Denial, Silence and the Politics of the Past: Unpicking the Opposition to Truth Recovery in Northern Ireland

There has been considerable and protracted debate on whether a formal truth recovery process should be established in Northern Ireland. Some of the strongest opposition to the creation of such a body has been from unionist political elites and the security forces. Based on qualitative fieldwork, this article argues that the dynamics of denial and silence have been instrumental in shaping their concerns. It explores how questions of memory, identity and denial have created a ‘myth of blamelessness’ in unionist discourse that is at odds with the reasons for a truth process being established. It also examines how three interlocking manifestations of silence – ‘silence as passivity,’ ‘silence as loyalty’ and ‘silence as pragmatism’ – have furthered unionists’ opposition to dealing with the past. This article argues that making peace with the past requires an active deconstruction of these practices.

Territorial politics and the multi-level party

Territorial politics and the statewide party, Regional Studies. The literature on political parties has been affected by a national bias. However, the multilevel nature of party organizations deserves one's attention because parties have responded as well as contributed to the rise in regional authority across most Western democracies. This paper considers statewide parties from a double perspective: as organizations subject to a range of pressures in a multilevel environment, and as actors influencing multilevel political systems. It concludes with a call for stronger links between traditional areas of party and policy research and multilevel party research and for more comparative data collection on multilevel parties and policy positions.