Informers, agents and the liberal ideology of collusion in Northern Ireland

McGovern, Mark

doi:10.1080/17539153.2016.1175274

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Low-level informers, as opposed to the 'supergrasses', gathered the bulk of basic information in pubs, clubs, and the streets. 10 The British forces often recruited young, first-time criminals who were arrested and persuaded to become informants in exchange for dropping charges or reduced sentences (McGovern 2016;Soule 1989: 40). These became known as the 'ten pound touts' after an article in a prominent newspaper in West Belfast, the Andersonstown News, carried the phrase on its front page.…”

Section: The British Counterinsurgencymentioning

confidence: 99%

'Ten pound touts': post-conflict trust and the legacy of counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland

Bakke¹,

Rickard²

2023

WIDER Working Paper

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Section: The British Counterinsurgencymentioning

confidence: 99%

'Ten pound touts': post-conflict trust and the legacy of counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland

Bakke¹,

Rickard²

2023

WIDER Working Paper

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“…Roughly 10% were attributed to state forces—both the British Army and the local police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). There have, in addition, been longstanding allegations of state involvement and collusion in deaths attributed to paramilitaries—particularly (although not exclusively) killings by loyalists (McGovern, , , ; Punch, ; Rolston, ). At the conflict's end, roughly 2,000 deaths remained unsolved and without anyone having been held responsible.…”

Section: (Not) Dealing With the Past In Northern Irelandmentioning

confidence: 99%

State violence, empire, and the figure of the “soldier-victim” in Northern Ireland

McGovern

2019

Journal of Labor and Society

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This article examines some of the deeper meanings of the denial of accountability in killings perpetrated by British soldiers during the conflict in Northern Ireland, as part of the debate on how to deal with the legacy of the past. It investigates the ways in which such "soldier-perpetrators" are turned, instead, into "soldier-victims" and asks what this tells us about the political culture that shapes such a response. In part, it will be argued, this is the product of a longer term Manichean distinction, deeply embedded in the history of empire and its wars, between "civilians" and "barbarians." Here lawfulness, as a mark of "civility," is identified with the self-image of the (post-) imperial state, contrasted with the unlawful chaos of the barbarian "Other." In the context of both the counterinsurgency wars of the late 20th and early 21st century, and amid a presiding mood of "post-imperial melancholia" and "heroic failure", the figure of the "soldier-victim," therefore, becomes a means to turn the wrongs of state violence into an ideological potent imaginary of empire, the state (and its agents) as themselves those who have been wronged.

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“…This was not a failure of policy, but its point. 61 It was the space in which a culture of collusion could flourish.…”

Section: Turning a Blind Eyementioning

confidence: 99%

“…71 It was also the means by which an intelligence-led attritional strategy was realised, generating a grey zone of official deniability around the criminal, murderous actions of state agents and informers. 72 However, none of this can be divorced from the wider social structure, power relations and political order that gave it shape. Into that mix should therefore be added the long-term sectarianised character of state and society in the North; not least in the countryside.…”

Section: The Tight Gag Of Place 70mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘See no evil’: collusion in Northern Ireland

McGovern¹

2017

Race & Class

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The publication of the official report into the 1994 Loughinisland massacre, when loyalist gunmen shot dead six people in a small, rural bar, provides an opportunity to examine the nature of institutionalised collusion, the state practices it involved and the sectarianized social order which made it possible during the conflict in Northern Ireland. Building on an earlier analysis of the colonial and counterinsurgency roots of collusion (Race and Class, 57:2) this article provides a commentary on the findings of the Loughinisland report and explores two issues. The first concerns new evidence (directly contradicting earlier official inquiries) of state collusion in the importation of arms used by loyalists to escalate their campaign of assassination in this period. Second, the extent to which collusive practices facilitated the actions of loyalist paramilitaries and confounded the investigation of the mass killings at Loughinisland as elsewhere. In terms of both (it will be argued) there is a need to place an understanding of collusion in the wider context of a social order shaped by long-term sectarianized social divisions and violence, embedded in localised power structures, that framed the very institutions and agencies of the state, not least the police and other state forces.

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Informers, agents and the liberal ideology of collusion in Northern Ireland

Cited by 6 publications

References 32 publications

'Ten pound touts': post-conflict trust and the legacy of counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland

'Ten pound touts': post-conflict trust and the legacy of counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland

State violence, empire, and the figure of the “soldier-victim” in Northern Ireland

‘See no evil’: collusion in Northern Ireland

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