Theories of International Relations and Northern Ireland

Timothy J. White

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781526113962
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

Applying approaches prominent in the field, this book explains the achievements and shortcomings of the peace in Northern Ireland, focusing on the role of a number of significant actors as well as those who have been marginalised by the process.

1

The ‘real’ and ‘dirty’ politics of the Northern Ireland peace process: a constructivist realist critique of idealism and conservative realism

Paul Dixon

The Northern Ireland peace process has been an astonishing achievement that was unanticipated when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) declared its ceasefire in 1994. Less than four years later the principal political parties accepted a deal, and this has been the foundation for a much more peaceful Northern Ireland. The Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement was built on the negotiations and leadership of moderate political parties. When these parties collapsed in the 2003 Assembly election, it was difficult to envisage that the triumphant hard-line political parties, Sinn Féin and Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), could possibly govern Northern Ireland in the power-sharing executive created in 1998. Sinn Féin is the political wing of the IRA, responsible for the deaths of approximately 1800 people out of the 3700 killed during the Troubles. The DUP has been the most hard-line and anti-Catholic of the main unionist parties, and its members have associated with loyalist paramilitary organisations. Nevertheless, in May 2007 the impossible occurred. Sinn Féin and the DUP agreed to share power. Since then there has been relatively stable if ineffective government. Northern Ireland has gone from being perceived as one of the most intractable, ‘ethnic’ conflicts in the world to a possible model for the management of violent conflict.¹ So how have such antagonistic politicians moved from such polarised political positions to accommodation? How can we understand the politics of the peace process? This chapter will present a constructivist realist critique of existing idealist and conservative realist interpretations of the peace process. It will argue that a constructivist realist framework provides a more accurate analysis of the ‘dirty’ politics of the peace process.

Rejecting the pragmatic realist politics of the peace process

Analyses of the Northern Ireland peace process are often crude and motivated by partisan advantage. Predictably, the political parties and governments present themselves as idealists, the principled ‘heroes’ who overcame considerable constraints, took risks for peace, and are therefore mainly responsible for the success of the peace process. There is little or no acknowledgement of the difficult political problems faced by rival political leaders. The ‘villains’ are unconstrained and, therefore, their uncompromising behaviour is simply malicious. This is a ‘morality tale’ in which those who ought to compromise have the power to do so. Accounts may take the observer ‘behind the scenes’, but often only to show the constraints on the hero rather than the villain. The political hero overcomes their constraints or makes courageous sacrifices to save the day. The narrative is designed to enhance the reputation of the politician or political party at the expense of opponents. This is the somewhat predictable self-serving nature of politics that gives representative democracy such a low reputation. Journalists and academics may be ideologically motivated or led by their political sources to reproduce these partisan accounts.

These partisan and idealist accounts reinforce the ‘front stage’ presentations of politics and often miss the extent of cooperation and choreography ‘behind the scenes’ between apparently hostile parties and governments.² On the ‘front stage’, parties attack and demonise their opponents in the propaganda war for party advantage, while privately they may or may not acknowledge the constraints on their opponent and negotiate with their adversaries. During the peace process in Northern Ireland, the governments and parties have been relatively sophisticated in their understanding of their opponents’ constraints and have used a range of political skills or lying and manipulation to drive the peace process forward.³ The peace process has thus been a vindication of pragmatic realism, which acknowledges that leaders employed a range of techniques to achieve a relatively successful compromise and a major decrease in violence. Leaders are reluctant to acknowledge publicly these political machinations because they are potentially dangerous to their reputation. This is because it clashes with their ‘front stage’ performance and reinforces the stereotype of politicians as malicious liars. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jonathan Powell, his lead negotiator on Northern Ireland, bravely admitted the use of deception during the peace process, and this was later used against them.⁴ As a result, the pragmatic realism that so successfully drove the peace process has not been widely recognised and certainly not publicly accepted as legitimate. The controversy over the Labour Government’s handling of the ‘On The Runs’ controversy in February 2014 further dramatised the media and public’s expectation that political actors should not use deception. This idealistic and ‘principled’, or ‘moralising’, view of what politics should be contrasts and undermines the pragmatic realist politics that has advanced the peace process in Northern Ireland and continues to sustain it.

Idealists

Idealists tend to be optimists who believe that the world can change to realise their ideals. They emphasise the role that individuals and groups can play in the transformation of society and so are ‘agency oriented’. Ideas, reason, morality, and deliberation are powerful tools for bringing about the convergence of values, building consensus for change, and the prospect of a more harmonious world in which conflict can be minimised if not eliminated. For idealists, Utopia may not just be a guiding vision but a realisable goal. In Northern Ireland, such idealists may be republicans who see the future as a united Ireland where Britishness is eliminated and all on the island of Ireland recognise themselves as Irish and support rule from Dublin. Loyalist idealists believe that Northern Ireland should be forever British and part of the Union with no concession to nationalist aspirations.

