferable lessons, and considers these as they relate to each society’s local context and the goals of peace education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does gender matter when planning youth peacebuilding projects? This article presents research findings from two youth peacebuilding projects – in Australia and Northern Ireland – and identifies several barriers to participation girls faced. It sheds light on reasons why girls participate in some peacebuilding activities but not others, highlighting the role of neoliberal discourse – placing the burden of responsibility for equal participation on individuals rather than program design or other factors. It concludes by proposing important questions for future research and identifying the conditions under which peacebuilding projects might benefit from including some gender-segregated activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is an extended interview with Jonathan Powell, former Chief of Staff for the Blair government from 1997 to 2007, about the Northern Ireland peace process and the negotiations and talks which led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and a power-sharing Assembly led by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein in 2007. The interview seeks to reveal what Powell and the British considered as key motivations and intentions in the peace process, such as choreography, momentum and ambiguity, as well as bring to light other perhaps less acknowledged but equally important factors, such as inter-personal relations and trust. The interview is necessarily wide-ranging in order to highlight the extent of considerations which came into play in order to keep the peace process on track. As such, it serves as a useful point of reference for further studies about the politics of conflict management and transformation, inviting us to think about the importance of individual forces at work, but within a context of multiple influences and pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines attitudes to the impacts of the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the European Union Peace II Fund on building trust and goodwill in Northern Ireland. It draws on interviews of 98 study participants conducted during the summer of 2006, and a public opinion survey of 1,023 adults conducted in October 2006. The perceptions of community group leaders, funding agency civil servants and development officers are explored. The experiences of the study participants with the EU Peace II Fund and the IFI are discussed in the wider context of development, peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and in the Border Counties of the Republic of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between orthodox terrorism discourses and liberal peacebuilding, particularly where states are being reconstituted after a conflict. Drawing upon fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Kashmir, Nepal, and Northern Ireland, our findings suggest that conflicts in which orthodox terrorism theory is deployed to explain violence are those in which there is little interest (by all parties) in dealing with root causes or achieving mutual compromise. This is so even though the liberal peace is commonly a claimed aspiration for most parties, apart from the most radical of non-state actors or authoritarian of states. They effectively reify both terrorism and state securitisation. The aspired to internalisation of the liberal peace framework has instead been supplanted by the politics of state securitisation and violent resistance. Liberal peacebuilding has become a nominal exercise in constructing virtually liberal states in which the security and integrity of core groups are partially maintained by orthodox terrorism praxis. To counter these dynamics, critical positions need to engage with agendas beyond liberal or cosmopolitan frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The life cycle of intractable conflict often involves three stages: dispirited quiescence, escalation to a state of intractability, and de-escalation accompanied by negotiation. These stages are produced by three types of perceived power distributions between the advantaged and the disadvantaged groups: highly unequal power, moderately unequal power, and equal (symmetrical) power. Once equality is reached, movement toward de-escalation and negotiation is often hesitant and gradual. It starts with signaling and/or informal communication and - if these produce optimism about reaching a mutually acceptable agreement - may move to back-channel talks. Even more optimism is required for full-scale negotiation to be entered. These theoretical points are supported by two case studies, involving conflicts in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the sustained peace education initiative of integrated schooling and in particular with leadership responses to cultural diversity. Using a case study group of principals of integrated (mixed Catholic, Protestant and other) schools in Northern Ireland, the author explores how principals perceive and lead their visions of integrated education. A combined framework of multicultural and school leadership theory is employed to analyse the findings. The perceptions of the principals reported are consistent with liberal interpretations of multiculturalism, although there is also evidence of a more pluralist perspective. Core liberal values appear to be central to the leadership style of these principals, in line with values-led contingency models of leadership. The article suggests that a sole emphasis on common humanity is an inadequate approach to peace education. It tentatively suggests a relationship between leadership styles and approaches to multiculturalism, and argues that a synthesis of multicultural and leadership theory can usefully guide the development of peace education leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on truth recovery as a core aspect of the transition from political violence to peace and reconciliation. It is crucial within any process of truth recovery in transitional contexts that victims of political violence are provided with the opportunity to articulate their narratives of suffering within the context of a public dialogic process. Using Northern Ireland as an illustrative case study, I outline a unique and original model for truth recovery in transitional contexts. I argue that in post-conflict societies victims of political violence should be enabled to engage in meaningful truth recovery through a Habermasian process of public democratic