Dimensionality of Policy Space in Consociational Northern Ireland
| Author | Jonathan Wheatley,Neil Matthews,John Garry |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321716658917 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321716658917
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(2) 493 –511
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321716658917
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Dimensionality of Policy Space
in Consociational Northern
Ireland
John Garry1, Neil Matthews1 and
Jonathan Wheatley2
Abstract
A criticism of consociational power sharing as an institutional response to violent conflict is that
it buttresses rather than ameliorates the underlying (linguistic, religious or ethno-national) divide,
hence prohibiting the emergence of new dimensions of political competition (such as economic
left-right or moral liberal-conservative dimensions) that are characteristic of ‘normal’ societies.
We test this argument in the context of the illustrative Northern Ireland case, using data from
expert coding of party policy documents and opinion data derived from two Voter Advice
Applications (VAAs). We find evidence for a moral liberal-conservative dimension of politics in
addition to the ethno-national dimension. Hence, we caution against assuming that consociational
polities are unidimensional.
Keywords
post-conflict democracy, consociation, multidimensional politics, Northern Ireland, liberal-
conservative dimension
Accepted: 11 May 2016
One response to violent conflict in deeply divided places is to implement consociational
power-sharing arrangements. Political parties from the opposing groups in society enter
an inclusive coalition government, and each group is given a right of veto over important
legislation that may adversely affect their particular community. There is quite a heated
normative debate over the merits and demerits of the power-sharing approach to conflict
resolution.1 Proponents argue that it is a system that is most likely to generate a secure and
peaceful polity in which all groups are included in decision-making. Critics argue that
1School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
2 Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d) and Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA),
University of Zurich, Aarau, Switzerland
Corresponding author:
John Garry, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, 25 University
Square, Belfast BT7 1PB, UK.
Email: j.garry@qub.ac.uk
658917PSX0010.1177/0032321716658917Political StudiesGarry et al.
research-article2016
Article
494 Political Studies 65 (2)
because power sharing is based on recognising and giving veto rights to distinct rival
social groups, the institutional arrangements simply cement and prolong the underlying
division in society. Accordingly, other possible political debates that are associated with
‘normal’ societies are prohibited from developing, leaving post-conflict societies forever
languishing in divide-based politics.
However, there are counter-arguments, suggesting that implementing consociational
government may enable other dimensions to emerge. First, power-sharing arrangements
may incentivise movement by formerly violent parties in a moderate direction in order to
gain votes and executive power in proportion to those votes. This may lead to within-bloc
party similarity and a perceived need by parties to differentiate themselves on other pol-
icy dimensions.2 Second, arriving at a negotiated consociational settlement may signify
acceptance of the legitimacy of the state by all major relevant actors and acceptance of the
legitimacy of the resulting power-sharing government. This resulting government must
make decisions on a range of policy themes, hence raising the salience of those non-
divide issue dimensions.3
Here, we focus on the illustrative case of post-2007 Northern Ireland as a fully func-
tioning consociational power-sharing polity and examine the dimensionality of policy
space.4 Are the critics of consociation right in arguing that there is likely to be only one
dimension of competition? Specifically, is the underlying ethno-national divide (between
Protestant unionists who favour Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom
and Catholic nationalists who favour a united Ireland) the only strong attitudinal dimen-
sion in citizens’ minds and the only dimension driving party competition and vote choice?
Or, do Northern Ireland citizens and parties adopt distinct positions on other dimensions
of competition and is vote behaviour driven by these issue areas? Despite often being
characterised politically as a land of ‘green’ versus ‘orange’ issues, a cursory following of
post-2007 Northern Ireland current affairs suggests that economics and morality are core
aspects of political debate. Welfare reform has divided the parties and has brought the
political institutions to the brink of collapse. The issue of same-sex marriage has led to the
resignation of a minister and much inter-party disagreement on an associated ‘conscience
clause’ bill. Are these issues indicative of important underlying dimensions of competi-
tion on economic (left-right) and moral (liberal-conservative) matters?
We begin by elaborating our general expectations regarding policy dimensionality
under Northern Ireland’s consociational conditions and specifying our research questions.
We then describe our sources of data (expert coding that we conducted of party policy
documents and opinion data from two Voter Advice Applications (VAAs) that we pro-
duced). We then report the extent to which non-ethno-national attitudinal dimensions
structure citizens’ attitudes and the extent to which the political parties offer distinct posi-
tions on these dimensions. Furthermore, we examine whether citizens choose parties on
the basis of non-ethno-national dimensions. In theory, if the economic or moral dimen-
sions were very politically salient for citizens and parties were different from each other
on these dimensions, citizens might vote ‘across the divide’, with Catholics voting for one
of the unionist parties (or Protestants voting for one of the nationalist parties). However,
given the rarity of cross ethnic voting, we examine the possible electoral importance of a
non-ethno-national dimension in two ways: Does it predict within-bloc voting (i.e. which
particular nationalist party a Catholic votes for, or which particular unionist party a
Protestant votes for) and does it predict outside-bloc voting (do Catholics and Protestants
who vote for the bi-communal Alliance party do so on the basis of ideological dimensions
such as economics and morality)?
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