For idealists all public and private behaviour should be honest and principled, while politics is disdained for its association with compromise and deception. The idealist position claims to be highly critical of the ‘dirty handed’ practices of politicians, such as the use of deception and violence. Since the context in which political actors make their decisions is seen as unimportant, political actors are free to make the world as they wish and to achieve the realisation of their ideals. They publicly argue that the actor should do what is ‘ideal’ and always (or nearly always) refuse to employ ‘dirty tactics’ such as manipulation and deception, regardless of the context and consequences. Idealists believe that there is almost no justification for deception in politics (or private life). Political actors have a duty to be honest and ethical and should act as they would want everyone to act. They tend not, therefore, to evaluate an action by its consequences. This deontological position focuses on motive and the importance of preserving integrity and acting with respect to the rights of others. Radical idealists would argue that you have a duty to tell the truth even if the murderer comes to your door looking for a person hiding in your house. ‘Morality Tale’ idealists attempt to combine idealism and realism by arguing that honesty also produces the best consequences. Good behaviour gets its just reward. Good things happen to good people who do the right thing, and bad things to bad people who do the wrong thing. According to Neiman, few cultures were built without a persistent assumption that expresses ‘the refusal to accept a gap between is and ought’.⁵

Idealists may accept some limitations on honesty in politics and consider some exceptional circumstances in which deception would be permissible. This might apply to the ‘murderer at the door’ scenario and issues of national security.⁶ Modern idealists argue that democracy is violated by secrecy and deception because political actors cannot be held accountable for their actions. Those who justify deception tend to take the perspective of the deceiver rather than the duped. A political actor may later claim that they perpetrated a deception in the best interests of the community (or ‘national interest’), but there are always different views on what are the best interests of the community. According to idealists, ‘[s]uch lies are told when governments regard the electorate as frightened, irrational, volatile or ignorant of political realities and so unwilling or unable to support policies which are in the public interest’.⁷ Concealment, deceit, secrecy, and manipulation ‘contradict the basic principles of democratic society based on accountability, participation, consent and representation’.⁸ Lies can be counterproductive. ‘Even when they are genuinely employed as a tactic to further a good end, they may rebound and have detrimental effects once they are discovered and brought to light. They may cause further lies to be necessary and lead to retaliation by opponents. Equally damaging is the cynicism, disrespect and distrust of politicians once deceptions are uncovered.’⁹ Lies are unnecessary. Sincerity and honesty with the party and electorate stand a better chance of winning popular support for political change. Idealists oppose ‘political skills’ in favour of certainty, legal precision, and a more honest, straightforward politics. They argue that deception is not inevitable in politics and those who argue that it is a dirty business simply lack the moral integrity to do what is right. Some idealists argue that the people and civil society are essentially good so that there is no need for politicians to use ‘political skills’. Instead, they simply need to reflect the will of the people. There are two types of idealists who have presented their critique of the Northern Ireland peace process: neoconservatives and advocates of the civil society approach.

Neoconservatives: right-wing utopian idealists

Neoconservatives are usually considered to be idealists because of their public presentation of themselves as on the side of the ‘good’ (God, democracy, and human rights) in the battle against ‘evil’ (dictatorship and totalitarianism). For some, however, this idealist rhetoric conceals a cynical realism that represents nationalist and imperialist ambitions.¹⁰ There are those within the neoconservative tradition who acknowledge the gap between their public idealism and private realism. These neoconservatives have moved beyond idealism and embraced a conservative realism. Religion, from this perspective, is seen as necessary to keep the mass of population under the control of the elite.¹¹ Critics have emphasised the neoconservative’s cold warrior cynicism in their support for authoritarian regimes, ‘dirty’ wars, or terrorists (the Contras in Nicaragua, Cuban exiles, People’s Mujahedin in Iran) and disregard for the democracy and human rights of those they oppose. Their commitment to democracy and human rights is also questionable because these are subordinated to a permanent state of emergency in which the military struggle against the ‘evil’ enemy takes primacy. The neoconservative world view is expressed in a philosophical moral certainty or ‘moral clarity’ in the battle between good and evil in which you are either with us or against us. Neoconservatives favour the deployment of hard over soft power because they seek the defeat of the evil enemy rather than a negotiated, compromise accommodation which is portrayed as appeasement. The defeat of ‘terrorists’ will be achieved by demonstrating resolution in the battle of wills between good and evil. Some neoconservatives may take a less hard-line approach but insist on certain stringent pre-conditions before talking to terrorists. Neoconservatives oppose talking to terrorists such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Sunni militias in Iraq, al Qaeda, or the Taliban. The definition of neoconservatism is controversial and, particularly in Europe, neoconservatives distance themselves from the brand because of its toxicity.

Anti-peace process neoconservatives portray the Northern Ireland peace process as a betrayal and surrender to the IRA. When it became clear that the IRA had not won, neoconservatives decided that they instead had been defeated.¹² In this new narrative the behaviour of the British governments was not a warning of the perils of appeasement, but reinvented a...