deliberation and communication that involves direct dialogue with perpetrators of political violence. This process - which I have labeled 'communicative justice'- is framed within the context of the theory of communicative action of Jurgen Habermas. Communicative justice can help to ensure that legitimate truth recovery publicly acknowledges the trauma of victims and subjects perpetrator narratives of political violence to critical scrutiny and rational deconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, it is argued that Peter Hain is the most partisan Secretary of State for Northern Ireland appointed since the post was established in 1972. Peter Hain’s attitude towards Northern Ireland has echoed that of Sinn Fein’s republicanism. He has been active on Irish issues since 1972 and since at least the mid‐1970s up until the mid‐1990s he was a consistent supporter and campaigner for ‘British’ withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Peter Hain’s republican sympathies have placed him outside the mainstream of British Labour party thinking, which has traditionally been sympathetic towards Irish nationalism. This casts doubt on his claim that he values the Union. The 14 Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland appointed prior to Hain had little track record on Irish issues, and this perception of ‘neutrality’ enabled them to play more of a mediating role between the contending parties. Peter Hain’s appointment is, therefore, a departure from precedent. This article concludes by considering three different explanations as to why he was appointed. First, was his appointment part of the choreography of the peace process, in which Sinn Fein got a republican Secretary of State in return for the IRA standing down? Second, was Hain’s appointment a deliberate, symbolic and tactical move by Tony Blair to put pressure on the Democratic Unionist Party to negotiate seriously a new, devolved assembly or face direct rule with an increasingly green tinge? Third, was the Prime Minister largely unaware of Hain’s republican record when he appointed him to the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? Therefore, was the appointment a blunder that could destabilise the search for a devolved, power‐sharing settlement? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the results of several public opinion polls conducted in support of the Northern Ireland peace process between April 1996 and February 2003. Peace building and public policy; Opinions on various uses for referendums; Discussion between the Democratic Unionist Party and the UK Unionist Party.

Among the eight lessons that the authors have learned from the peace process in Northern Ireland, they single out three as the most important. They also explain why they are optimistic about the outcome of the IRA's decision to decommission the remaining arms in its arsenal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 2 decades have seen a flowering of scholarly and applied work in the area of forgiveness, a skill important to the development of peaceful people and communities. We describe a forgiveness intervention designed to help children in a central-city environment. Such environments put children at risk for various psychological and social problems, including antisocial behavior, in large part because of the many forms of injustice experienced in such a context. Injustice often leads to anger, a key emotion in the development of psychological, interpersonal, and even academic problems. The current forgiveness education program is showing promise in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and is now being implemented in inner-city Milwaukee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines educational responses to the conflict in Northern Ireland designed to promote intergroup harmony. Current research about the impact of these programs on children and young people is also reviewed to draw conclusions for practitioners in formal and informal educational settings who want to use intergroup contact to implement education for peace in the most effective way. The contact hypothesis has provided the theoretical framework for the majority of educational initiatives in Northern Ireland designed to promote peace, and it is used here to evaluate empirical evidence regarding the impact of such initiatives. In the main this evidence supports the importance of the key conditions for successful outgroup contact as originally proposed by the contact hypothesis. In addition, intergroup anxiety is identified as a factor mediating successful outgroup contact and attention is drawn to the potentially significant role of outgroup contact that is not experienced first hand, but indirectly through reports of relevant others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the IRA still a threat to peace in Northern Ireland? Using the methods of strategic analysis, the author advances two interpretations of the IRA's current strategy, both of which stress the continuing value of organised violence in Republican strategic thinking. However, whereas the first interpretation contends that the IRA's current strategy contradicts the aims of the peace process, the second argues that the IRA's continued involvement in paramilitary activity serves the interests of those who want the Belfast Agreement to succeed. The article concludes that whether the IRA continues to be a threat to peace in Northern Ireland depends not so much on whether Republican involvement in paramilitary activity will continue, but what purpose it serves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses attitudinal data to explore Catholic and Protestant perspectives on community relations and equality since the paramilitary cease fires in 1994. Although attitudes tend to fluctuate with the‘headline grabbing’events of the day, the article argues that there are signs that some fundamental changes have taken place in the post cease fire period. Of particular importance in this regard is the positive response recorded by the Catholic community towards government measures to tackle disadvantage and inequality. Equally significant is the protestant response to many of these measures which is often one of ambivalence rather than derision. In so far as the data appear to challenge the‘zero-sum’game that traditionally underpins relations between the two communities in Northern Ireland, they provide some grounds for optimism. Yet such optimism is tempered somewhat by the seeds of discontent which are manifest within the protestant community, particularly