Do peace negotiations shape settlement referendums? The Annan Plan and Good Friday Agreement experiences compared

DOI10.1177/0010836717737569
AuthorJoana Amaral
Published date01 September 2018
Date01 September 2018
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717737569
Cooperation and Conflict
2018, Vol. 53(3) 356 –374
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836717737569
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Do peace negotiations shape
settlement referendums?
The Annan Plan and Good
Friday Agreement experiences
compared
Joana Amaral
Abstract
Peace negotiations have traditionally aimed at reaching a negotiated settlement between political
representatives in conflict settings. However, these settlements have seldom been rejected in
referendums. This article uncovers whether the way peace negotiations are conducted influences
peace settlement referendum outcomes in order to determine if and how they can better foster
public support for peace settlements. It analyses and compares if and how specific characteristics
of the Annan Plan and the Good Friday Agreement negotiations influenced the rejection of the
former in 2004, and the acceptance of the latter in 1998, in their respective referendums in Cyprus
and Northern Ireland. Through the qualitative analysis of elite interviews and documental data,
it demonstrates that political inclusivity, civil society engagement and the public exposure of the
negotiations shaped the opposing outcomes of the two cases, as well as differences in the support
given by the local communities. It argues that peace settlement referendums require less secretive
and more inclusive negotiation processes, which can better foster political support and civic
mobilisation, and inform and engage the wider communities at earlier stages of the peace process.
Keywords
Civil society, Cyprus, negotiation, Northern Ireland, peace settlement, referendum
Introduction
Peace agreement, or settlement, referendums take place at a crucial juncture in a peace
process. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) referendum put to the vote a peace settle-
ment painstakingly negotiated by the majority of Northern Ireland’s political parties. The
71.12% victory of the ‘yes’ vote in May 1998 was an important turning point in the
transformation of the Northern Irish conflict. The rejection of the Annan Plan in April
Corresponding author:
Joana Amaral, Centre for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg, Ketzerbach 11, 35032 Marburg, Germany.
Email: joana.amaral@staff.uni-marburg.de
737569CAC0010.1177/0010836717737569Cooperation and ConflictAmaral
research-article2018
Article
Amaral 357
2004, on the other hand, represented a major setback to the decades-long peacemaking
process in Cyprus. The settlement aimed at allowing for the island to become a European
Union (EU) member as a united country, but failed to receive the support of the Greek
Cypriot community. The island, therefore, remained divided and the conflict has never
since been as close to a solution.
While there is extensive research and literature on how negotiations processes can be
more conducive to peace settlements being reached or implemented, little is yet known
about whether and how they can foster public support when a referendum is used, or
required, to ratify them. The greater volume of research on what determines a referendum
outcome has been done through quantitative research methods, such as public opinion
polling, on European integration referendums. It greatly focuses on factors that emerge
during referendum campaign periods and how they shape voting behaviours. They tell us
that referendum results are shaped by political leaders’ public positioning and framing of
the issues at stake in the referendum (Baun et al., 2006; Hobolt, 2006; Lubbers, 2008;
Pierce et al., 1983), the organisation and strength of the referendum campaigns (Gilland,
2002; Schneider and Weitsman, 1996; Strauss, 1993) or the degree of public information
about the issues at stake in the referendum (Hobolt, 2007; Leduc, 2002). However, they
do not investigate whether and how a negotiation process (of the European treaties, for
example) might shape those determinants.
Existing analyses of the Annan Plan and GFA negotiations and referendums reflect that
wider gap in the literature. Here, with a few exceptions (Kaymak 2012; Michael 2007),
authors who analyse why the Annan Plan negotiations ‘failed’ and the GFA negotiations
‘succeeded’, seldom consider the referendum campaign period and its impact on the ‘suc-
cessful’ or ‘failed’ referendum result. Studies of voting behaviours or the campaigns in
each of the referendums, on the other hand, do not investigate if the negotiations process
shaped them (Hayes and McAllister, 2001; Lordos 2008; Webster and Lordos, 2006;
Somerville and Kirby, 2012).
This article bridges this gap by exploring and comparing if and how specific character-
istics of the Annan Plan and GFA negotiations had an impact on those aspects that refer-
endums literature has found to shape referendum outcomes. It compares how the degree
of secrecy, political party inclusion and civil society engagement with the negotiations
shaped the referendum campaign periods and, ultimately, the referendum results, in each
of the cases. The qualitative study of each of the cases is based on the analysis of interview
data collected in Cyprus and Northern Ireland during the first semester of 2014. The tes-
timonies collected are from key political figures and representatives of civil society groups
who were involved in the negotiations and/or the referendum campaigns in both cases, as
well as local journalists. The comparison shows that the secretive and exclusionist nature
of the Annan Plan negotiations process and the comparatively less secretive and more
politically and civically inclusive GFA negotiations process shaped their opposing refer-
endum results. It further shows that support was higher in the communities where more
political parties and/or civil society were, directly or informally, included in the negotia-
tions. The study, therefore, demonstrates that the way through which peace negotiations
are conducted has an impact on referendum experiences and results. It argues that, when
a resulting peace agreement will require ratification by the people in a referendum, peace
negotiations need to be more open, representative and participatory processes.

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