Brendan O'Leary

University of Pennsylvania | UP · Department of Political Science

The book examines the law and politics of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, attached to the Withdrawal Agreement, which regulates the terms of Brexit. The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland deals with the most complex issue which emerged during the withdrawal negotiations between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU), namely...

The book examines the law and politics of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, attached to the Withdrawal Agreement, which regulates the terms of Brexit. The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland deals with the most complex issue which emerged during the withdrawal negotiations between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU), namely...

The author argues there is no such thing as a "normal democracy", and that the decision made by the European Court of Human Rights in Sejdić-Finci case does not pay enough respect to consociational democracy as one of the legitimate forms of democracy. As human rights have to be balanced against one another, they also have to be balanced against ot...

How much public and elite support is there for the use of a citizens’ assembly – a random selection of citizens brought together to consider a policy issue – to tackle major, deadlock-inducing disagreements in deeply divided places with consociational political institutions? We focus on Northern Ireland and use evidence from a cross-sectional attit...

This interim report asks for academic and public reactions.. See paragraph 54 of the report to read a short list of questions to which we would especially welcome responses, and the details of where to send submissions. ISBN: 978-1-903903-89-6

A report on possible future referendums on Irish unification by constitutional lawyers, political scientists, sociologists and former public officials Paragraph 54 provides a short list of questions to which responses would be especially welcome before January 18 2021: details of where to send submissions by e-mail are at the same paragraph

The European Union (EU) is not a state, though it has some statelike attributes ; it is not an empire, though it includes many former European imperial powers; and it is not a federation, though Euro-federalists seek to make it one. There is, however, no need to argue that the Union is a singularity, nor to invent novel terminology, such as that de...

We empirically identify the considered views of the Northern Ireland public on the relative merits of two possible models of a united Ireland: an integrated united Ireland in which Northern Ireland is absorbed into an all-island polity, and a united Ireland in which Northern Ireland continues to exist as a devolved entity. We use data from a specia...

The paper assesses public attitudes in Northern Ireland towards the potential hardening of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as a result of the UK’s exit from the European Union. It investigates the relationship between border-related anxieties and support for a United Ireland. The study draws on specially designed qua...

Consociation, one type of power‐sharing, is perhaps the least appreciated. This article reviews and replies to a collection celebrating Arend Lijphart’s pioneering article on consociational democracy published in 1969. The consociational perspective retains its interpretive power, including in the examination of major polities, such as the European...

The formation of Northern Ireland is treated in this chapter. Contrary to subsequent misrepresentation, Northern Ireland was not a state, but a devolved government within the UK, with limited powers. Despite Craig’s and the UUP’s pledges of fair and impartial government, Northern Ireland had fiery and partisan beginnings, marked by pogroms and dead...

This chapter contrasts the colonial and “sectarianized peoples” interpretations of modern Irish history, defining and defending the former while noting that the latter frequently displays “observational equivalence” with the former. Jürgen Osterhammel’s conception of colonialism is shown to be applicable and apposite, as are those of a range of thi...

This chapter examines how and when the Irish Free State went from partial to full political decolonization. It argues that Collins’s stepping-stone theory of the Treaty of 1921 would be proved correct, but that de Valéra and Childers and their allies also correctly observed the deficiencies of that treaty. The fate of southern Protestants is examin...

This chapter explains the development of the concepts of consociation and arbitration in political science. Full consociations reference political systems characterized by parity, proportionality, autonomy, and veto powers among the several parties to the pact. There are, however, important variations in the manner and the extent to which consociat...

This chapter examines Ireland’s political experience during the first half of the Union. Among the subjects surveyed are the long delay in Catholic emancipation, the continuation of administrative colonialism, and the emergence of fiscal dependence and highly uneven economic development that culminated in the Great Famine. The latter’s significance...

Classical typologies of polities often assumed that the rulers and the ruled are co-ethnics. They focused on whether rulers ruled in their own interests or in that of their subjects. Liberal thinkers, by contrast, focused on how to check or balance rulers, either though the separation of powers, or through representative democracy. Yet neither the...

O’Leary’s authoritative treatment of the history of Northern Ireland and its current prospects is genuinely unique. Beginning with an in-depth account of the scale of the recent conflict, he sets out to explain why Northern Ireland recently had the highest incidence of political violence in twentieth-century western Europe. Volume 1 demonstrates th...

The puzzle addressed in this chapter is why one British government intervened in Northern Ireland in 1969 and why another eventually resorted to direct rule in 1972. British conduct in this period stands out in comparison with the inactivity of their predecessors during similar historical junctures when the Ulster Unionist Party had been able to re...

At the start of 1959, when Sean Lemass became Ireland’s prime minister, Northern Ireland’s UUP looked fully in control, having quickly defeated an IRA campaign that had begun in 1956 and sputtered out in 1961. Yet just over a decade later the UUP’s control collapsed under the pressure of a civil-rights movement and its consequences. How this unexpe...

