Confederal and Consociational Futures

The concluding chapter critically reviews the role of European integration in improving British-Irish relations, and in the making of the Good Friday Agreement. Four major votes across Northern Ireland between 2016 and 2017 are surveyed, paying particular attention to the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Predictions are made about the future of Northern Ireland and its union with Great Britain or its reunification with Ireland based on unfolding developments. Transformations South and North, political, social, and economic, are emphasized. The closure of the prospects of a second partition of Ulster is highlighted. Discussion about the possible breakdown, decay, or amendment of existing consociational provisions, and possible modes and modalities of Irish reunification are considered against three twilights that are highlighted, and sketched.

The Long Negotiation

This chapter explains how both the IRA and the DUP were fully incorporated into the 1998 Agreement, even if the former saw it as transitional, whereas the latter pretended it was not working within its provisions. The striking success of simply having a sustained period of cooperative power-sharing is celebrated, and a full comparison is made with the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973–4. The Rise and Fall of the House of Paisley is considered. Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness’s interactions with his DUP opposite numbers Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster are assessed. The turbulent implementation of the agreement between 2003 and 2015 is considered. Unresolved controversies over languages and flags and over assessing the conflict are evaluated.

“No. Please Understand”

The return of direct rule to Northern Ireland in 1972 and its mechanisms and conduct are outlined in this chapter. Their impact upon the local political party system is treated at length, as are the first consociational initiatives pursued under Conservative and Labour governments in the UK. The failure of the first peace process is considered, as well as Britain’s counterinsurgency policies and their limits. Criminalization, Ulsterization, and Normalization were the policies begun under Callaghan’s government and continued by the Conservatives until they were broken by the republican hunger strikes. The new consociational initiatives after the hunger strikes are examined.

The Making, Meaning(s), and Tasks of the 1998 Agreement

This chapter provides a detailed account of the contents and significance of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and of its consociational and non-consociational components. It conforms to all aspects of a consociational settlement—namely, parity, proportionality, autonomy, and veto rights among the partners—but it is not just a consociation. The agreement encompasses a peace agreement, a substantive program to complete the reform of Northern Ireland, cross-border cooperation across Ireland, and intergovernmental cooperation between Ireland, Northern Ireland, and all the British Isles. It can be seen as creating a “federacy” in Irish eyes; in unionist eyes every component of the agreement can be modified by normal UK legislation. An assessment of why the agreement was made is offered, as well as a preliminary evaluation of its early difficulties in implementation.

An Experiment in Coercive Consociation

The making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) of 1985 is examined in detail, and interpretations of its significance are assessed. Was the AIA simply a form of inter-governmentalism, or was it tacitly or unintentionally a project to incentivize unionists to favor power-sharing? That is, is it best interpreted as a coercive way of promoting consociation? The impact of the 1985 AIA is assessed across parties, movements, and paramilitaries, and in particular its impact on the administration of justice, and on social justice within Northern Ireland, is discussed. Its foundational role in making the Good Friday Agreement possible is also highlighted.

A Tract of Time between War and Peace

This chapter describes and explains the emergence and development of the Irish peace process. It discusses how the previously suspended inter-party and intergovernmental talks begun under the auspices of the Anglo-Irish Agreement were melded with that process. The Framework Documents that anticipated the 1998 Agreement are analysed, as well as the bargaining about bargaining that preceded the 1997–8 negotiations. The republican and loyalist ceasefires are examined, and the responses to which they gave rise are analysed.

Conceptual Conspectus

This chapter explains the development of the concepts of consociation and arbitration in political science. Full consociations reference political systems characterized by parity, proportionality, autonomy, and veto powers among the several parties to the pact. There are, however, important variations in the manner and the extent to which consociations are formally institutionalized. Arbitration defines political roles and policies through which third parties profess to act as neutral mediators willing to pursue impartially the shared and several interests of potentially conflicting ethnic groups. The chapter reviews both normative and explanatory debates over the formation and breakdown of consociations, and intimates their importance for the case at hand, Northern Ireland.