Security, identity and the peace process in Northern Ireland

Security Dialogue

Volumn 27, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 167-178

  McSweeney, Bill ^a,b  

^a Irish School of Ecumenics   (Ireland)

^b UNIVERSITY OF YORK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041007293     PISSN: 09670106     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0967010696027002005     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. Report of the New Ireland Forum, (Dublin: Government Publications, 1984).
2. See Kevin Boyle & Tom Hadden, 'The Peace Process in Northern Ireland', International Affairs, vol.71, no. 2, 1995, pp. 269-283. For a more recent analysis, see Gerard Delanty, 'Negotiating the Peace in Northern Ireland', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 32, no. 3, 1995, pp. 257-264.
3. See Kevin Boyle & Tom Hadden, 'The Peace Process in Northern Ireland', International Affairs, vol.71, no. 2, 1995, pp. 269-283. For a more recent analysis, see Gerard Delanty, 'Negotiating the Peace in Northern Ireland', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 32, no. 3, 1995, pp. 257-264.
4. IRA Statement, (Dublin: Irish Republican Publicity Bureau) Reprinted in Irish Times, 8 December 1995. At the time of writing, the British government appears to have conceded that its demand is unrealistic and, by implication, that its overall strategy was not conditional upon it.
5. It is doubtful if the resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict along nationalist lines plays the significant part in the voting patterns of Irish-Americans which successive Administrations since Kennedy have assumed. The question has never been adequately tested, but the belief has powerful resonance for White House strategists.
6. This is the position adopted by the International Body on Arms Decommissioning headed by former US Senator George Mitchell. It can also be inferred from the absence of any allusion to John Major's view on decommissioning - 'If they mean peace, let them disarm' - on the part of President Clinton during his visit to Belfast and Dublin in early December 1995, and from his coded rejection of that view in the phrase: 'Peace means peace'.
7. Sources: The 1992 British Election Study, (University of Essex, ESRC Data Archive); Gallup Political Index 1979-1994, cited in Bernadette Hayes and Ian McAllister, 'British and Irish Public Opinion Towards the Northern Ireland Problem', unpublished paper, IPSA conference, Drogheda, October 1995.
8. Sources: The 1992 British Election Study, (University of Essex, ESRC Data Archive); Gallup Political Index 1979-1994, cited in Bernadette Hayes and Ian McAllister, 'British and Irish Public Opinion Towards the Northern Ireland Problem', unpublished paper, IPSA conference, Drogheda, October 1995.
9. The new leader of the majority Unionist Party (UUP) echoed the traditional unionist distrust of Westminster by contrasting the UK government's wholehearted commitment to retaining the union with Scotland with its 'disinterested neutrality' and 'close cooperation with a foreign government' on the question of Northern Ireland. David Trimble, cited in Irish Times, 8 December 1995.
10. Delanty, 'Negotiating the Peace...', p. 260.
11. The brief discussion of identity which follows draws on a fuller account in Bill McSweeney, 'Security and Identity: Buzan and the Copenhagen School', Review of International Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, 1996.
12. On the link between security and identity see David Campbell, Writing Security, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992); further discussion of this topic may be found in Bill McSweeney, The Concept of Security in International Relations Theory (in preparation), 1996.
13. On the link between security and identity see David Campbell, Writing Security, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992); further discussion of this topic may be found in Bill McSweeney, The Concept of Security in International Relations Theory (in preparation), 1996.
14. Clearly, this is to analyse identity-formation in the abstract. No society exists which would allow us to observe this process from the tabula rasa of a group without an already-existing identity and the consequent pressures of socialization to adopt and to affirm it.
15. The rejection of primordialist views of identity follows the position taken in Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1969) and further developed in Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, (London: Pluto Press, 1993).
16. The rejection of primordialist views of identity follows the position taken in Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1969) and further developed in Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, (London: Pluto Press, 1993).
17. An account of the social construction of British and Celtic identities is given in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) and Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, (London: Pimlico, 1992).
18. An account of the social construction of British and Celtic identities is given in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) and Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, (London: Pimlico, 1992).
19. On the place of religion in the Northern Ireland conflict see John Hickey, Religion and the North of Ireland Problem, (Dublin:Gill & Macmillan, 1984); an account of the role of theology is given in Bill McSweeney, 'The Religious Dimension of the Troubles in Northern Ireland' in Paul Badham, ed., Religion, State and Society in Modern Britain, (London: Mellen Press, 1988).
20. On the place of religion in the Northern Ireland conflict see John Hickey, Religion and the North of Ireland Problem, (Dublin:Gill & Macmillan, 1984); an account of the role of theology is given in Bill McSweeney, 'The Religious Dimension of the Troubles in Northern Ireland' in Paul Badham, ed., Religion, State and Society in Modern Britain, (London: Mellen Press, 1988).
21. It is a wry thought that the EU may learn the lesson of its own methodology through its involvement in the construction of a new identity for Northern Ireland, which stands in sharp contrast to the lack of attention to identity-construction in the EU itself.