This chapter demonstrates the significance of the First World War in the partial successes of Irish republicanism and Ulster unionism. The run-up to the 1916 Rising was preceded by significant evidence of declining support for Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party. The 1916 Rising, British wartime policy, and the elections of 1918 are examined to dem...

This chapter provides a systematic and partly comparative survey of the scale of political violence in Northern Ireland 1966–2006, with some additional materials related to the broader costs of the conflict. Graphs and charts depict primary patterns of violence, victims of violence, agents held responsible for violence, the human and economic costs...

This chapter portrays the formation of early modern Ireland through to the formation and defeat of the United Irishmen. The conquest, and three subsequent reconquests, of Ulster and Ireland over two centuries, and their legacies, are traced. The reactive fusion of the Gaelic Irish and the Old English in the first manifestations of modern Irish nati...

RRThis chapter clarifies the concept of partition, and then evaluates the partition of Ireland, comparing it with the colonial partitions of Palestine and British India, as well as other cases. Types of partition are carefully distinguished, and explanations for their emergence are evaluated, as well as the justifications that usually accompany the...

In the latter half of the Union, participation crises occurred across the institutional spectrum, with many Irish men and women choosing exit rather than voice or loyalty. That, however, produced a better-resourced Irish diaspora in an emergent great power. Catholics achieved some limited social mobility, but experienced regression in some occupati...

This chapter explains how both the IRA and the DUP were fully incorporated into the 1998 Agreement, even if the former saw it as transitional, whereas the latter pretended it was not working within its provisions. The striking success of simply having a sustained period of cooperative power-sharing is celebrated, and a full comparison is made with...

The making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) of 1985 is examined in detail, and interpretations of its significance are assessed. Was the AIA simply a form of inter-governmentalism, or was it tacitly or unintentionally a project to incentivize unionists to favor power-sharing? That is, is it best interpreted as a coercive way of promoting consocia...

The return of direct rule to Northern Ireland in 1972 and its mechanisms and conduct are outlined in this chapter. Their impact upon the local political party system is treated at length, as are the first consociational initiatives pursued under Conservative and Labour governments in the UK. The failure of the first peace process is considered, as...

O’Leary’s authoritative treatment of the history of Northern Ireland and its current prospects is genuinely unique. Beginning with an in-depth account of the scale of the recent conflict, he sets out to explain why Northern Ireland recently had the highest incidence of political violence in twentieth-century western Europe. Volume 1 demonstrates th...

The concluding chapter critically reviews the role of European integration in improving British-Irish relations, and in the making of the Good Friday Agreement. Four major votes across Northern Ireland between 2016 and 2017 are surveyed, paying particular attention to the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Predictions are made about the future of No...

O’Leary’s authoritative treatment of the history of Northern Ireland and its current prospects is genuinely unique. Beginning with an in-depth account of the scale of the recent conflict, he sets out to explain why Northern Ireland recently had the highest incidence of political violence in twentieth-century western Europe. Volume 1 demonstrates th...

This chapter provides a detailed account of the contents and significance of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and of its consociational and non-consociational components. It conforms to all aspects of a consociational settlement—namely, parity, proportionality, autonomy, and veto rights among the partners—but it is not just a consociat...

This chapter describes and explains the emergence and development of the Irish peace process. It discusses how the previously suspended inter-party and intergovernmental talks begun under the auspices of the Anglo-Irish Agreement were melded with that process. The Framework Documents that anticipated the 1998 Agreement are analysed, as well as the...

This chapter emphasizes how the Second World War unexpectedly stabilized the system of control in Northern Ireland. In the late 1930s the Northern government, like that of Newfoundland, faced possible bankruptcy, and the UUP leadership looked stale and challenged. At the same time, independent Ireland was showing evidence of consolidation of its so...

The literature on belief systems in mass publics shows that survey respondents typically have difficulty in describing their images of political parties; only about half offer a meaningful description of how they see individual parties. This paper investigates what people in Northern Ireland think that parties stand for in their home jurisdiction,...

Recent referendums show that autocratic regimes consult voters even if the outcome is a foregone conclusion. They have been doing so with increasing frequency since Napoleon consulted French citizens in 1800. Why and when do dictatorial regimes hold referendums they are certain they will win? Analysing the 162 referendums held in autocratic and non...

ABSTRACT The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was reached just over 20 years ago. This article introduces a special issue devoted to appraising its subsequent trajectory. It provides a brief resumé of the Agreement’s contents as a peace agreement, and as a regional consociation with confederal and federal possibilities. The outworkings and partial...

