Models of Civil Society and Their Implications for the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20054492
AutoresC Farrington (0000-0001-9939-2830, University College Dublin, autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Páginas113-141
Data de publicação2008-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoCHAPTER
PeriódicoGlobal Change, Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Process (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/9780230582552_6
OpenAlexW1597047893
ISBN9780230582552
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas30

In the search for an explanation of a negotiated settlement to an apparently intractable ethnic conflict, several authors looked beyond the political elites in Northern Ireland. They argued that, as the political elites had not changed (in either personnel or ideas) over the course of about 20 years, we must look to other social and political actors and other structural changes in order to explain the successful conclusion of the negotiations in 1996–98. One of these was the international environment and actors (discussed in the first section of this book) and the other was civil society within Northern Ireland, which is the subject of this second section. Guelke, in particular, has stressed the importance of two civil society initiatives in the 1990s: the Opsahl Commission of 1992 and the ‘Yes’ Campaign for the 1998 referendum (Guelke, 2003). However, since the Agreement was concluded, civil society seemed less prominent in agitating for political change. An obvious question that was raised was, if civil society was important in the successful conclusion of the Agreement, then how has it influenced or failed to influence the crises of the implementation of the Agreement? It is this question which this chapter seeks to answer

Civil society · Commission · Economics · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Referendum · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Irish and British Studies · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration