Beyond the Orange and the Green. The Diversification of the Qualitative Social Research Landscape in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland conflict has been described as one of the most over-researched conflicts in the world. However, this is a relatively recent development. For many years, when the conflict was most intense, social scientists in Northern Ireland were silent and not vocal. The sectarian violence that dominated the life in Northern Ireland as well as the fact that the country was a fundamentally unjust society contributed to this silence. However, since the peace process began in the mid 1990s, a growing number of qualitative studies have been published, utilising one-to-one interviews and focus group discussions, in order to "make people's voices heard" and deal with the consequences of the so-called "Troubles". This paper looks into the emergence of a qualitative social research landscape in Northern Ireland beyond the conflict and explores issues so far neglected. It is argued that a number of factors have contributed to this, among them the availability of research funding to voluntary and community sector organisations that use their data to influence policy-making and equality legislation in a country which is still deeply divided along socio-religious lines.

Green Party Factionalism. The Case of the Federation of Ecologists Alternatives, Greece

To date, the Federation of Ecologists Alternatives (FEA) is the only Greek green party to have achieved representation in Parliament. Based on written accounts of the period and in-depth interviews with the main protagonists, this article offers a theoretical explanation of FEA's short-lived trajectory (1989-92), describing it as a case of 'primordial factionalism': a case of intraparty factionalism stemming from externally imposed stresses rather than any internal debate about ideological purity (the classical Realo/Fundi conflict). The article maintains that in such cases, it is highly probable for an emerging green party to disintegrate during its formative period, thus adding a new perspective to classical green party factionalism theories.