ABSTRACT How does political structure affect ethno-national distinction? Parti- tioned societies ... more ABSTRACT How does political structure affect ethno-national distinction? Parti- tioned societies are a good test case where we can see the effects of changed socio- political circumstances on historically inherited distinction. This article takes nominally identical distinctions of nationality and religion with common historical roots and shows how they are differentially understood in two polities partitioned in 1920: Northern Ireland, a devolved region of the United Kingdom, and the Irish state. Using a data base of interviews with over 220 respondents, of which 75 in Northern Ireland, conducted between 2003 and 2006, it shows how complex, potentially totalising and exclusive ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethno-national’ divisions are built up from simpler and more permeable distinctions. Respondents interrelate the same elements into a loosely-knit symbolic structure – different in each jurisdiction – which frames expectations and discourse, and which is associated with different logics of national discourse, one focussing on personal orientation, the other on group belonging. The resultant ‘ethno- national’ distinctions function differently North and South.
This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues... more This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues that how institutions function and how actors pursue their ends is in part determined by slow-moving structural relationships whose logic and trajectory and effects can best be seen historically. Popular "ethnic" expectations are derived not just from interaction with other social groups but also from experience of these structures of power and their movement over time. Introducing these factors into analysis can complement more conventional analyses of actors, negotiators, and institutions. The article outlines some conclusions that can be drawn from the case-studies and their implications for the historical structural approach.
Social identification processes can be seen as the basis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Dur... more Social identification processes can be seen as the basis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. During the conflict it can be argued that preferred social and political identities became increasingly oppositional and entrenched. This paper reviews this evidence using population level studies. It also explores trends in preferred identities since the 1998 Agreement as well as examining the patterns of preferred identity across generations with particular attention being paid to the responses of young people. In an attempt to elucidate the meaning of these identities, a series of inter-related qualitative studies that have examined constructions of national, political and religious identification are reported. These suggest a fluidity, rather than entrenchment, in post-Agreement respondents and point to the variability and complexity of identity phenomena in Northern Ireland. Nature and Meaning of Identity 4
The application of critical theory to the practical world has been a goal of critical theorists s... more The application of critical theory to the practical world has been a goal of critical theorists since the foundation of the Frankfurt School. The early critical theorists stressed the practical relevance of their project but their most influential work was highly theoretical and remote from concrete issues and problems. Over the last 20 years, Jurgen Habermas has developed critical theory into a systematic social theory of impressively wide scope and has related it more closely to the empirical social sciences.2 His influence among empirically orientated social scientists is growing.
This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues... more This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues that how institutions function and how actors pursue their ends is in part determined by slow-moving structural relationships whose logic and trajectory and effects can best be ...
Abstract The Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland are highly differentiated in... more Abstract The Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland are highly differentiated internally. Many see in these internal differences the hope for an expanded political middle ground. The potential for middle ground politics has, however, been ...
This article argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries ... more This article argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries than contemporary scholarship suggests. In an interdisciplinary, multi-stranded qualitative study of ethno-national identity on the Southern side of the Irish border, it shows the moral repertoires that qualify, conflict with, and on occasion replace, territorial, ethnic and statecentred aspects of national identity. It refocuses attention on the cultural and normative content of imagined national communities, and the different ways in which general norms function in particular communal contexts. It casts a new light on Southern attitudes to Irish unity. More generally, it suggests that a form of 'moral nationalism' is possible, distinct from the forms of nationalism-ethnic and civic nationalism and trans-nationalism-discussed in the literature. This paper argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries than contemporary scholarship suggests. Conventional typologies distinguish ethnic nationalism, where identification is with a people and its historic territory, from civic nationalism, where identification is with the state and its institutions. The distinction is increasingly challenged in the comparative literature, in studies of minority regional nationalisms and in studies of plurinational identification which transgresses state boundaries . Our study extends this critique by showing the moral repertoires which qualify, conflict with, and on occasion replace, territorial, ethnic and state-centred aspects of national identity. An emphasis on the moral content of national identity is not new; however, moral repertoires are often seen simply as legitimating prior ethnic or 'imperial' forms of national identification and dominance . We show that they can play an independent role in constituting the boundaries of the nation.