People in Northern Ireland want the UK to stay in the customs union and single market new research on public attitudes reveals Strictly Embargoed: 00.01am Monday 21 May Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast conducted in-depth analysis of public attitudes to Brexit in Northern Ireland and key findings from their report: Northern Ireland and t...

Walker Connor was born in 1926, and was contemporaneous with my own father, so not surprisingly he was a father figure to me. Unlike my own father Walker made it past 90. Those of us privileged to have been Walker's friend will miss his mischievous humor and twinkling eyes, and his fondness for combining rich conversation with craft beers. Indeed h...

Northern Ireland and Scotland could and should stay within the European Union while remaining inside the United Kingdom. This proposal need not prevent, and may facilitate, England and Wales in leaving the EU, and it is in accordance with the respective preferences of the peoples of the two Unions who voted in the advisory referendum held on 23 Jun...

This article updates the author's article which opens this issue, and responds to the other contributions. Composed over the winter of 2011–2012, the opening paper was commissioned for a private conference held in Europe. The difficulties academics from Israel or Palestine (and elsewhere) experience in convening to discuss the subject matter explai...

This paper reviews the deep difficulties entailed in achieving a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It shows that there are equally deep difficulties in seeking to achieve standard power-sharing prescriptions in the region. The status quo, however, is neither acceptable nor likely to be stable in the medium term....

Power-sharing coalitions in deeply divided places can take centripetal or consociational forms. Respectively, these aim to foster moderation and inclusivity by restricting coalitions to moderate parties or proportionately to incorporate the main political forces. Using the case of Northern Ireland (1973–2015), this article assesses the merits of a...

There are dangerous sparks and embers of national, ethnic, and cultural conflict throughout the continent, capable of causing new conflicts and reanimating old ones, but they are mostly subdued by historical standards.

Northern Ireland’s consociational institutions were reviewed by a committee of its Assembly in 2012–13. The arguments of both critics and exponents of the arrangements are of general interest to scholars of comparative politics, powersharing and constitutional design. The authors of this article review the debates and evidence on the d’Hondt rule o...

In 2005, after the making of the Constitution of Iraq and the making of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, many analysts expected the imminent break-up of Iraq, and that the South Sudanese would eventually opt for federalism and power-sharing rather than secede from Sudan. Six remarkable parallels in the histories of Iraq and Sudan suggest that...

Northern Ireland’s consociational institutions were reviewed by a committee of its Assembly in 2012-13. The arguments of both critics and exponents of the arrangements are of general interest to scholars of comparative politics, powersharing and constitutional design. The authors of this article review the debates and evidence on the d’Hondt rule o...

The Mafia makes offers that cannot be refused. In one peace process a politician was once accused of making offers that no one could understand (O'Leary 1990). Do these statements explain the difference between power and power sharing? Is power coercive capacity, whereas power sharing is incomprehensible?. Copyright

We consider the use of consociational arrangements to manage ethno-nationalist, ethno-linguistic, and ethno-religious conflicts, and their compatibility with nondiscrimination and equality norms. Key questions include to what extent, if any, consociations conflict with the dictates of global justice and the liberal individualist preferences of inte...

Power sharing may be broadly defined as any set of arrangements that prevents one political agency or collective from monopolizing power, whether temporarily or permanently. Ideally, such measures promote inclusiveness or at least the coexistence of divergent cultures within a state. In places deeply divided by national, ethnic, linguistic, or reli...

Leading analysts of power sharing have presented some of their recent and current research in this volume. They were not requested to provide comparative and empirical case studies directly to test commonly held hypotheses about power sharing; and they were not asked to supply case studies to illuminate mechanisms and processes that explain the cor...

Political partitions should be carefully distinguished from secessions, de-colonizations and disengage-mentsdthough they may accompany these phenomena. Political partitions involve a fresh cut, an at least partially novel border, ripped through at least one national community's homeland. Partitions of national and multinational polities may be dist...

This chapter examines the relevance of Arend Lijphart’s theory of consociation to self-determination disputes. A self-determination dispute is an empirically testable phenomenon that revolves around discrete national identities and rival nationalist movements. The division over nationality is the key political division. The region’s dominant politi...

This book had its origins in a conference titled ‘Beyond the Nation?’ The question mark was appropriate. Nations, as vehicles of popular sovereignty and as subjects of collective self-determination, are not about to be superseded by novel postnational formats — at least not everywhere, not even in most of Europe. The empirical picture that confront...

This article questions the widely held assumption that pluri-national federations are likely to break down or break apart. It shows that the case against pluri-national federalism needs to be substantively qualified, and then outlines the conditions that facilitate successful pluri-national federations. The argument is preliminary in nature, but su...

The political and military scene in Iraq is best described as a series of truces. All parties await America’s exit, and all will try to steer it in their favor. President Barack Obama’s moment can be used either to guide Iraq toward a successful federation or to preside over a failed transfer of power, one in which the United States, with bungled i...