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To date, scholarship on agonism has mainly focussed on theoretical development and conceptual refinement. In keeping with the aims of this special issue, this article examines how agonism can be bu...

Power-sharing provisions have been included in many peace agreements intended to end intra-state violent conflict, including, for example, in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sudan, and Lebanon. Power-sharing has been subject to extensive scholarly examination. Many of these examinations focus on the impact of power-sharing on peace, often defined as the non-recurrence of violent conflict. However, the results of these examinations have not generated a consensus as to the value of power-sharing as a conflict management tool. This lack of consensus highlights a need to more clearly understand the effects of power-sharing. To fully comprehend the role of power-sharing, we must move away from simply asking if it is associated with the reoccurrence of violence and explore the paths through which it can contribute to different outcomes of interest, for example, group relations or stable government. Both Hartzell and Mehler (2019) and Keil and McCulloch (2021) seek to address this current weakness in our understanding of power-sharing, albeit in quite different ways. These books show that by paying closer attention to the impact of power-sharing on different outcomes, including a focus on the mechanisms that link its different power-sharing provisions to specific outcomes, we can develop a fundamentally deeper understanding of power-sharing.

The inclusion of conflict parties in independent commissions through power-sharing has been found to reduce the reoccurrence of conflict. Yet, the theoretical and empirical literature explaining why independent commissions include power-sharing is very limited. Previous publications have focused on in-depth case studies that explain how power-sharing prevents conflict recurrence in specific post-conflict societies but do not provide a general argument or widescale testing beyond individual case studies. This article provides a new systematic, general theoretical argument and novel empirical testing that explains why there is power-sharing on some commissions but not others. We argue that conflict parties adopt power-sharing provisions in independent commissions because doing so allows them to overcome significant credible commitments problems that are inherent to the ending of intrastate conflict. Using a new and comprehensive dataset, Independent Commissions in Post-Conflict Societies, which includes information on 580 commissions (1990–2016), this article applies a combination of decision trees and regression analysis to test our hypotheses. The findings indicate that power-sharing is adopted where credible commitment problems are acute and show that commissions working on political or security issues and those with monitoring or verification roles, or that work on the implementation of peace agreements, are more likely to include power-sharing arrangements.

This paper introduces the new dataset of Political Agreements in Internal Conflicts (PAIC) and presents its first application. PAIC captures the institutional provisions in political agreements concluded between 1989 and 2016. It provides information on 91 variables, along five dimensions: power sharing, transitional justice, cultural institutions, territorial self-governance and international assistance. First, the paper presents the data collection and coding procedures. Then it replicates Hartzell’s and Hoddie’s (2007, Crafting Peace, The Pennsylvania State University Press) seminal study on the relationship between power sharing and negotiated agreements, showing the long-term importance of a previously overlooked realm: commissions.

The emergence of majority unionism represents a threat to the stability of a union. Majority unionism drives policy and this is often met with centrifugal responses. This is a matter of institution...

This Special Issue of Irish Political Studies places contemporary unionist politics in Northern Ireland in a comparative and theoretical context. It takes the Northern Irish case as one arena where...

This article examines the role played by five independent commissions which managed contentious issues in post-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. It finds that external or international actors can play a very useful role during the implementation of consociational arrangements. The commissions were most successful when they combined international involvement with local composition in keeping with consociational principles. Weak or non-existence international input and behaviours which were not in keeping with consociational principles undermined the commissions and resulted in the failure of the commissions to resolve their respective issues.

Dawn Walsh discusses why dental nurses should consider the ‘teaching’ role of oral health educator

Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges (2017) provides expert analysis of the challenges facing power-sharing across a diverse range of settings. It represents a good faith attempt by two admitted advocates of the theory to bring together evaluations and analyses which assess its real word impacts and engage with its weaknesses. It highlights the difficulty in making general claims about the consequences of power-sharing political systems underlining the unique conflict and peace-making dynamics at play in different cases at different times. The individual case studies are engaging and the deep knowledge which the respective authors possess in relation to them is impressive and illuminating. However, the real challenge facing such a volume is whether broader conclusions can be drawn from empirical analysis of such a diverse set of cases. McGarry is largely successful in his attempt to do so in the Conclusion, drawing four broad lessons from the preceding chapters which provide fertile ground for the development of power-sharing theory.

Dawn Walsh looks at the concept and how this may influence the role of the dental nurse, improve patient care and efficiency and offer heightened job satisfaction

Given the plethora of scholarly work which explores the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process, including many treatments which attempt to use the Northern Ireland case to draw broader conclus...

