Consociationalism and the Evolution of Political Cleavages in Northern Ireland, 1989–2004

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES TILLEY ◽  
GEOFFREY EVANS ◽  
CLAIRE MITCHELL
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Government Structure ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Institutional Incentives ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Sources Of Support ◽  
Nationalist Parties

Political cleavages are often understood as deriving from either deep-rooted social divisions or institutional incentives. Contemporary Northern Ireland provides a test of the mutability of apparently entrenched cleavages to institutional change. Research undertaken before the ceasefire in the 1990s found noticeable asymmetries in the patterns of cleavage within the unionist and nationalist blocs. Within the unionist bloc, economic ‘left–right’ issues formed the main ideological division between the two major unionist parties. This contrasted with an ethno-national source of ideological division between the two nationalist parties. However, the emergence of a consociational form of government structure since then has demonstrated the ability of institutional incentives to reform some aspects of party competition swiftly. As evidence of this, we show that between 1989 and 2004 there was little change in the sources of support for Sinn Féin relative to the SDLP, but the influence of left–right ideology within the unionist bloc was negated as the influence of ethno-nationalism dramatically increased.

Sinn Féin and the IRA

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Irish Republicanism ◽  
The Republic ◽  
British State ◽  
State Responses

When Sinn Féin and the IRA emerged in Northern Ireland in 1969 they used a combination of revolutionary politics and violence to an effort to overthrow British rule. Today, the IRA is in a state of ‘retirement’, violence is a tactic of the past, and Sinn Féin is a co-ruler of Northern Ireland and an ever growing political player in the Republic of Ireland. This is one of the most startling transformations of a radical violent movement into a peaceful political one in recent times. So what exactly changed within Irish republicanism, what remains the same, and, crucially, what caused these changes? Where existing studies explain the decision to end violence as the product of stalemate or strategic interplay with the British state, this book draws on a wealth of archival material and interviews to argue that moderation was a long-term process of increasing inclusion and contact with political institutions, which gradually extracted moderate concessions from republicanism. Crucially, these concessions did not necessitate republicans forsaking their long-term ethno-national goals. The book also considers the wider implications of Irish republicanism for other cases of separatist conflict, and has significance for the future study of state responses to violent separatism and of comparative peace processes.

scholarly journals An bhfuil ár lá tagtha? Sinn Féin, special status and the politics of Brexit

2021 ◽  
pp. 136914812110261
Author(s):  
Jonathan Evershed ◽  
Mary C Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Irish Republicanism ◽  
Economic Risks

In this article we critically examine how Sinn Féin responded to Brexit, why, and with what consequences. By destabilising the UK’s territorial constitution and intensifying debate about Ireland’s constitutional future, Brexit has represented a moment of unprecedented opportunity for Irish republicanism. However, this has been offset by the very real political and economic risks it has posed for the island of Ireland. We argue that Sinn Féin’s pursuit of ‘Special Status’ for Northern Ireland represented an attempt to mitigate Brexit’s risks, rather than to leverage its opportunities. This approach came with political costs for the party, whose recent electoral surge has arguably been in spite of rather than because of it. We demonstrate how Brexit has served to reshape Sinn Féin’s politics, and how it has functioned to further moderate its ‘Eurocriticism’.

scholarly journals Rites of Passage or Exploitation? Teaching Social Anthropology, Class Relations and Institutional Change in Two British Universities

1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gibb
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Social Division ◽  
Managerial Practices ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Social Fields

In this paper I discuss my experience of teaching and researching in two different British universities in the late 1990s in order to develop a number of arguments about the place of teaching in the making and un-making of professional / academic anthropologists. Not all of the issues I raise, however, can be formulated as questions of ‘boundaries’ or ‘identities’ (in the way the title and rubric of this panel suggest [2] ), although for some of them this is indeed appropriate. Thus, while it is true that the nature of disciplinary borders and identities emerge as key concerns, my material also draws attention to contemporary employment and managerial practices in higher education, as well as to the reproduction of various forms of social division (notably along class lines). As the rubric of this panel recognises, it is in fact the re-organisation of sets of hierarchical social relations characterised by domination and exploitation which often lies behind current changes in higher education (as in other social fields). In my view, the boundary concept is not the most useful tool with which to analyse such processes, and in particular the power relations and structural inequalities involved. For this reason, I will refer instead to social divisions and status hierarchies in the section of the paper that deals with these wider issues.