ABSTRACT How does political structure affect ethno-national distinction? Parti- tioned societies ... more ABSTRACT How does political structure affect ethno-national distinction? Parti- tioned societies are a good test case where we can see the effects of changed socio- political circumstances on historically inherited distinction. This article takes nominally identical distinctions of nationality and religion with common historical roots and shows how they are differentially understood in two polities partitioned in 1920: Northern Ireland, a devolved region of the United Kingdom, and the Irish state. Using a data base of interviews with over 220 respondents, of which 75 in Northern Ireland, conducted between 2003 and 2006, it shows how complex, potentially totalising and exclusive ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethno-national’ divisions are built up from simpler and more permeable distinctions. Respondents interrelate the same elements into a loosely-knit symbolic structure – different in each jurisdiction – which frames expectations and discourse, and which is associated with different logics of national discourse, one focussing on personal orientation, the other on group belonging. The resultant ‘ethno- national’ distinctions function differently North and South.
This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues... more This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues that how institutions function and how actors pursue their ends is in part determined by slow-moving structural relationships whose logic and trajectory and effects can best be seen historically. Popular "ethnic" expectations are derived not just from interaction with other social groups but also from experience of these structures of power and their movement over time. Introducing these factors into analysis can complement more conventional analyses of actors, negotiators, and institutions. The article outlines some conclusions that can be drawn from the case-studies and their implications for the historical structural approach.
Social identification processes can be seen as the basis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Dur... more Social identification processes can be seen as the basis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. During the conflict it can be argued that preferred social and political identities became increasingly oppositional and entrenched. This paper reviews this evidence using population level studies. It also explores trends in preferred identities since the 1998 Agreement as well as examining the patterns of preferred identity across generations with particular attention being paid to the responses of young people. In an attempt to elucidate the meaning of these identities, a series of inter-related qualitative studies that have examined constructions of national, political and religious identification are reported. These suggest a fluidity, rather than entrenchment, in post-Agreement respondents and point to the variability and complexity of identity phenomena in Northern Ireland. Nature and Meaning of Identity 4
The application of critical theory to the practical world has been a goal of critical theorists s... more The application of critical theory to the practical world has been a goal of critical theorists since the foundation of the Frankfurt School. The early critical theorists stressed the practical relevance of their project but their most influential work was highly theoretical and remote from concrete issues and problems. Over the last 20 years, Jurgen Habermas has developed critical theory into a systematic social theory of impressively wide scope and has related it more closely to the empirical social sciences.2 His influence among empirically orientated social scientists is growing.
This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues... more This article argues for an historical and structural approach to explaining settlement. It argues that how institutions function and how actors pursue their ends is in part determined by slow-moving structural relationships whose logic and trajectory and effects can best be ...
Abstract The Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland are highly differentiated in... more Abstract The Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland are highly differentiated internally. Many see in these internal differences the hope for an expanded political middle ground. The potential for middle ground politics has, however, been ...
This article argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries ... more This article argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries than contemporary scholarship suggests. In an interdisciplinary, multi-stranded qualitative study of ethno-national identity on the Southern side of the Irish border, it shows the moral repertoires that qualify, conflict with, and on occasion replace, territorial, ethnic and statecentred aspects of national identity. It refocuses attention on the cultural and normative content of imagined national communities, and the different ways in which general norms function in particular communal contexts. It casts a new light on Southern attitudes to Irish unity. More generally, it suggests that a form of 'moral nationalism' is possible, distinct from the forms of nationalism-ethnic and civic nationalism and trans-nationalism-discussed in the literature. This paper argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries than contemporary scholarship suggests. Conventional typologies distinguish ethnic nationalism, where identification is with a people and its historic territory, from civic nationalism, where identification is with the state and its institutions. The distinction is increasingly challenged in the comparative literature, in studies of minority regional nationalisms and in studies of plurinational identification which transgresses state boundaries . Our study extends this critique by showing the moral repertoires which qualify, conflict with, and on occasion replace, territorial, ethnic and state-centred aspects of national identity. An emphasis on the moral content of national identity is not new; however, moral repertoires are often seen simply as legitimating prior ethnic or 'imperial' forms of national identification and dominance . We show that they can play an independent role in constituting the boundaries of the nation.