Chapter six examines how federacy has been used in post-2003 Iraq to convince the Kurds to remain part of Iraq. It highlights that after over a decade of de facto independence from the rest of Iraq the Kurds were wary post-Saddam recentralisation. It shows that constitutional ambiguity around hydrocarbon management and the disputed territories weakened the ability of the domestic infrastructure to stabilise the TSG institutions. It argues that international actors, notably the US and Turkey, attempted to discourage Kurdish secession. However it also finds that economic self-interest and the grave security threat posed by ISIS led to policies which did not always prioritise this aim strongly underlining how wider determinants of policy can encourage secessionist momentum.

This chapter explores how enhanced local government, a weaker form of TSG, was used as part of a conflict management practise after the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2001. It highlights how these institutions were specifically designed to avoid explicitly ethnising territorial arrangements. It finds that despite a history of domestic inter-ethnic cooperation and the international communities’ success in quickly acting to end the violence domestic and international guarantees have at times struggle to protect the TSG arrangements. Furthermore, it shows how both NATO and the EU allowed the name dispute between the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece to prevent Euro-Atlantic integration undermining the potential of such integration to stabilise the TSG and improve inter-ethnic relations.

This chapter examines the use of territorial self-government in Northern Ireland. It provides a concise overview of the conflict, focused on the role of territorial self-government. It then addresses how the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement provided for TSG to meet the needs of nationalists in Northern Ireland to have a strong connection to Ireland while respecting unionist desires to maintain the link with Great Britain. However, it also highlights that these arrangements were an uneasy compromise and that the British and Irish governments, and friendly states particularly the US, had to provide reassurance that the institutions would be faithfully implemented. It finds that the relationship between the guarantee provider and guarantee seeker, rather than the theoretical strength, of a guarantee determines whether it is effective.

This chapter introduces a theory of territorial self-government as a conflict management tool, focusing on its ability to meet the needs of both groups seeking autonomy and the central state but also how instability is inherent in the compromise nature of the arrangements and the low level of trust between conflict groups. It then moves on to outline how guarantee mechanisms, both domestic and international, may be included in territorial self-government peace agreements to ensure their stability. The ability of international actors to maintain and support the TSG arrangements is explored, the role of international military and transitional authorities, as well as policy conditionality, are outlined. Finally, the chapter briefly addresses research design, discussing case selection, data collection, and data analysis.

This chapter outlines how the collapse of Yugoslavia led to the outbreak of a vicious war in Bosnian Herzegovina and how the 1995 Dayton peace agreement attempted to end the violence by establishing a strongly decentralised federation with two entities, the Federation and the Republika Srpska. It finds that the agreement provided for two competing understanding of the nature of the state and this inhibited the effectiveness of domestic guarantees. Furthermore, it argues that despite the international community’s initial success in preventing the re-emergence of violence in the longer-term legitimacy concerns, the focus on other international crises and growing international divisions has limited effectiveness of international guarantees.

This chapter outlines how autonomy has been used to manage a low-level conflict between the Gagauz and central Moldovan state. It shows how the other conflict in Moldova, between the central state and Transniestria encouraged moderation to ensure the Gagauz conflict did not escalate. However, it also argues that the weak capacities and small size of the autonomy coupled with a failure of the central government to consider the autonomy’s rights and needs have undermined the TSG institutions role as a conflict management tool. The analysis shows that kin and regional states have a mixed impact. Turkey has provided helpful assistance to the Gagauz. Yet discussion about a Moldovan–Romanian union and Russia’s links to the Gagauz have been destabilising.

The role of the treatment coordinator is increasing in popularity within dental teams and with good reason, says Dawn Walsh

This article argues that systematically applying John Burton's human needs theory (HNT) when employing consociationalism increases the utility and effectiveness of consociationalism as a conflict r...

The Human Rights Commission (HRC) was provided for in the Good Friday Agreement. Chapter six provides an overview of the work of the commission on producing a Bill of Rights. It finds that the commission provided detailed recommendations and pressed for their implementation. However, the HRC was unable to secure implementation. This was due to a number of issues including internal divisions, and questions surrounding how the Bill of Rights would fit into a wider context.

The chapter highlights the importance of the implementation phase of peace processes, particularly the significant role third parties can play in helping to overcome challenges. It outlines how mediation theory can provide both a nuanced and parsimonious way of understanding the work of such actors. It then introduces the Northern Ireland case indicating how factors which effect the work of mediators, mediator identity, mediation context, and conflict intensity manifest themselves in this specific case.

Chapter two provides a concise overview of why policing was central to the conflict and why any reforms were controversial. It then comprehensively addresses the work of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland. It finds that the commission provided in depth recommendations as to how policing should be reformed and pressured for their adoption. The chapter also finds that the identities and expertise of the commission members was key in facilitating this work.

