The Minority‐Majority Conundrum in Northern Ireland

An Orange Order Perspective

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6337255
AutoresChris Stevenson (0000-0002-2438-6425, Queen's University Belfast), Clifford Stevenson, Susan Condor (Lancaster University), Jackie Abell (0000-0001-8891-7881, Lancaster University)
Año2007
Volumen28
Número1
Páginas105-125
Fecha de publicación2007-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolitical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9221.2007.00554.x
OpenAlexW2116013400
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas21
Referencias citadas43

Researchers have argued that, depending on the framing of the Northern Ireland conflict, each group could either be a minority or a majority relative to the other. This complicates macrosocial explanations of the conflict which make specific predictions on the basis of minority or majority positions. The present paper argues that this conundrum may have arisen from the inherent variability in microidentity processes that do not fit easily with macroexplanations. In this paper the rhetoric of relative group position is analysed in political speeches delivered by leading members of an influential Protestant institution in Northern Ireland. It is apparent that minority and majority claims are not fixed but are flexibly used to achieve local rhetorical goals. Furthermore, the speeches differ before and after the Good Friday Agreement, with a reactionary “hegemonic” Unionist position giving way to a “majority‐rights power sharing” argument and a “pseudo‐minority” status giving way to a “disempowered minority” argument. These results suggest a view of the Northern Ireland conflict as a struggle for “symbolic power,” i.e., the ability to flexibly define the intergroup situation to the ingroup's advantage

Argument (complex analysis · Framing (construction · Group conflict · Hegemony · Linguistics · Minority rights · Political science · Politics · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Studies · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Psychology