Sovereignty, Devolution and the English Constitution

2018 ◽  
pp. 45-67
Author(s):  
Akash Paun
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Parliamentary Sovereignty ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Political Disaffection ◽  
Eu Referendum ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

This chapter argues that the UK territorial constitution rests upon a profound ambiguity about its central principles. Parliamentary sovereignty remains at the core of how the English understand their constitution. Yet in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, alternative doctrines have flourished, especially since devolution, which conceded the right of each nation to determine its own form of government (popular sovereignty) and established a non-majoritarian system of power-sharing and cross-border governance in (Northern) Ireland. These developments imply that the UK is a voluntary ‘family of nations’ not a unitary state. Yet Westminster has never formally conceded this point and devolution could in theory be reversed by a simple parliamentary majority. Constructive ambiguity has been retained. However, the historic tendency to allow constitutional theory and practice to diverge may be unsustainable in the light of the EU referendum result and the wider mood of English political disaffection that Brexit has tapped into.

Sinn Féin and the life and death of the republican newspaper

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paddy Hoey
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Tectonic Plates ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The People ◽  
The Media ◽  
Authentic Voice

Sinn Féin’s far reaching commitment to activist materials since the late 1960s included a devotion to the newspapers An Phoblacht/ Republican News. It was almost quixotically committed to producing AP/ RN and the paper became a far-reaching organ of political identity. During the Hunger Strikes of 1980/ 81 it was the authentic voice of those on the protests. Later, during the reforms of Peace Process era it articulated the changes in policy. However, Sinn Féin activists were keen to develop a mainstream vehicle for the newly dominant and optimistic strand of republicanism, one that might compete against the media outlets that had been overtly critical and hostile towards the party dating back to the beginning of the Troubles. The Belfast Media Group whose primary paper, the Andersonstown News, became associated with articulating Sinn Féin’s position throughout the 1990s and 2000s launched the republican daily newspaper Daily Ireland in 2005 in competition with the Irish News, the paper that has traditionally captured sales among the nationalist population of Northern Ireland. It was an experiment in assessing how far the shifts in the cultural and political tectonic plates of nationalism played into the media consumption habits of the people.

Languages, secessionism and party competition in Catalonia: A case of de-ethnicising outbidding?

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882096038
Author(s):  
Marc Sanjaume-Calvet ◽  
Elvira Riera-Gil
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Territorial Conflict ◽  
Party Strategies ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
Ethnic Competition ◽  
Regional Elections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Nationalist Parties

This article explores party strategies in electoral competition in Catalonia in order to test the existence of ethnic outbidding ( Chandra, 2005 ; Zuber and Szöcsik, 2015 ). We contribute with original findings on this case by addressing the evolution of political parties’ discourses through a qualitative analysis of their manifestos for the last five regional elections campaigns (2006–2017), covering a period of strong territorial conflict between Catalonia and Spain. Our analysis aims to measure the impact of secessionism growth on parties’ ethnic competition in Catalonia and compares the strategies of secessionist, federalist and centralist parties. In order to measure ethnicity, we focus on language, the most salient identity marker in Catalan politics, and link the evolution of parties’ territorial positions to that of their treatment of national identities and the Catalan and Castilian languages – both official languages in Catalonia – in their manifestos. Our findings include diverse strategies that do not entirely fit in with ethnic competition theories. First, we find that territorial outbidding does not always imply ethnic outbidding: political parties generally do not use the main identity marker in Catalonia (language) for outbidding purposes. Second, we find some evidence of ethnic outbidding in majority nationalist parties, but not in minority nationalist parties.

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