around issues of equality in employment and cultural traditions. Despite the more positive assessment of community relations and equality in 2002, it is argued that further monitoring will be required to determine the long-term effects of policy reform on relationships between the two communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the changing patterns of violence in Northern Ireland from the period just before the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994 through the duration of the years of the peace process. It provides an overview of data on activities including paramilitary activities,‘punishment’attacks, racist, homophobic and domestic violence, public disorder and rioting as well as serious and violent crime. The article then analyzes the changes, and offers some reasons accounting for them. This includes a review of the role of young people, paramilitary organizations and the police reform program in the ongoing violence, as well as an acknowledgment of a wider culture of violence that helps to sustain such activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women constitute 14 per cent of the 108 member parliament in Northern Ireland, created in 1998 as an outgrowth of the peace process. Using data from 45 interviews with 27 Members of the Legislative Assembly in 2000 and 2001, this study analyses the role of women in the new Assembly by comparing the women to their male colleagues and considering what opportunities are available for men and women to have an effect on the evolution of this institution. Though the men and women are very similar in their interests and attitudes, important differences exist between them and the institutional opportunities offered them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using original data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, this article assesses public attitudes toward key issues of symbolism intimately connected with the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process. It uses public attitudes toward the symbolic expressions of Northern Ireland's politico-religious blocs as indicators of the extent of intercommunity tolerance in the delicate post-Belfast Agreement period. Survey questions on attitudes toward flags, including the idea of a new flag for Northern Ireland; loyalist and republican murals; and memorials to the dead of the conflict, including the idea of a memorial for all of the victims of the conflict, reveal that partisan attitudes toward communal symbols of identity and commemoration persist, despite macro-level political changes heralded by the 1998 peace accord. It is argued that the consociational design of the Belfast Agreement facilitates the perpetuation of the single-identity politics of Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism. In this context, public attachment to partisan symbols remains strong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to critically evaluate the present state of the peace process in Northern Ireland after nearly two years. Particular attention is placed on the security analysis of the situation, which is a perspective that is rarely heard in public, perhaps because it is often highly critical of the entire process. From this background the article takes a pessimistic view of any hopes for long-term peace or stability in the Province, largely because the Good Friday Agreement, the core of the process, was ill-conceived. In fact, the entire process appears to have been built around anything other than addressing the real problems of the Province and has been heavily weighted in favor of appeasing IRA violence. In consequence Unionists are becoming increasingly disillusioned and alienated from the process and now find themselves on the verge of withdrawing their support from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction, we provide a historical account of the development of policing in Northern Ireland. In Section One, we discuss the historical imperatives that shaped the nature of policing in pre-independence Ireland. In Section Two, we consider the links between police and state in Northern Ireland, and explore the dynamics of policing during the conflict. As police reform emerged as a central plank of the peace process, we examine the potential of the Patten Report to resolve the difficulties surrounding policing and police legitimacy. We conclude by highlighting the positive lessons to emerge from the ongoing debate over police reform in Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the historical and geographical trap of bounded spaces and the challenge confronted during the peace process in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Accounts on the nationalistic conflict in the country; Impact of territorial restrictions and boundary construction on the local turf; Role of banal nationalism in the conflict.

This piece is concerned with the order in which issues are raised during peace processes. It tracks the origins and management of the issue of the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons in the Northern Ireland peace process. The hotly contested matter of when the issue was first raised, and by whom, is investigated. The various strategies employed by the peace process participants to promote their views on decommissioning are assessed. The piece then examines the reasons for the 'inflation' of the decommissioning issue - the reasons why the issue attracted greater significance than the mere handing over of weapons. It argues that decommissioning is a classic 'wedge issue'; having both a symbolic value and relating to fundamental issues of trust. It concludes by noting that the 10 April 1998 Northern Ireland Agreement was reached in the absence of decommissioning and that the issue of illegal weapons is likely to haunt Northern Ireland's new political dispensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part II of this article argues first, that the Northern Ireland political elite generally lack the ability to bring their supporters with them towards a political settlement. Secondly, there is little evidence to suggest that on constitutional questions the political elites are unrepresentative of their voters. Thirdly, the reformist civil society approach appears to offer a way out of the current impasse by creating an environment in which accommodation might be possible. Part I of this article, ‘Paths to Peace in Northern Ireland (I): Civil Society and Consociational Approaches’, appeared in the previous issue of this journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]