Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article uses recently released archival material to examine the role of the Irish government in the negotiation of the Sunningdale communiqué of 1973, which marked, among other things, an agreement to establish a Council of Ireland and was therefore a key part of the first attempt to establish a power-sharing devolved executive in Northern Ireland. The article will problematise the distinctions which have been made between various strains of political thought held by leading intellectuals and politicians on the national question and show how the discourse of 'revisionist nationalism' and reconciliation which sponsored the key institution of the Sunningdale communiqué, the Council of Ireland, was in contradiction to the meaning attached to the functions of the Council, which was in fact closer to traditional nationalist aims.

This article will provide a framework for analysing unionist responses and reactions to the Northern Irish peace process. It identifies four responses to the Belfast Agreement that have reflected unionist divisions over the peace process: a principled yes position, a pragmatic yes, a pragmatic no and a principled no. However, these positions hide a common interpretation of the process in general and this interpretation is outlined. The article then seeks to understand why these different positions on the Agreement have emerged from this common narrative and it identifies how contextual factors and the actions of other political actors have done this. In doing so it uses an interpretative methodology and seeks to critique the dominant frameworks of analysis of the peace process and the Agreement.

This article critiques the dominant analysis of Ulster Unionism by arguing that a dichotomy is too simplistic to appreciate the multiple & often divergent strands of a complex ideology. It argues that a more satisfactory approach is to be found in the historical understanding of Ulster Unionism & sets out the most dominant ideological strands that can be ascertained today. It puts forth complementary & overlapping dichotomies as a solution to the problem identified. It argues that an ideological divide can be ascertained between those whose politics are primarily religious in nature & those for whom they are secular. However, an appreciation is also made of the other functions that these two roles perform. Secondly, it sees the main political division within Unionism as a tactical struggle between the pragmatists of the pro-Agreement parties & the dogmatists of the anti-Agreement ones. Finally, it buttresses the argument in favor of more effective categorical analysis by describing the embryonic growth of class politics within Unionism to show that the dichotomies are ineffectual. 1 Table, 27 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article uses data from a survey of the candidates in the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election to measure the policy positions of the Northern Irish political parties on scales that are the usual measurements of party policy in Western Europe, such as on economic and social issues, the European Union, morality issues, environmental issues and minority groups. These data were then used to test whether the Northern Ireland party system was conducive to integration or consociationalism, which is the current debate on conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. It argues that this debate has been under-theorised and that empirical data can be used to test the likelihood of either scenario. It concludes that, in most aspects, the Northern Ireland party system tends towards the consociational scenario but there are, nevertheless, aspects which suggest that an integrationist scenario could be produced in the long term.