1st Edition
Dynamics of Political Change in Ireland Making and Breaking a Divided Island
This book examines the interrelated dynamics of political action, ideology and state structures in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, emphasising the wider UK and European contexts in which they are nested. It makes a significant and unique contribution to wider European and international debates over state and nation and contested borders, looking at the dialectic between political action and institutions, examining party politics, ideological struggle and institutional change. It goes beyond the binary approaches to Irish politics and looks at the deep shifts associated with major socio-political changes, such as immigration, gender equality and civil society activism. Interdisciplinary in approach, it includes contributions from across history, law, sociology and political science and draws on a rich body of knowledge and original research data.
This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of Irish Politics, Society and History, British Politics, Peace and Conflict studies, Nationalism, and more broadly to European Politics.
Foreword [Brendan O’Leary]
Introduction [Niall Ó Dochartaigh, Katy Hayward and Elizabeth Meehan]
Part I: Contexts
1. State, Nation, Island: The Politics of Territory in Ireland [Niall Ó Dochartaigh]
2. The British-Irish Relationship: Confusion, Complexity and (ultimately) Consensus [Paul Arthur]
3. The EU Context of Change in State and Nation Post-1973 [Brigid Laffan]
4. The Effectiveness of the Agreement: International Conditions and Contexts [Jennifer Todd]
5. British-Irish Relations and the Northern Ireland Peace Process: The Importance of Intergovernmentalism [Peter McLoughlin]
Part II: Competition
6. Modelling Ireland’s Crises: North, South, and North-South Intersections [Joseph Ruane]
7. The Changing Nature of Electoral Competition in Ireland [Michael Gallagher]
8. Dynamics of Change in Political Parties: An All-Island Perspective [Jonathan Tonge]
9. Nationalist in the North and Socialist in the South? Examining Sinn Féin’s Support Base on Both Sides of the Border [John Garry]
Part III: Complexity
10. Persistent Gender Inequality in Political Representation, North and South [Yvonne Galligan]
11. Northern Intransigence and Southern Indifference: North-South Cooperation Since the Belfast Agreement [Andy Pollak]
12. Women’s Activisms in Ireland, North and South: Different Pathways, Shared Interests [Melanie Hoewer]
13. Nations, Citizens and ‘Others’ on the Island of Ireland [Katy Hayward and Kevin Howard]
Biography
Niall Ó Dochartaigh is Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, and convener of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence.
Katy Hayward is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Fellow of The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast, UK.
Elizabeth Meehan holds an Emeritus Chair in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. In 2001, she moved from the School of Politics in Queen’s University Belfast to become the Founding Director of the university’s new Institute of Governance and Public Policy.
"Niall O Dochartaigh subtly portrays how that normality is reinforced by banal everyday media, institutional and political discourse, notwithstanding all-Ireland nationalist rhetoric. Yvonne Galligan and Melanie Hoewer empirically and theoretically document gender inequality and women's activism in both parts of the island. Michael Gallagher, Jonathan Tonge and John Garry provide rich analysis of nationalised electoral competition, political parties and Sinn Fein's contrasting appeal north and south...studies from talented and critical authors such as these."
Paul Gillespie, Irish Times
