Protestant Disillusionment with the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette C. Hayes ◽  
Ian McAllister
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

The period since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement has witnessed a degree of electoral polarisation that dwarfs any previous period during the current Troubles in scale and intensity. This has been attributed to Protestant disillusionment with the Agreement and the political institutions it established. The results presented here using a wide range of public opinion polls support this view. Protestants are much more pessimistic of both current and future relations between the two communities than are Catholics. The increasingly negative view of Protestants, particularly in terms of future community relations, is reflected in declining support for the Agreement. Protestants who believe that relations between the two religious communities in five years time will be worse than they are now are significantly more likely to vote against the Agreement. This is the case even among previous Protestant supporters of the Agreement.

Brexit and the Northern Ireland Peace Process

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Eileen Connolly ◽  
John Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

This chapter focuses on the political situation in Northern Ireland, outlining the impact of the Northern Ireland Protocol on cross-community relations. It reflects on the consequences that social change will have on the option for Irish unification. It also provides a background of the Northern Ireland Protocol, analysing why the protection of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement became a core issue for the EU and why a sea border emerged as the agreed solution. The chapter examines the political cleavages in Northern Ireland that underpin the deep conflict over the location of the post-Brexit border. It also elaborates why the location of the border will remain a focus for political conflict, although the Northern Ireland Protocol allowed the EU and the UK to reach agreement.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Eric Lagenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Election Outcome ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
German Politics ◽  
Left Party ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

Although it has not been that long since the articles of the previous special issue devoted to the 2017 Bundestag election and its aftermath have been published, the political situation in Germany appears to have stabilized. After almost six months without a new government, German politics has sunk back into a kind of late-Merkel era normality. Public opinion polls continue to show that the CDU/CSU is slightly above its election outcome, the SPD is still down in the 17–18 percent range, the FDP has lost about 2 percent of its support, while the AfD, Greens and Left Party are up 1–2 percent.

Northern Ireland

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica McWilliams ◽  
Avila Kilmurray
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Institutional Dynamics ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
History Of

Women’s activism played an important role in conflict transformation in Northern Ireland, from the early civil rights activists to the development of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition political party. This chapter follows the history of activism in Northern Ireland, using the trajectory to illustrate how the exclusion of women from formal institutions resulted in a women’s movement that became an alternative means for creating change. It identifies important characteristics of women’s activism, including a willingness to build broad alliances in civil society and framing tactics that brought gender-specific interests to the peace process and the Good Friday peace agreement. As the chapter examines the successes and challenges of the post-conflict women’s movement in Northern Ireland, it reflects on the power of creativity and innovation in altering institutional dynamics during times of transition.

scholarly journals A Charter of Rights for the Island of Ireland: An Unknown Quantity in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement

2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Egan ◽  
Rachel Murray
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The Political ◽  
Unknown Quantity ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
Legal Document ◽  
Legal Difficulties ◽  
Final Agreement ◽  
Political Settlement

AbstractThe basic aim of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement was to try to achieve a political settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland. While the channels for the settlement were to be primarily institutional, the importance of safeguarding the rights of both communities in Northern Ireland by addressing equality and justice issues was recognized, to varying degrees, by all parties to the process that led to the drafting of the Agreement. As the negotiations progressed, the human rights section of the Agreement grew exponentially, moving ‘from the margins to the mainstream’ so that the final Agreement contains a whole section on human rights protections. Not only have these particular elements of the Agreement come to fruition, but they also have received a considerable amount of public and political interest as well as academic comment and analysis. Buried within the human rights chapter, however, is a concept that has so far received minimal interest or enthusiasm from any quarter. That is the reference in paragraph 10 of the ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’ chapter to the possibility of establishing an all-island Charter of Rights.The purpose of this article is threefold. First, it traces the genesis of the Charter of Rights concept through to its inclusion in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement; secondly, it examines the approach thus far taken by the Joint Committee of the two human rights commissions to the task entrusted to them in relation to the Charter by the Agreement; and finally, it explores some of the issues that need to be considered and the challenges faced by that Committee in future efforts to assist in the construction of any such Charter. In so doing, it describes the political and legal difficulties faced in attempts not only to formulate agreement on human rights but also to create a legal document which may be applicable to two jurisdictions. It concludes by suggesting ways in which the project may be progressed.

