Irish-America, the End of the IRA's Armed Struggle and the Utility of `Soft Power'
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343307075123 |
| Author | Feargal Cochrane |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
215
The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann has for-
mally ordered an end to the armed campaign. All
IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All
volunteers have been instructed to assist the
development of purely political and democratic
programmes through exclusively peaceful means.
Volunteers must not engage in any other activi-
ties whatsoever. (IRA statement, 28 July 2005)1
There is no doubt, whatsoever, that without
Irish-America this could never have succeeded.
(Martin McGuinness, quoted in O’Dowd,
2005a)
Introduction
This article argues that Irish-America played
a vital role in the decision of the Provisional
IRA to announce the end of its paramilitary
campaign in July 2005 and that, over time,
‘soft power’ (Nye, 2000, 2004a,b; Miall,
Ramsbotham & Woodhouse, 1999: 10),
namely, the use of influence, persuasion and
encouragement based on credibility and trust,
managed to achieve what ‘hard power’ (the
© 2007 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 44, no. 2, 2007, pp. 215–231
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
and Singapore) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343307075123
Irish-America, the End of the IRA’s Armed
Struggle and the Utility of ‘Soft Power’*
FEARGAL COCHRANE
Richardson Institute for Peace and Conflict Research, Lancaster University
This article examines the changing role of Irish-America in the Northern Ireland peace process and con-
tends that it played a pivotal role in the Provisional IRA’s announcement in July 2005 that it was ending
its campaign of violence. It is argued here that the IRA decision to end its campaign was influenced con-
siderably by three separate but interrelated factors: (1) the internationalization of Northern Ireland by
successive US governments beyond the limits of domestic UK politics; (2) the evolution of the Irish-
American political lobby in the 1990s, from outcome-driven objectives to process-driven and attainable
goals; and (3) the current leadership of the Irish republican movement has orientated itself around the
changing social fabric of Irish-America, which is smaller and less cohesive than in the past. More broadly,
the article demonstrates the way in which the dynamics of internal conflict can be altered by external
actors via the use of ‘soft power’ strategies, in a manner that can assist the development of a peace process.
* The author would like to express his appreciation to the
three anonymous referees and JPR Editor Nils Petter
Gleditsch for their helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of the
manuscript. Correspondence regarding the article should be
sent to the author at f.cochrane@lancaster.ac.uk.The article
is based on original research conducted in New Yorkduring
August and September 2004. Thirty-five semi-structured
interviews were conducted in New Yorkbetween 27 August
and 29 September 2004. Interviews were generally of
between 1 and 2 hours’ duration. Interviewees wereselected
from among NGO activists, journalists, academics and
immigration lawyers, as well as representatives of the Irish
Consulate in New York, the administration of New York
Governor George Pataki, the NewYork Police Department
and from among the Irish republican community.
1The July statement of intent to decommission was fol-
lowed on 26 September 2005 by the following declaration
by the IRA: ‘The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann
announced on 28 July that we had authorised our repre-
sentative to engage with the IICD to complete the process
to verifiably put arms beyond use. The IRA leadership can
now confirm that the process of putting our arms verifiably
beyond use has been completed.’ See http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/
othelem/organ/ira/ira260905.htm.
use of force, coercion, compulsion) had been
unable to secure for over a generation.
In a precursor to the IRA statement of July
2005, Sinn Fein (SF) President Gerry Adams
summarized the logic of the republican posi-
tion in a high-profile speech on 6 April that
laid the foundations for the later announce-
ment by the IRA. Essentially, this claimed
that armed struggle had in the past been the
only means of resistance available to republi-
cans but that circumstances had changed
such that republican objectives could now be
pursued through purely political methods:
For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the
British government could not rule Ireland on
its own terms....That struggle can now be
taken forward by other means.... Now there
is an alternative [to armed struggle]. I have
clearly set out my view of what that alternative
is. The way forward is by building political
support for republican and democratic objec-
tives across Ireland and by winning support for
these goals internationally. (CAIN, 2005)
This article charts the internationalization
of the Northern Ireland conflict from the
Carter administration through that of George
W. Bush, arguing that the evolution of the
Irish-American lobby, from its demands for
immediate British withdrawal from Northern
Ireland to its role as cheerleader and core-
funder of incremental peaceful change, facili-
tated a constructive engagement with the US
administration. The capacity of the Irish-
American political lobby to open (and close)
doors for Irish republicanism at the highest
levels of the US administration altered the
structure of a predominantly internal ethno-
national conflict, which in turn provided the
dynamic that lies at the heart of the IRA deci-
sion to decommission its weapons.
The Utility of Soft Power
Joseph Nye has written extensively about soft
power (Nye, 1990, 2000, 2004a,b). While
his focus was primarily on interstate relations,
his distinction between direct or hard power
and indirect or soft power applies equally
to intrastate dynamics and encapsulates the
complex relationships between the Irish repub-
lican movement, Irish-America and the US
administration during the 1990s. Nye argues
that soft power is less visible than hard power
and is characterized not by coercion or threat,
but by the power to influence others and to
frame the agenda. ‘It is just as important to set
the agenda and attract others in world politics
as it is to force them to change through the
threat or use of military or economic weapons.
This soft power – getting others to want the
outcomes that you want – co-opts people
rather than coerces them’ (Nye, 2004b: 5).
Nye’s conceptualization is by no means the
only or the definitive explanation of power.
For example, Boulding used the terms ‘threat’,
‘exchange’ and ‘integrative’ power for similar
purposes, claiming that while the realist focus
tended to be placed on the threat power of
coercion, ‘the evidence is very strong that inte-
grative power is the most important of the
three’ (Boulding, 1989: 51). From this per-
spective, threat power is coercive and destruc-
tive and exchange power is based on the
dynamics of trade, mutual contracts and reci-
procal cooperation, while integrative power
has a more emotional and organic basis, where
human relationships extend beyond respect
into friendship and even love (Boulding,
1989: 29).
While these are complementary definitions,
Nye’s concept of soft power explains the role of
Irish-America in Northern Ireland more accu-
rately than Boulding’s concept of integrative
power, which alludes to ‘love’ as a dynamic in
the relationship. The slippage in Boulding’s
theory between integrative power as embody-
ing love, as well as respect, is unsuitable as an
explanation of the relationship between Irish-
America, the Clinton administration and the
Provisional IRA. This was a relationship
based on a growth of mutual respect, but also
founded upon a cold calculation of advantage
by all parties. While respect and friendship
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 44 / number 2 / March 2007
216
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