Consociationalism and the creation of a shared future for Northern Ireland

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

    Abstract

    On May 8, 2007 Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness assumed office as the joint heads of a devolved Northern Ireland administration. This was a remarkable turn of events. Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), had made a career out of undermining other unionist leaders and hampering political initiatives, including frustrating the early attempts to implement the Good Friday Agreement. Martin McGuinness, the chief negotiator of Sinn Féin, was an alleged senior member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). For many, this outcome marked, if not the closure of the Northern Ireland conflict, then its effective stabilization, and for some, notably John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary, the consociational scholars most closely associated with the Northern Ireland situation, it marked a pinnacle for the application of consociational theory, albeit in a modified form, to what had been an apparently intractable conflict.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationConsociational Theory
    PublisherTaylor & Francis
    Chapter7
    Number of pages15
    ISBN (Electronic)9780203962565
    Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 20 Mar 2009

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Consociationalism and the creation of a shared future for Northern Ireland'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this