European Economics: Labor & Social Conditions eJournal, 2011
Northern Ireland is an excellent test case of the impact of fair employment, affirmative action a... more Northern Ireland is an excellent test case of the impact of fair employment, affirmative action and equality measures on ethno-communal conflict. From deep and historically entrenched inequality on a multiplicity of dimensions, a disadvantaged Catholic population only very slowly – and with the help of a range of allies in the US, and emerging international equality norms – got increasingly strong equality measures enacted, and very unevenly moved closer to a position of equality and indeed power. This population had traditionally mobilised on a nationalist rather than an egalitarian platform. In the 1960s, and again in the 1980s, for reasons which we discuss below, issues of economic inequality came high onto the political agenda. Since 1998, there has been a political settlement on the basis of a substantive improvement in the condition of Catholics there on all measures – economic, political and cultural - while leaving the national question open for the future. Equality is neith...
The Troubles in Northern Ireland and Theories of Social Movements, 2017
Northern Ireland is a deeply divided society. The divisions, however, are socially and spatially ... more Northern Ireland is a deeply divided society. The divisions, however, are socially and spatially uneven and their intensity varies over time with individuals swaying from relatively liberal and permeable views to deeper polarization and back again. John Whyte (1991) documented this for the 1960s and 1970s and it is still the case today (Ruane 2017). Even at the height of communal polarization the division was never complete: there were individuals and subgroups who ignored it and seemed immune from antagonism, and local areas where mixing continued in the midst of violence. The basis of division is also diverse. It has ethnic, national, religious, and colonial dimensions and its logic is not reducible to any one of these. It is not 'an ethnic conflict' or 'a colonial conflict', and still less a 'religious conflict', tout court. On the contrary, division persists and polarizes not because of one foundational element but because of the entwining of different cleavages in a context of power and inequality. As we have long argued, there are historically deep structures of power and inequality within the British-Irish archipelago, embedded in institutions and routinized practices in Northern Ireland which themselves embody overlapping and intersecting cultural differences, and which in turn produce and reproduce communities as emergent entities with richly layered repertoires of opposition (Ruane and Todd 1996, 2004, 2015). The communities are composite products of successive conjunctural confrontations during this long historical process. Contesting subgroups within each community may emphasize religion or nationality or colonialism, according to their particular ideological standpoint or interest, and each reproduces conflict between communities in the process of asserting their interests within them. Others-keeping themselves detached from conflict for the most part-retain links with those more directly involved by family, schooling, and neighbourhood which allows for future communal mobilization. If the emergent communities-in-conflict might be conceived as 'ethnic' communities, they are not ones defined by descent or
Irish nationalism has been among the most intense of the peripheral nation-alisms of western Euro... more Irish nationalism has been among the most intense of the peripheral nation-alisms of western Europe. If Portugal is unique among the Atlantic states in having successfully resisted the pressures of a powerful centre, Ireland is unique in having seceded after centuries of incorporation ...
One recurring feature in efforts to break patterns of conflict and to install stable and durable ... more One recurring feature in efforts to break patterns of conflict and to install stable and durable peace settlements has been the role played by outside powers. External states may assist
paper for the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, …, 2001
... 4 ECPR Joint Sessions, Grenoble 2001. Centre-Periphery Relations in Britain, France and Spain... more ... 4 ECPR Joint Sessions, Grenoble 2001. Centre-Periphery Relations in Britain, France and Spain: Theorising the Contemporary Transition Joseph Ruane (University College Cork) [email protected] Jennifer Todd (University College Dublin) [email protected] [Working paper. ...
Drawing on a series of focus groups (two in Northern Ireland and two in the Republic of Ireland) ... more Drawing on a series of focus groups (two in Northern Ireland and two in the Republic of Ireland) organised as part of the recent ARINS/Irish Times project, this article explores the views of people who said they did not know how they might vote in a future unity referendum, a group likely to be significant for any future constitutional outcome. We look at the participants' level of information or misinformation on public policy on the 'other' side of the border; we explore how the participants construct their group identity; and we investigate participants' priorities for a constitutional process. Based on this analysis we argue for a sustained and systemic process of discussion and deliberation on the basis of the findings of both the survey and the focus groups, which collectively point to lack of knowledge, lack of prior awareness, and lack of prior discussion, and—for the focus groups—to the openness to discussion.
