Abdicated and Assumed Responsibilities? The Multiple Roles of Political Leadership During the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Challenging some of the existing analyses on the role of political leadership during peace processes, this article argues that it is more important to emphasise the multiplicity of roles that a leader is likely to undertake during a peace process rather than focus on any primary role. However, the article further argues that in the context of Northern Ireland the multiplicity of roles led to a degree of role confusion and role conflict among the elite not least because many of their roles seemed often contradictory or incompatible with one another. It concludes that such confusions, conflict and contradictions have the potential to further cloud our understandings of political leadership during the Northern Ireland peace process rather than crystallise the phenomenon.