This article examines the development of cooperative relationships in back-channel communication and their impact on intraparty negotiation. It draws on extensive newly available evidence on back-channel communication in the Irish peace process to expand the range of detailed case studies on a topic which is shrouded in secrecy and resistant to academic inquiry. The article analyses the operation of a secret back channel that linked the Irish Republican Army to the British government over a period of 20 years, drawing on unique material from the private papers of the intermediary, Brendan Duddy, and a range of other primary sources. The article finds that interaction through this back channel increased predictability and laid a foundation of extremely limited trust by providing information and increasing mutual understanding. Strong cooperative relationships developed at the intersection between the two sides, based to a great extent on strong interpersonal relationships and continuity in personnel. This in turn produced direct pressure for changes in the position of parties as negotiators acted as advocates of movement in intraparty negotiations. The article finds that this back channel was characterized by a short chain, the direct involvement of principals and the establishment of a single primary channel of communication and that these features combined with secrecy to generate the distinctive cooperative dynamics identified in this article. It concludes that the potential for the development of cooperative relationships is particularly strong in back-channel negotiation for two reasons; first, the joint project of secrecy creates an ongoing shared task that builds trust and mutual understanding regardless of progress in the negotiations. Secondly, as a shared project based on the explicit aim of bypassing spoilers, the process creates structural pressures for cooperation to manage internal opponents on both sides, pressures intensified by the secrecy of the process.
This article examines the relationship between new information and communication technologies and territorial boundaries through an analysis of online interaction oriented around a sectarian interface in north Belfast. It is widely argued that new information and communication technologies are contributing to fundamental changes in the nature of territory and boundaries, with many arguing that they contribute to a deterritorialisation of social interaction. This article argues that new technologies neither transcend nor obliterate territorial boundaries but in certain senses reinforce and extend the role of physical boundaries as orienting locations for hostile interaction. Focusing on the interlinked territorial strategies of penetration and surveillance it argues that online interaction facilitates the extension and elaboration of territorial strategies oriented around physical lines of confrontation and the 3 associated development of new material practices oriented around the physical boundary. BOUNDARIES, TERRITORY AND NEW TECHNOLOGIESIt is widely argued that new information and communication technologies are contributing to fundamental changes in the nature of territory and boundaries. These Flute bands such as the WDFB provide a major social outlet for young people in Protestant working-class areas and are often highly political (Bell 1990;Bryan 2000).The band was at the heart of regular disputes over local parade routes and its website openly displayed the emblems of the loyalist paramilitary organisations, the UDA and the UFF. As such, the site was directly associated with an intensely local network which was central to continuing tensions on the ground. The intensity and novelty of the discussion, the level of local knowledge displayed by contributors and the fact that, amidst the hostility, competing explanations of contentious local incidents were passed between people located on different sides of
that the second instalment is handled impartially and with the diligence of a trained historian. This would make for a more accurate and altogether more readable contribution to the historiography of Irish communism.
What are the dominant framings by which public inquiries understand and analyze power dynamics in the events they examine? We draw on unique data from the Saville Inquiry into the killing of 13 people by British soldiers at acivil rights demonstration in Northern Ireland in 1972. Juxtaposing an analysis of the actions of senior military figures with the final Inquiry report, we show how an approach of 'sufficient rationalization' dominated apublic inquiry's conclusions, marginalizing and discounting important aspects. Emphasizing the local exercise of power and affective attachments, our article contributes an alternative approach to analyzing public inquiries.
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