Processes of constitution making and change increasingly involve popular participation and delibe... more Processes of constitution making and change increasingly involve popular participation and deliberation. Though constitutional theory assumes positive outcomes of participation, we know relatively little about the role of citizens in shaping the constitutional process. This article investigates how
Processes of constitutional discussion increasingly invite widespread popular inclusion and parti... more Processes of constitutional discussion increasingly invite widespread popular inclusion and participation. Conceptual and practical problems remain, not least the respects in which inclusion is to take place. In deeply divided places, these challenges are intensified, first in the difficulties of conceptualising inclusion, and second in the practical dangers participation may pose to peace. We tackle these problems empirically by looking at a hard case of constitutional discussion amid division: the re-emergence of debate about Irish unity in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Through focus groups and interviews, we explore how 'others', disengaged from the main political groups and defined transversally, approach the discussion, showing that they welcome the prospect of participation and seek to remove discursive triggers of conflict by focussing on shared everyday experience. We discuss the implications for the constitutional process and the likely impact on polarisation. The analysis has implications for the literature on divided societies, for constitutional theory and for policy. We argue that it is both possible and desirable to remedy group exclusion while facilitating universalistic discussion and lessening the dangers of polarisation. The policy implications are quite radical.
British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2024
A challenge for constitutional processes is to facilitate popular participation, including among ... more A challenge for constitutional processes is to facilitate popular participation, including among marginalised groups. Uneven inclusion is highly likely 'upstream', in the early stages when ground rules and foundational principles guiding constitutional change are fleshed out, and particularly so in deeply divided societies. This article explores the obstacles to such inclusion in constitutional discussion in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit, asking what 'other' voices (including women's groups, ethnic minorities and youth) experience as barriers to participation and how they suggest these barriers can be overcome. We categorise barriers as situational, emotional and discursive, and show that discursive obstacles are experienced as the principal barrier to participation. We argue that an inclusive process requires not simply new institutional frameworks and agendas for deliberation, but also an overhaul of channels between policymakers and grassroots, enabling policymakers to communicate policy constraints and facilitating grassroots' critique into policy.
This paper criticizes four typical explanations of settlement of internal conflicts, showing that... more This paper criticizes four typical explanations of settlement of internal conflicts, showing that they fail to give an adequate explanation of the 1998 settlement in Northern Ireland. Instead of inductively searching for recurrent proximate factors or proceeding deductively by applying general theoretical models to settlement processes, it suggests that it may be more fruitful to search for underlying path dependent processes which regulate how the factors highlighted in the other approaches function.
ABSTRACT. National identity is a symbolically complex configuration, with shifts of emphasis and ... more ABSTRACT. National identity is a symbolically complex configuration, with shifts of emphasis and reprioritisations of content negotiated in contexts of power. This paper shows how they occur in one post-conflict situation Northern Ireland among some of the most extreme of ...
The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 gave an opportunity to remake not just political institutions, ... more The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 gave an opportunity to remake not just political institutions, but ethno-religious distinction in Northern Ireland. This article looks at how individuals reconstruct their way of being Protestant in Ireland and Northern Ireland in the context of social and political change. It shows individuals renegotiating their ways of being Protestant, attempting sometimes successfully to change its socio-cultural salience, blurring ethnic boundaries, distinguishing religious and ethno-national narratives, drawing universalistic political norms from their particular religious tradition. It argues that these renegotiations are highly sensitive to the macro-political context. Changes in this context affect individuals through their changing cognitive understandings and strategic interests that, at least in this case, are as important to identification as social solidarities.
