Peace Without Consensus

Clancy, Mary-Alice C.

doi:10.4324/9781315599854

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Smith (1999) suggests, one of the most over researched areas in the world ended up being one of the least understood. 209 Acknowledging an effective security effort as instrumental in ending the conflict; many require more detail before fully endorsing it. Bew's most recent work, however, is less reticent, positioning SB at the center of "a patient but firm security policy" crucial to "bringing the conflict to an end."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Security: Missing from the Northern Ireland Model

Matchett

2015

Democracy and Security

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Northern Ireland model is best defined as the framing of the political endgame of Northern Ireland's conflict culminating in the 1998 Belfast Agreement, otherwise known as the Good Friday Agreement. The Northern Ireland model is popularly portrayed as a negotiated settlement. It focuses primarily on the bargain reached by Northern Irish political parties, assisted by British and Irish governments and mediated by US senator George Mitchell. Academics and officials alike use it to explain how the "Troubles" ended and peace was achieved. Conspicuously absent from this model is security. It also grossly understates the difficulty in dealing with a modern insurgency (the Provisionals) and leans too heavily toward skewed post-conflict thinking that views insurgents as "peacemakers" prevented from making peace because of a manifestly poor security response, particularly that of the police force and its intelligence agency (Special Branch). The perspective of politicians and diplomats who brokered the peace settlement prioritizes political negotiations at the expense of the security response; in so doing, the role of security is undermined and overlooked. Most contemporary academic works promote this outlook. Excluding security, however, thwarts a comprehensive analysis of the Northern Ireland conflict and renders any examination partial and unrepresentative. There is therefore a significant intellectual gap in our understanding of how peace was achieved, which this article redresses. Ultimately, it questions the Northern Ireland model's capacity to assist in other relevant conflict contexts in any practical sense by arguing that a strategy where security pushed as politics pulled brought about peace. In other words, security played a crucial part because it forced the main protagonists into a situation out of which the Belfast Agreement emerged.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Security: Missing from the Northern Ireland Model

Matchett

2015

Democracy and Security

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Motivation and Intervention in the Northern Ireland Peace Process: An Interview with President Bill Clinton

Spencer

2019

Negotiation Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The role of former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton in the Northern Ireland peace process has been acknowledged as an example of political risk‐taking and leadership driven by political interests and strategic post–Cold War aims. The tendency to examine Clinton's role from the perspective of international and global policy objectives, however, has obscured consideration of his motivational role in the Northern Ireland peace process and of how he moved between encouragement and intervention to help the political parties reach a settlement. This article, which is drawn from an extended interview conducted with Clinton in 2017, seeks to paint a more comprehensive picture of Clinton's participation in the peace process, showing how his combination of motivational and interventional skills enabled him to help convince others of the need to take risks for peace and gave him greater influence and leverage over the peace process as a result.

show abstract

Peace Without Consensus

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Security: Missing from the Northern Ireland Model

Security: Missing from the Northern Ireland Model

Motivation and Intervention in the Northern Ireland Peace Process: An Interview with President Bill Clinton

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About