Values and Identities in Ireland's Peace Policy: Four Centuries of Norm Continuity and Change

Abstract

This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for over three centuries and the recent reversal of these norms. The methodology analyses values and identities in Irish leaders' foreign policy discourses and practices, producing evidence that Irish peace policy norms are consistently: independence and neutrality for Ireland in the cause of peace and security; self-determination; anti-imperialism; third world solidarity; and resistance to famine and slavery. In the early 1900s, after Ireland gained statehood, the addition of: institutional cooperation; a constitutional commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes; armed neutrality; UN peacekeeping; and an explicit subordination of material interests for moral, justice-based norms, made this small postcolonial state an historically-driven Natural Born Peacemaker. Eliteled norm reversals consolidated in the 2000s suggests a vital explanatory relationship with elite corruption and associated specific personality characteristics, and the need to revise elite socialisation theory to incorporate these variables.

Introduction to Special Issue: Bound to be peaceful? The changing approach of Western European small states to peace

“…Ireland developed a strongly value‐based foreign and security policy identity, based on its complex and cumbersome relationship with Great Britain on one hand and on its own economic and social problems on the other. Neutrality became both the corner stone of Ireland's relationship towards Great Britain and of the image it wanted to cultivate regarding its own role and mission in the world (Devine ).…”

“…Yet the extent of popular support for these developments remains shaky. Meanwhile, the country remains strongly engaged with the UN (Devine ).…”