In this essay, the authors seek to draw upon the understanding and critique of positivism within criminological discourse in order to offer one analysis of the British governments' approach to the Northern lreland peace process. They argue that this approach has been hampered not just by the political reliance of the John Major government on Ulster Unionist support at Westminster but by a political and ideological approach to the peace process, informed by positivist terrorology, which has lead to an inability to 'see" the potential for peace. Offering a brief analysis of one of its leading academic proponents, the authors argue that such a paradz'gra posits a view of the liberal democratic state as axiomatically legitimate. Politically-motivated violence within such a state is seen as a purely criminal attack upon it, fundamentally inexplicable in terms other than the deviancy of its perpetrators. Thus in this view, politically-motivated violence is only combatable through purely instrumental, technical, and scientific means. By way of contrast to this paradigm, the authors offer an alternative vision, based on the epistemologies of critical and peacemaking criminology which, they argue, offers much greater potential for the prospects of peace in Northern lreland and similar political conflicts elsewhere.
~TRODUCTIONMuch of the discussion in this essay comes from our attempts to put an intellectual framework on the apparent failure to date of the Northern Ireland peace process. The question may understandably be raised, however, as to why we should seek the answers to that question within the discipline of criminology rather than politics, political science, or history. We have argued elsewhere why we believe that 'good' critical criminology provides a range of useful epistemological tools by which to understand violent political conflict (Gormally and McEvoy 1997). There are several aspects to our rationale for choosing criminology to analyse the failure of the Northem Ireland peace process.First, as a criminological academic and practitioner, we inevitably draw upon our own discipline to provide us with an intellectual framework. Second, and more important, we are convinced that aspects of criminal justice policy such as the release of politically-motivated prisoners, fair and impartial policing, and a respect for human rights are crucial building blocks that must be in place as part of any successful resolution of the political conflict. Third, it is our view that the theoretical and epistemological developments within criminology, and particularly within critical criminology, shed light upon the key dynamics of a conflict and the attempts to resolve it. This is particularly true when, as in the case of Northern Ireland, the state is reluctant to acknowl-