Decommissioning became the bete noir of the peace process. Chapter three provides an outline of the work of the international commission charged with overseeing acts of decommissioning by paramilitary groups. It explores how the commission repeatedly tried to pressure paramilitaries to undertake acts of decommissioning and verified a number of such acts. The international nature of the commission was significant in providing the commission with the legitimacy to carry out its work.

After the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 questions continued as to whether paramilitary ceasefires were genuine. In 2003 the two governments agreed to form an independent body to monitor the activities of paramilitaries and the demilitarisation of Northern Ireland; the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC). This chapter argues that the commission provided substantial recommendations and highlighted progress even where difficulties remained, and that the diverse backgrounds of the members were important to its work.

The 1998 peace agreement failed to comprehensively deal with the legacy of the conflict. In 2007 Secretary for State Peter Hain set up a Consultative Group on the Past (CGP) to develop a mechanism for dealing with the past. Chapter five finds that it consulted widely and used its report to highlight others recommendations and work. The chapter also highlights the effects of its vague remit and the low-level international involvement on its work.

The issue of parades remains contentious and retains the potential to lead to violence on the streets of Northern Ireland. This article uses delegation theory to examine the accusations of illegitimacy which have been made against the Independent Parades Commission (IPC). It finds that only a small number of these accusations stem from the traditional concerns that delegated bodies are unelected and unaccountable. The claim that delegated bodies lead to superior outcomes (output legitimacy) is made by some actors but contested by the Loyal Orders and unionist politicians. The argument that delegated bodies enjoy legitimacy as a result of their superior process (procedural legitimacy) is made frequently. However, the IPC processes are also a source of accusations of illegitimacy. Finally, the ethnonational conflict context raises particular issues with the legitimacy of the delegated body.

Few parts of Europe see as much religious observance as Northern Ireland, and fewer places in Europe have religion as one of the major cleavages on which politics seems to rest. In this article we argue that although religion is an important identifier, it acts as a reinforcer of ethno-national differences rather than as an intrinsically important difference itself. Religious differences while often symbolically important rarely emerge as points of real conflict in Northern Irish politics. It has had little impact on the ongoing process of democratization in Northern Ireland. We review an array of evidence which supports this conclusion. However, we find that religion still has a power to divide and so makes a political settlement less likely than an accommodation.

The reticence of the IRA to put its weapons beyond use became one of the most intractable obstacles in the Northern Ireland peace process. This article examines the approach of the Irish government to this obstacle. It does so by the application of external ethnonational guarantor (EEG) theory, which effectively captures the government's role in the conflict. It finds that the government's approach was largely in keeping with best practice for EEGs: it cooperated with the British government (the other EEG), did not intervene on behalf of its co-national group and was sensitive to the internal dynamics of the conflict. It also finds that in relation to decommissioning in Northern Ireland, these principles are at times contradictory, and where this arose the government prioritised understanding the internal dynamics of the parties to the conflict.

• Written information is a form of communication that is being recognized by nurses as increasingly important, and a large amount of information is now being produced. • Now that patient turnover is becoming more rapid and hospital stays shorter, thus leaving less time for face-to-face patient education, nurses are increasingly relying on the written word to supplement verbal information-giving. • It is vital that written materials, whatever their source, should be of the highest quality. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the case of post-coronary patients. • In view of the dearth of research-based cardio-specific literature, this review examines the broader literature and offers guidelines for nurses who wish to produce their own information. • Format and presentation of written materials rather than content are the focus and the issues and conclusions are applicable to nurses working in fields other than cardiac nursing.

Simultaneous exposure to more than one allergen might modify the effect of individual allergens.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of current exposures to mite, cat, and dog allergen and pet ownership on sensitization in adults.Questionnaires, skin tests, and home visits (Der p 1, Fel d 1, and Can f 1, ELISA; mattresses, living room floors) were performed in 2502 adults. Allergen exposure was treated as a continuous variable and divided into quartiles. To investigate the interaction between allergens, quartiles for 3 allergens were added, creating arbitrary combined exposure categories.In the univariate analysis, mite sensitization was associated with Der p 1 in mattresses (odds ratio [OR], 1.10; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.19; P =.03) and with Can f 1 in living room floors (OR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.00 to 1.17; P =.05). In a multivariate regression analysis, Der p 1 in mattresses remained an independent associate of mite sensitization (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.23; P =.03) and pollen sensitization (OR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.36; P =.0001). The proportion of subjects sensitized to mite increased significantly with the increasing combined exposure categories (P.0001). The highest prevalence of sensitization to cat and dog was in the medium combined exposure categories. Cat ownership was associated with a reduced prevalence of sensitization to cats (P =.002) and a reduced prevalence of sensitization to dog (P =.003) but had no effect on sensitization to mite and pollen.Sensitization to dust mites increased with the increasing combined exposure. Cat ownership was associated with a lower prevalence of sensitization to cat and dog but not to mite and grass pollen.