Revising Images of Public Punitiveness: Sentencing by Lay and Professional English Magistrates

1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 191-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shari Seidman Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Court System ◽  
Criminal Offenders ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Observational Techniques ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls ◽  
Legal Training

England grants unusually broad responsibility for sentencing of criminal offenders to voluntary part-time lay magistrates who, like their legally trained professional colleagues, sentence a wide range of offenders. Using simulated cases, archival analyses, and observational techniques, this article compares the sentencing decisions of the lay and professional magistrates in London. The study reveals no evidence of the lay preference for more severe sentencing that is typically shown in public opinion polls. The extent to which legal training, court experience, panel decisionmaking and role within the court system can explain the relative leniency of the lay magistrates are considered Consistent with results from other studies, these findings suggests that when laypersons assign sentences to particular offenders rather than express generalized satisfaction or dissatisfaction with current sentencing practices, laypersons are no more punitive than professional judges.

scholarly journals Holding the line on human rights accountability: Explaining the unlikely judicial overturn of the pardon and immunity granted to human rights violator Alberto Fujimori

Derecho PUCP ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 413-469
Author(s):  
Javier Alonso De Belaunde de Cárdenas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Culture Shift ◽  
Alberto Fujimori ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian ex-president and perpetrator of human rights violations, was released from prison due to a presidential pardon in 2017. He was also granted immunity from prosecution. Although the political branches and the majority of the population supported these measures, as shown by public opinion polls, within months domestic courts overturned them completely, relying on standards set by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This is the most unlikely result, comparatively. The article examines what could explain this pro human rights accountability behaviour in the judiciary. It argues that the outcome could be the product of two processes initialised during the Peruvian transition: Judicial empowerment (independence and power gains) and legal culture shift from positivism to neo-constitutionalism. Both are defined and analysed with reference to transitional justice and socio-legal studies scholarship. The article further seeks to identify the conditions under which Inter-American conventionality control doctrine could have a strong domestic impact.

Should Public Opinion Polls Make Election Forecasts?

1949 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Gideon Seymour ◽  
Archibald Crossley ◽  
Paul F. Lazarsfeld ◽  
George Gallup
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

Since the political upset last November, opinion has been divided on the question of whether pollsters should continue predicting election results. Here are the views of an editor, two poll-takers, and a communications scientist. By a vote of three to one, their answer to the question is “Yes!”

scholarly journals “Faith, Crown and State”: Contemporary Discourses within the Orange Order in Northern Ireland

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McAuley ◽  
Jonathan Tonge
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Orange Order

Despite a decline in membership in recent decades the Orange Order remains one of the largest and most significant organisations within civil society in Northern Ireland, representing a significant proportion of the Protestant population. The Orange Order claims a moral and political rationale to opposition to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and many of the political consequences that have followed. Drawing upon a large membership survey of the Orange institution (the first such survey ever undertaken), and abetted by in-depth semi-structured interviews, this paper examines core political and social attitudes of Orange Order members in a post-conflict environment. It identifies core discourses on offer within Orangeism, and how these structure responses to contemporary events. It concludes that the maintenance of “traditional” discourses within the Orange Order (seen by its critics as a barrier to the modernisation of unionism) may be key to its endurance against the odds in a changing political context and increasingly secularized world.

scholarly journals La disputa social por el Distrito Federal

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Reyes del Campillo Lona
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distrito Federal ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls ◽  
Ruling Party

This paper analyzes the stages of the 2006 election in Mexico City and examines the social conflict that polarized the political figures as well as the electorate. It also talks about the selection process of the candidates, particularly those of the ruling party, as well as the campaigns and their impact on the public opinion polls and, finally, it analyzes the final results. The election showed an evident division or tension line among the electorate that entails a strong social and ideological content.

scholarly journals Northern Ireland: From Imperial Asset to International Encumbrance

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-132
Author(s):  
Tommy McKearney
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The Political ◽  
Limited Ability ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Social ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
British State

The Northern Ireland story is more complex than the trite tale of orange versus green or two warring tribes. Current inhabitants are not settling ancient scores. Northern Ireland is the product of colonialism, the plantation of Ulster, machinations of a British state determined to retain a strategic outpost, 50 years of one party discriminatory government and the recent conflict. The Good Friday Agreement facilitated an end to armed conflict but is inherently flawed. Compounding the Stormont Assembly’s very limited ability to steer the economy is reluctance by the political parties to accept the rationale of the Agreement. Republicans are unhappy that Northern Ireland will remain British while unionists dislike the fact that republicans are partners in administration. Northern Ireland’s two leading parties, The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin (SF,) do not have the power (even if they wanted to use it) to address the social and economic issues affecting constituents’ lives. Northern Ireland is changing demographically while also facing economic challenges at a time when both England and Scotland are reassessing the nature of the Union.

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