The Politics of Transition? Explaining Political Crises in the Implementation of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement
| Date | 01 December 2001 |
| Published date | 01 December 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00347 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Politics of Transition? Explaining
Political Crises in the Implementation
of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement
Joseph Ruane
University College Cork
Jennifer Todd
University College Dublin
The implementation of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement has been marked by recurring crises.
While each of these has its specific causes, they are symptomatic of contradictions in the under-
lying conditions of conflict. These made the Belfast Agreement possible, but they also create diffi-
culties in its implementation. The Agreement echoes – not least in its ambiguities – the underlying
contradictions, reconstituting the political terrain in terms of them. This has reproduced the
tendency toward conflict even among the supporters of the Agreement, whose different responses
and ends-in-view reflect the objective uncertainties in the situation. Political crises are likely to
continue even after the full implementation of the Agreement.
The implementation of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement has met with recur-
ring crises. These were already prefigured in the negotiations themselves, in
particular in the refusal of the second largest unionist party, the Democratic Union-
ist Party (DUP), to participate in them. At the time the Agreement was signed,
however, many looked forward to a radical diminution in the intensity of the
conflict and to the advent of a new form of politics in Northern Ireland, one based
on the acceptance of difference and cooperation in the pursuit of shared goals. The
hoped-for new politics has not yet emerged: instead the implementation of the
Agreement has been accompanied by radically different interpretations of its pro-
visions, together with delays and blockages on core issues. More than once, the entire
future of the Agreement has been in doubt.
This raises an important question, one which has hung over the Agreement virtu-
ally from the outset: are these crises a matter of transition, destined to disappear as
the new reconciliatory politics take hold, or are they already the new form of
politics – less violent than in the past, but no less conflictual and crisis-ridden? One
might attempt to address this question by examining in detail the factors that
have precipitated the crises (the failure to disarm, the resistance to police reform,
Orange marches) and assessing their potential for resolution. We adopt a different
strategy. We focus on the underlying structural conditions of conflict. We identify
the changes in those conditions that made possible the peace process and the
Belfast Agreement. We ask whether those changes have been sufficient to bring
the conflict to an end. We assess the extent to which the crises of implementation
are the product of unresolved old – or new – structural conditions.
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2001 VOL 49, 923–940
© Political Studies Association, 2001.
Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
We argue that the structural conditions which in past generated conflict have now
taken a more contradictory form. They at once open the possibility of a settlement
and reproduce the tendency toward conflict. The textual ambiguities of the Agree-
ment echo these contradictions: they made possible the Agreement, but they invite
opposing political projects from its supporters, and increase anxiety about the future
among its opponents. The crises in the implementation of the Agreement are a
symptom of these contradictions and it is likely that crises will continue within the
framework of the new institutions.
The Structural Conditions of Conflict:
a Theoretical Model
To analyse the changing structural conditions of conflict in the contemporary
period we develop further a theoretical model designed to explain the evolution of
the conflict over the longue durée. We provide a brief overview of the model in order
to clarify the extent of the changes in the recent period. The model is grounded in
two key concepts which refer to processes deeply rooted in the history of the island
of Ireland and of British-Irish relations: the concept of a ‘system of relationships’,
and that of a ‘dynamic of power’ (for fuller analysis, see Ruane and Todd, 1996,
Chapter 2).
In contrast to Scotland and Wales, the integration of Ireland into the British state
was secured by a policy of conquest and colonization by English and Scottish
Protestants. The outcome of that policy was a distinctive and enduring system of
relationships constituting two communities in Ireland in uneven relationship to the
British state. It had three components. The first was a set of overlapping cultural
distinctions: religion (Catholic vs. Protestant – a category that further subdivided
into Anglican and Presbyterian), ethnic origin (Gaelic-Irish and Old English vs.
New English and Ulster Scots), native-settler status, cultural stereotype (barbarous
vs. civil, backward vs. progressive), and, later, national allegiance (Irish vs. British).
The second consisted of a structure of dominance, dependence and inequality
which enabled the British state to control Ireland: British control was secured
through the loyalty of the Protestant settler minority whose loyalty rested in turn
on the British government’s underwriting of their dominant position over Irish
Catholics. The third component in the system of relationships was a tendency
toward communal polarization in Ireland around conflicts of identity, interests and
power.
The effect of this system of relationships was to constitute the British state as the
major power-holder in Ireland, and Irish Catholics and Protestants as culturally
distinct communities with sharply opposed interests and identities. The system had
self-reproducing tendencies. The inscription of cultural and religious differences in
differential relations of power and inequality tended to elaborate and consolidate
those differences; competition for resources and mutual threat encouraged each
community to downplay its internal differences and to form a solidary bloc in
opposition to the other; the perception of the other community as at once different
and threatening intensified the concern with power. Those in possession of power
– the British state and Irish Protestants – had a compelling interest in the status quo.
These self-reproducing tendencies enabled the system to survive, despite changes
JOSEPH RUANE, JENNIFER TODD924
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