I was born a few months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which essentially ended Northern Ireland’s civil war and ushered in an era of peace that has yet to be broken. Moreover, during my lifetime, Northern Ireland has dramatically changed
I was born a few months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which essentially ended Northern Ireland’s civil war and ushered in an era of peace that has yet to be broken. Moreover, during my lifetime, Northern Ireland has dramatically changed from an impoverished and war-torn backwater into a relatively prosperous and stable part of Western Europe.
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The Northern Ireland that I know is unrecognizable from the Northern Ireland in which my mother and her generation grew up. The bullet holes of Belfast have been plastered over to create a modern European city, at times indistinguishable from those of Germany or France.
However, Northern Ireland’s economic facelift still fails to hide the legacy of sectarian conflict. The power-sharing agreement stipulated in the Good Friday Agreement has led to a political system that faces constant deadlock and dysfunction. The social divide between Catholics and Protestants also continues to be a major hurdle, as only around 7 percent of Northern Irish children attend religiously integrated schools.
Sectarianism and power-sharing
Northern Ireland went through a period of violent sectarian conflict, known as the Troubles, which began in the late 1960s and ended in 1998, though some violence has occurred since then. The British Army intervened in 1969, as communal violence between Catholics and Protestants had broken out across the territory. The vast majority of Catholics, who were discriminated against and forced into poverty, supported a united Ireland, while the vast majority of Protestants supported the continuation of the union with Great Britain. The conflict ended with a power-sharing agreement that created a system in which Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists had to build consensus in order to advance any political objective.
This recent history is quite similar to other societies defined by ethno-sectarian divisions, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Iraq. What makes Northern Ireland and Lebanon so starkly related is the nature of their respective post-conflict political orders, in which power-sharing between ethnoreligious groups is the foundation for their politics.
Though Lebanon’s sectarian political system is somewhat more rigid and complex than Northern Ireland’s, their governments experience the same variety of political impasses. Since 1999, Northern Ireland’s mandated coalition has collapsed five times, with the most recent political spat in 2017 leading to a 3-year long breakdown in Northern Ireland’s government. Anyone familiar with Lebanese politics will immediately recognize the similarity.
What makes Northern Ireland and Lebanon so starkly related is the nature of their respective post-conflict political orders, in which power-sharing between ethnoreligious groups is the foundation for their politics.
However, the interesting distinction between Northern Ireland and Lebanon, is that Northern Ireland’s political dysfunction has not translated into renewed sectarian conflict or economic turmoil like it has in Lebanon. Though foreign journalists have a bad habit of portraying Northern Ireland’s contentious politics as a sign of impending sectarian violence (especially since the UK’s decision to leave the European Union), the reality is far more mundane.
The conditions for conflict and insurgency are no longer present within Northern Irish society, and this aligns with contemporary research on insurgency and civil war. Despite the fact that Britain’s security apparatus and infrastructure in the territory has greatly improved in the last 20 years, the general population enjoys a quality of life that is just too high to foment conflict. Simply put, the average person in Northern Ireland would not give up their relatively cushy life to go and fight the government or the opposing sect. Though violence occasionally occurs, it is generally limited to riots that rarely last for more than a day or two.
So, why is this the case?
Though there are likely a myriad of reasons, it is most important to focus on the separation of economic development and political dysfunction in Northern Ireland as well as the role of foreign powers in its politics. Peace and stability in Northern Ireland did not necessarily come from the political settlement agreed upon in 1998, but larger economic factors that were occurring in post-Cold War Europe and reforms in Northern Ireland’s economy. In addition to this, foreign powers involved in the conflict were, for the most part, all geopolitical allies.
The settlement that ended Lebanon’s civil war, the Taif Agreement, also brought with it major economic development to rebuild the country, especially Beirut. However, this development did not remedy social inequality like it did in Northern Ire