The rise of identity politics has magnified the interest in and importance of identity in contemp... more The rise of identity politics has magnified the interest in and importance of identity in contemporary politics. Yet identity politics disguises intense contest and change behind its strong and simple identity claims. The concept of identity change is key to its analysis, giving analytic leverage into the identity-coalitions mobilized by elites, and the different reasons they are successful. This article argues for a new broad research agenda on identity change. The agenda builds on recent works on ethnic identity and boundary change while broadening the methodology and scope of analysis beyond changing identity categories to changing identity content and meaning, and emphasizing the intersecting processes of contestation and consensus, continuity and change. This mainstreams analysis of identity change in the wider political science analysis of social and political change.
This article reviews some recent trends in research on everyday identity change. It argues that t... more This article reviews some recent trends in research on everyday identity change. It argues that this field of research makes an important contribution to the explanation of political change and social transformation. It is particularly relevant to research on participation, social movements and contentious politics: like the latter, it emphasizes relationality, temporality and context, not simply variables and generalization; like the latter, it focusses on agency, choice and social practice as well as structure, power and constraint. Its focus on moving out from exclusivist, closed and oppositional forms of group identity is of particular interest. The article outlines some of the challenges and achievements of this field of research and highlights four areas where significant work exists and where it may usefully be developed further. In particular it focusses on: boundary work, and the informal nudging of boundaries towards greater permeability; identity-work, and the challenge o...
through the Higher Education Authority North-South Strand II funding programme, and from the Prog... more through the Higher Education Authority North-South Strand II funding programme, and from the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, III which funded the two research projects on which this article is based. Jennifer Todd acknowledges an IRCHSS senior research fellowship which permitted her to work on this material after the projects had ended.
PROCESS, PERSPECTIVES AND INTERPRETATIONS: AN ORAL ARCHIVE OF THE NEGOTIATIONS WHICH LED TO THE G... more PROCESS, PERSPECTIVES AND INTERPRETATIONS: AN ORAL ARCHIVE OF THE NEGOTIATIONS WHICH LED TO THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT This paper outlines the process by which an archive of audio-taped interviews with participants in the multi-party negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement was collected. It outlines some of the difficulties which the project met, and also the successes—the way that many participants were willing to give considerable information for the historical record. It argues that such projects can provide for the wider academic public the type of insight which is normally only given to academics in private briefing sessions. It points to several particularly rich areas where the archive can be used for theses or monographs. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Jennifer Todd lectures in the Department of Politics, UCD. Her interest areas include the Northern Ireland conflict, contemporary ethnic and centre-periphery conflict, globalisation and political ideologies. Her most rece...
The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is the cornerstone of stability in Northern Ireland. It is, how... more The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is the cornerstone of stability in Northern Ireland. It is, however, vulnerable to changes in British-Irish relations and priorities. This article argues that this is at the root of recent crises and political stalemate in Northern Ireland. It argues that future shocks-not least the threat of British exit from the EU-are likely to increase instability in Northern Ireland and in North-South relations.
This paper is focused on the dangers and opportunities for Northern Ireland and the Republic of I... more This paper is focused on the dangers and opportunities for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland presented by Brexit. It argues that the difficulties cannot analytically be understood nor the opportunities seized until we disaggregate ‘identity politics’, seeing it not as a function of a homogenous identity but of identity change. Once set in place, however, identity politics takes on its own dynamic. Exogenous shocks can open the opportunity of alternative aims, alliances and identity-coalitions, and then the task is to find the institutional and political incentives to guide identity change in more open, deliberative and dialogic directions. That is what a constitutional moment provides. I argue that the exogenous shock of Brexit opens the way for such a period of North-South deliberation and reconstruction. The paper begins with the general argument, and goes on to show how Brexit stimulates Irish government action and can lead to a constitutional moment, one focused not on the state in control in Northern Ireland but on creating deliberative political communities on the island and in its two parts .
Identity Change After Conflict, Palgrave MacMillan, 2018
This book is about everyday identity change in divided societies and its role in transforming eth... more This book is about everyday identity change in divided societies and its role in transforming ethnic, national and religious divisions. It focuses on the ordinary people who live in, through and around composite, institu- tionally embedded, symbolically oppositional divisions. It explores when and how their satisfaction with group identities and divisions is under- mined, the role of reflexive self-change in the process, and the ways such change is often stalled or reversed.
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