Resolving international border disputes: The Irish experience
| Author | John Coakley |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0010836716684881 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836716684881
Cooperation and Conflict
2017, Vol. 52(3) 377 –398
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836716684881
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Resolving international
border disputes: The Irish
experience
John Coakley
Abstract
This article explores the value of a specific model of norm replacement in accounting for the
circumstances leading to Ireland’s Good Friday agreement (1998), which formally and finally settled
the long-running territorial dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK). Drawing on
the theoretical literature, it identifies three phases in this process. First, from the creation of the
Irish Free State in 1922 until the civil unrest in Northern Ireland peaked in 1972 the irredentist
norm was substantially unchallenged. It was embedded in the 1937 constitution, which defined
the national territory as extending over the whole island of Ireland – including Northern Ireland,
a part of the UK. The second phase, from about 1972 to 1998, was one of norm competition.
The irredentist norm was severely challenged by new political realities in Northern Ireland, and
was potentially destabilising for the state itself. It was increasingly challenged by an alternative
‘consent’ norm, one embracing in effect the geopolitical status quo. The third phase, from 1998
onwards, was one of consolidation of the new norm, now written into the Irish constitution
to replace the wording of 1937. The article suggests that this model plays a valuable role in
accounting for the changing status of the Irish border, but also that the Irish experience has
implications for the broad shape of the model.
Keywords
Boundary disputes, British-Irish relations, Northern Ireland, partition, territorial politics
Introduction
How do states which share a disputed frontier come eventually to an accommodation on
an agreed line of demarcation? An important recent review of the nexus between borders,
conflict and trade concluded that, while significant advances have been made in explain-
ing the endurance of territorial disputes between states, it is much more difficult to
account for the factors that facilitate the resolution of conflicts of this kind (Schultz,
Corresponding author:
John Coakley, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen’s University Belfast, BT7
1NN, United Kingdom.
Email: j.coakley@qub.ac.uk
684881CAC0010.1177/0010836716684881Cooperation and ConflictCoakley
research-article2017
Article
378 Cooperation and Conflict 52(3)
2015: 141). This article considers one such protracted stand-off that came to a sudden
end: the British–Irish dispute over the territory of Northern Ireland. This case is an
important one because of its longevity (extending from 1922 to 1998), its intensity
(marked by profoundly diverging nationalist values, sharply clashing constitutional
claims, and a violent conflict that resulted in hundreds of deaths in the 1920s and thou-
sands in the period 1968–1998), and its geopolitical location (in the otherwise relatively
peaceful northwestern corner of Europe). It also asks challenging theoretical questions:
about the structure of elite-driven ideology (the mechanics of ideological shift and the
character of elite discourse), about the nature of borders (their permeability or otherwise,
and their symbolic and substantive significance), and about the character of any settle-
ment (whether definitive, transitional, or inherently unstable).
This article tries to account for the outcome in the Irish case in the context of current
comparative research in this area, and to explore its implications for this literature. It
begins by examining recent findings on the resolution of territorial border disputes that
offer insights into the Northern Irish case. It continues by outlining the range of geopo-
litical models that have been at the core of efforts at settlement. It goes on to look at the
process by which the Irish political elite apparently moved from a preference for one of
these models to a preference for another quite different one in three phases: from inde-
pendence in 1922 to the collapse of Northern Ireland’s self-governing institutions in
1972; from then to the Good Friday agreement of 1998; and in the aftermath of the agree-
ment. It concludes by assessing the contribution of this case to broader comparative
models of territorial conflict resolution.
Of necessity, the article minimises discussion of an important background factor: the
historical relationship of political dependence of Dublin on London, a matter of obvious
importance up to 1936, but not devoid of significance since then. It also avoids address-
ing a core problem, the intercommunal conflict in Northern Ireland, except when this
impinges on the cross-border tension analysed here.1 It also focuses, again with a view to
ensuring the manageability of the topic, on the perspective of the Republic of Ireland
rather than of the United Kingdom (UK) (on changing British perspectives, see Tannam,
2001; Todd, 2014, 2016b).
Legitimising disputed boundaries
At a time when it was thought that the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the
Soviet Union would result in a proliferation of territorial disputes, observers expressed
surprise that the ultimate outcome was so peaceful. The highly visible human and eco-
nomic costs of the turmoil in such cases as Ukraine (Dragneva and Wolczuk, 2015: 100–
106) have distracted attention from the reality that there have been far fewer territorial
disputes than might have been expected. Forsberg (1998: 437–438) has identified three
approaches to explaining this, corresponding approximately to liberal, realist and construc-
tivist perspectives. The first sees the drive for territorial expansion as being undermined by
relationships between ‘trading states’, where trade relations take priority. Second, power
relations may render conflict less desirable, reducing the incentives for continuing conflict
in circumstances where neither side is prepared to budge. Third, new identity patterns may
serve to legitimise the territorial status quo (Forsberg, 1998: 437–438).
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