The Liberal Peace at Home and Abroad: Northern Ireland and Liberal Internationalism
| Author | Roger Mac Ginty |
| Published date | 01 November 2009 |
| Date | 01 November 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2009.00385.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Liberal Peace at Home and Abroad:
Northern Ireland and Liberal
Internationalismbjpi_385690..708
Roger Mac Ginty
Northern Ireland, we are told, holds positive lessons for other societies emerging from violent
conflict. As Britain is one of the leading proponents of liberal internationalism, this article considers
whether the liberal internationalism pushed with so much enthusiasm abroad through British
foreign policy has been applied with diligence at home—in the Northern Ireland peace process. The
findings suggest that Northern Ireland is by no means a poster child for liberal internationalism.
Instead, British government handling of the Northern Ireland peace process shows serious devia-
tions from the liberal internationalist canon. This article argues that liberal peace-lite has been
tolerated and facilitated at home, while a stricter variant is often expected in overseas contexts.
Keywords: liberal peace; peacemaking; Northern Ireland
Introduction
One of Tony Blair’s last acts as prime minister was to help engineer the resumption
of a devolved power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland. This seemed
fitting for a prime minister who had invested so much energy in the peace process.
Many commentators noted how Blair’s Northern Ireland experience would prove a
useful grounding for his subsequent work as a Middle East envoy (Wintour and
Black 2007). The notion that the Northern Ireland peace process holds positive
lessons for other societies emerging from protracted conflict has been seized upon
enthusiastically by British and Irish political leaders, politicians from Northern
Ireland, media commentators and academics (Guelke 2008). While most, like
former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, are realistic enough to note that ‘no two
conflicts are exactly the same and no two solutions will ever be alike’, the essential
message is that we ‘can share our past experience and newfound hope with others
who are caught up in conflict’ (Ahern 2007). The theme that Northern Ireland
‘holds a lesson for conflict everywhere’ was made repeatedly by Blair (Blair 2006
and 2007). This article seeks to analyse critically the notion of the transferability of
lessons from Northern Ireland by placing British government handling of the
Northern Ireland peace process in the context of wider British foreign policy. Much
of British foreign policy from the mid-1990s onwards (a time coterminous with the
Northern Ireland peace process) could be characterised as liberal internationalism.
This article seeks to address the following question: was the liberal internationalism
in British foreign policy reflected in the British government’s peace process strategy
‘at home’?
The British Journal of
Politics and International Relations
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2009.00385.x BJPIR: 2009 VOL 11, 690–708
© 2009 The Author.Journal compilation © 2009 Political Studies Association
There can be no doubting the successes of the Northern Ireland peace process. The
mechanism has allowed the protagonists to bring to an end a violent conflict
(approximately 3,500 deaths over 25 years) and has spared governments, commu-
nities, businesses and individuals further years of missed opportunities and the
attendant human indignities. But the peace process was by no means an unalloyed
success. Not only did it involve many setbacks, but it was marked by a series of
uncomfortable moral and practical compromises: the early release of paramilitary
prisoners, the inclusion of political parties with armed wings in negotiations and
then the Assembly, and the quiet dropping of judicial scrutiny of British govern-
ment sponsorship of loyalist paramilitaries, etc. In one sense all peacemaking
processes in complex ethno-national disputes must involve compromise and we
would be naïve to expect some sort of stain-free process. Yet, in another sense, the
British government has established itself as one of the leading states in the inter-
national promotion of conflict resolution and peace-building. It has adopted an
interventionist foreign policy and, through its liberal internationalism, has been
involved in peace promotion in multiple contexts during the Blair era and beyond.
As a result, British government conflict management strategy in Northern Ireland
deserves critical scrutiny, particularly in relation to the similarities and divergences
between the promotion of the liberal peace at home and abroad.
Most studies of liberal internationalism look outwards from the global north to the
sites of civil war. This article seeks to invert the usual approach. It uses liberal
internationalism as an analytical device to present a critical appraisal of a peace
process close to the centre. Since Britain has been, and still is, a leading proponent
of liberal internationalism it is legitimate to ask if the principles of the liberal
internationalism preached so enthusiastically abroad were adhered to at home. The
article is in part inspired by a polemical essay by M. L. R. Smith (1999, 77–97)
which admonished the academic community for its failure to make connections
between the Northern Ireland conflict and wider academic debates. Decrying the
‘intellectual internment’ of the conflict, Smith noted that ‘international relations
scholars and analysts of the Northern Ireland crisis have passed each other like ships
in the night: wending their respective ways, one barely cognisant of the other, with
no, or at least very minimal, cross-fertilization of ideas’ (Smith 1999, 81).
This article can be read as a modest attempt to redress Northern Ireland’s intellec-
tual insularity. It deliberately connects with a wider academic (and policy) debate—
that on liberal internationalism—and seeks to provide a critique of British
government handling of its peace process at home in order to assess the utility of
the ‘Northern Ireland model’ abroad. It begins with a critical overview of liberal
internationalism or ‘the liberal peace’, and then makes the case that Britain can be
seen as a leading exponent of the liberal peace. By identifying five key themes in
liberal internationalism (security and stability, reinforcing statehood, democratic
governance, sustainability of a peace settlement and the promotion of free markets)
it is possible to reflect on the extent to which liberal internationalist best practice
can be found in British government conflict management strategy in contemporary
Northern Ireland and overseas. It is argued that British government peace promo-
tion efforts in Northern Ireland can be described as ‘liberal peace-lite’ or a compro-
mised version of the liberal peace. This finding prompts questions on Britain’s role
as proselytiser-in-chief for liberal internationalism.
LIBERAL PEACE AT HOME AND ABROAD 691
© 2009 The Author.Journal compilation © 2009 Political Studies Association
BJPIR, 2009, 11(4)
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