This book offers a uniquely comprehensive account of the conflict in Northern Ireland, providing a rigorous analysis of its dynamics and present structure and proposing a new approach to its resolution. It deals with historical process, communal relations, ideology, politics, economics and culture and with the wider British, Irish and international contexts. It reveals at once the enormous complexity of the conflict and shows how it is generated by a particular system of relationships which can be precisely and clearly described. The book proposes an emancipatory approach to the resolution of the conflict, conceived as the dismantling of this system of relationships. Although radical, this approach is already implicit in the converging understandings of the British and Irish governments of the causes of conflict. The authors argue that only much more determined pursuit of an emancipatory approach will allow an agreed political settlement to emerge.

In the last generation, Northern Ireland has undergone a tortuous yet remarkable process of social and political change. This collection of essays aims to capture the complex and shifting realities of a society in the process of transition from war to peace. The book brings together commentators from a range of academic backgrounds and political perspectives. As well as focusing upon those political divisions and disputes that are most readily associated with Northern Ireland, it provides a rather broader focus than is conventionally found in books on the region. It examines the cultural identities and cultural practices that are essential to the formation and understanding of Northern Irish society but are neglected in academic analyses of the six counties. While the contributors often approach issues from rather different angles, they share a common conviction of the need to challenge the self-serving simplifications and choreographed optimism that frequently define both official discourse and media commentary on Northern Ireland. Taken together, the essays offer a comprehensive and critical account of a troubled society in the throes of change.

This book examines the interrelated dynamics of political action, ideology and state structures in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, emphasising the wider UK and European contexts in which they are nested. It makes a significant and unique contribution to wider European and international debates over state and nation and contested borders, looking at the dialectic between political action and institutions, examining party politics, ideological struggle and institutional change. It goes beyond the binary approaches to Irish politics and looks at the deep shifts associated with major socio-political changes, such as immigration, gender equality and civil society activism. Interdisciplinary in approach, it includes contributions from across history, law, sociology and political science and draws on a rich body of knowledge and original research data. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of Irish Politics, Society and History, British Politics, Peace and Conflict studies, Nationalism, and more broadly to European Politics.

Compellingly written and even-handed in its judgments, this is by far the clearest account of what has happened through the years in the Northern Ireland conflict, and why. After a chapter of background on the period from 1921 to 1963, it covers the ensuing period--the descent into violence, the hunger strikes, the Anglo-Irish accord, the bombers in England--to the present shaky peace process. Behind the deluge of information and opinion about the conflict, there is a straightforward and gripping story. Mr. McKittrick and Mr. McVea tell that story clearly, concisely, and, above all, fairly, avoiding intricate detail in favor of narrative pace and accessible prose. They describe and explain a lethal but fascinating time in Northern Ireland's history, which brought not only death, injury, and destruction but enormous political and social change. They close on an optimistic note, convinced that while peace--if it comes--will always be imperfect, a corner has now been decisively turned. The book includes a detailed chronology, statistical tables, and a glossary of terms.

This empowering guide goes beyond observable techniques to offer a close look at the creative internal processes--both cognitive and psychological--that successful mediators and other conflict resolvers draw upon.