Consociationalism and the evolution of political cleavages in Northern Ireland, 1989-2004

Political cleavages are often understood as deriving from either deep-rooted social divisions or institutional incentives. Contemporary Northern Ireland provides a test of the mutability of apparently entrenched cleavages to institutional change. Research undertaken before the ceasefire in the 1990s found noticeable asymmetries in the patterns of cleavage within the unionist and nationalist blocs. Within the unionist bloc, economic 'left-right' issues formed the main ideological division between the two major unionist parties. This contrasted with an ethno-national source of ideological division between the two nationalist parties. The emergence of a consociational form of government structure since then has demonstrated the ability of institutional incentives to swiftly reform some aspects of party competition however. As evidence of this, we show that between 1989 and 2004 there was little change in the sources of support for Sinn F�©in relative to the SDLP, but the influence of left-right ideology within the unionist bloc was negated as the influence of ethno-nationalism dramatically increased.

A Blueprint for Democratic Policing Anywhere in the World? Police Reform, Political Transition and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland

This article provides an overview of the police reform process undertaken in Northern Ireland since 1999 as part of a broader program of conflict resolution. It considers the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP), which proposed a number of changes to policing structures and arrangements in Northern Ireland, and it assesses the degree to which these have been operationalized in the 8 years since the ICP published its report. It suggests that although the police reform process in Northern Ireland has been moderately successful and provides a number of international best practice lessons, the overall pace of change has been hindered by difficulties of implementation and, more fundamentally, by developments in the political sphere and civil society.

Vision and reality: community involvement in Irish urban regeneration

This article examines the processes and outcomes of community involvement in six Irish urban regeneration case studies, three in Dublin and three in Belfast. The findings are part of a wider study using a Complex Adaptive Systems perspective to analyse public sector decision making. Key points included: (1) the community ‘vision’ of the regeneration as an emergent property, which converged towards the vision held by the implementing agencies in the four most successful programmes; and (2) the identification of three features that contribute to non-linear (unpredictable) behaviour: a history of community involvement; the availability of resources; and the intervention of key individuals at crisis points.

Political economy - from nation building to stagnation

‘The Judiciary and Political Change in Africa: Developing Transitional Jurisprudence in Nigeria’

At a time of increased evaluations of law, human rights, and the rise of judicial power all over the globe, the work of most African judiciaries and the principles of the jurisprudence they espouse in promoting social justice remain an unlikely focus of comparative legal scholarship. This ought not to be so in view of the considerable activities of the courts on the continent in the dawn of the third wave of democratization. This article explores the work of the Nigerian Supreme Court in the political transition to democracy since 1999. Utilizing insights from the work of Ruti Teitel, it attempts to outline some of the major constitutional and extraconstitutional principles adopted by the Court in mediating intergovernmental contestations in the turbulent transition away from almost three decades of authoritarian military rule. It emerges that the task of fostering social transformation through the “weakest” branch seriously tasks the institutional integrity of the judiciary.