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Territoriality, democracy and national conflict resolution in Ireland
Abstract
The nation-state ideal, centerpiece of nationalist doctrine, is seriously flawed, most obviously where reality falls well short of the assumed geographical coincidence of 'nation' and 'state'. Attempts to make reality fit the ideal can lead to serious conflicts over national identity, sovereignty and territory; and such conflicts are not amenable to 'normal' democratic resolution precisely because what is at issue is the territorial framework for the exercise of democracy as conventionally understood. Strategies to manage or resolve these conflicts have included the re-drawing of territorial borders and the partitioning or re-partitioning of states, while within given state borders there have been various consociational or power-sharing arrangements which focus on inter-communal boundaries and relations. Both types of strategy may ameliorate particular conflicts at particular times, but they can be seen as 'national solutions to a national problem' and as contradictions in terms which not surprisingly fail to deliver a solution in many cases. They 'manage' rather than 'resolve', and sometimes they fail even to 'manage' because of their built-in tendency to reproduce if not exacerbate the problems they are supposed to solve. Typically, the powers who 'manage' share the same flawed assumption as those they are 'managing'. More appropriate in such contexts are transnational strategies which stress the importance of crossing the borders between states and between national communities. Drawing on the Northern Ireland context and research into border crossings in both senses, this paper outlines the limits of territorial re-organization and of consociationalism, and argues instead that institutions which straddle territorial borders are necessary for resolving national conflict. But to facilitate genuine conflict resolution, such institutions need to be democratic both in terms of electoral representation and in wider participatory and non-territorial terms.
... Another strand places more emphasis on the 'unfinished' character of many nation-states (e.g . Spencer 1998a;Hoole 1998;Edles 1999;Anderson and Hamilton 1999;Yean 1999). The tendency among students of politics has been to invest 'the nation-state' with quasi-mystical powers irrespective of the actual capacity of real states. ...
Kosovo: The Politics of Identity and Space explores the Albanian-Serbian confrontation after Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power and the policy of repression in Kosovo through the lens of the Kosovo education system. The argument is woven around the story of imposed ethnic segregation in Kosovo's education, and its impact on the emergence of exclusive notions of nation and homeland among the Serbian and Albanian youth in the 1990s. The book also critically explores the wider context of the Albanian non-violent resistance, including the emergence of the parallel state and its weaknesses. Kosovo: The Politics of Identity and Space not only provides an insight into events that led to the bloodshed in Kosovo in the late 1990s, but also shows that the legacy of segregation is one of the major challenges the international community faces in its efforts to establish an integrated multi-ethnic society in the territory.
In the study of deeply divided societies much emphasis is placed upon the role of the state in generating, controlling and supressing social and political conflict. An alternative emphasis is found in the view that politics in states with divided societies must be concerned with community building, accommodation and the removal of the roots of conflict. In developing this view the theories and structures of consociational democracy have been much discussed since they were outlined by Arendt Lijphart in 1968.Application of the principles of consociationalism to conflict ridden Northern Ireland serves only to highlight its limitations as a means of conflict resolution. Yet the study of the politics of accommodation in Northern Ireland since 1972 through a growing range of consociational policies in local government, education, employment and the voluntary sector points to significant social change. Cross community interaction prioritising non-political and non-constitutional issues set in a variety of non-sectarian contexts has burgeoned and created a social and cultural diversity rarely acknowledged in writings on Northern Ireland.While it can be demonstrated that fundamental social change has occurred the significance of such change for the resolution of conflict and overarching constitutional reform is more difficult to assess. It is concluded that the importance of social change in Northern Ireland lies not so much in the arena of constitutional reform as in its effect upon the para-military groups to sustain successfully violent conflict over a protracted period of time in the future.