The Northern Ireland Peace Process And The International Context

Northern Ireland is currently enjoying a period of relative peace and stability unprecedented for much of the past half century. Such stability is the product of a variety of factors that has created conditions whereby Northern Ireland now runs its own political institutions for the first time since the early 1970s. International relations and developments since the early 1980s have had a key influence on the Northern Ireland process, and such external influences require renewed attention in assessing the evolution of the Northern Ireland conflict and the recent progress towards long-term peace. Since the abrupt end of the Cold War in the early 1990s in particular, the Northern Ireland dispute, along with many other inter-ethnic conflicts, has felt the repercussions of such geo-political changes, both positive and negative. In this context, many external states, forces and individuals have wielded significant influence over Northern Ireland’s development. The world's only remaining superpower, the USA, has particularly taken a renewed interest in Northern Ireland, an interest bolstered by a President with a genuine interest in the province. Other long-term external disputes such as the Middle East conflict and South Africa’s advance from apartheid have also been inter-linked with the Northern Ireland dispute. The European Union has continued to evolve as a trans-national organisation, and has also sought to influence the easing of sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland. This book seeks to assess the overall impact that such global developments have undoubtedly had on the Northern Ireland peace process, and attempts to offer fresh interpretations of a complex element within that process. Ben Williams, B.A (Hons.), M.A PhD student, University of Liverpool. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

“Performing the Northern Ireland Peace Process offers a nuanced and stimulating analysis which goes beyond standard explanations by exploring the motives and means used by those who made peace in Northern Ireland.” (Professor Timothy White, Xavier University, USA) “Paul Dixon has produced an impressive and challenging book. Dixon defends the Northern Ireland peace process as a carefully-crafted, drawn-out episode in realist, pragmatic politics. However, he pulls few punches in highlighting the moral deceptions which have kept the process in play. Provocatively, Dixon also challenges a wide range of academic interpretations of the processes and their associated political prescriptions. Thoughtful and well-researched throughout, Performing the Northern Ireland Peace Process is an essential read for anyone interested in conflict management.” (Professor Jon Tonge, University of Liverpool) “In this outstanding book, Dixon shows yet again the importance of the theatrical metaphor for Northern Ireland. More importantly still, he demonstrates that the adoption of a critically realist outlook actually enhances our capacity to think creatively about the political choices we face in international politics and the alternative policies and institutions we might construct.” (Professor Adrian Little, The University of Melbourne) This book is exceptional in defending the ‘dirty politics’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. Political actors in Britain, Ireland and the United States performed the peace process and used ‘political skills’, often including deception and hypocrisy, in order to wind down the conflict and achieve accommodation. These political skills, it is argued, are often morally justifiable even as they are popularly condemned. The Northern Ireland peace process has been highly successful in reducing violence and an accurate understanding of its politics is an important contribution to international debates about managing conflict.

Northern Ireland's Belfast Agreement has faced continual crises of implementation over a variety of security related issues. This book places the implementation of the Belfast Agreement in a wide context to provide an analysis of why implementation has been so difficult.

Essential text for a 1 term/semester undergraduate course on Northern Ireland (usually a 2nd year option). Combines coverage of the historical context of the situation in Northern Ireland with a thorough examination of the contemporary political situation and the peace process. The book explores the issues behind the longevity of the conflict and provides a detailed analysis of the attempts to create a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

This book offers a re-evaluation of the emergence, development and outcome of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Drawing on interviews with many of the key participants of the peace process, newly released archival material and the existing scholarship on the conflict, it explains the decisions that shaped the peace process in their proper context. O'Kane argues that although the outcome of the process can be seen as a success, it is not the outcome that was originally expected or intended by most of its participants. By tracing the process and highlighting the pragmatic decisions of the parties that shaped it the work explains how Northern Ireland moved from conflict to peace. The book concludes by examining what the implications of Brexit are for Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace and political stability.

This book incorporates recent research that emphasizes the need for civil society and a grassroots approach to peacebuilding while taking into account a variety of perspectives, including neoconservatism and revolutionary analysis. The contributions, which include the reflections of those involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, also provide policy prescriptions for modern conflicts.

This book uniquely combines global opinion theory with the English school of international relations to explain the effects of world opinion on the Northern Ireland peace process. It begins by analyzing the reasons why the civil rights movement imported from the United States ended in the Troubles. It traces how national identity now arises in Northern Ireland as a negotiation between the area’s international image and its citizens’ national consciousness. Rusciano illustrates how world opinion affects patterns of speech and silencing, and the effect this has on the peace process. He also shows how those negotiating the peace were affected by world opinion. Finally, the volume concludes by describing a possible path toward completing the peace process consistent with world opinion.

This book examines the economic and political contributions of the EU to the Northern Ireland peace process, tracing the genesis of EU involvement since 1979 and analysing how it acted as an arena in which to foster dialogue and positive cooperation. Based on extensive archival research and exclusive elite interviews this volume provides the first comprehensive study of how the EU contributed to the reconfiguration of Northern Ireland from a site of conflict to a site of conflict amelioration and peace-building. The book demonstrates that the relationship between Northern Ireland and the EU has been much more significant in the peace process than previously suggested.