Denis O'Hearn

Repression and solidary cultures of resistance: Irish political prisoners on protest.

Social activists and especially insurgents have created solidary cultures of resistance in conditions of high risk and repression. One such instance is an episode of contention by Irish political prisoners in the late 1970s. The “blanketmen” appropriated and then built a solidary culture within spaces that had been under official control. Their ability to maintain such a collective response was enhanced by an intensifying cycle of protest and violent reprisal, including extreme stripping of their material environment, in which the prisoners gained considerable initiative. This study uses interviews and contemporary writings by prisoners, prison authorities, visitors, and movement activists to examine how the dynamic of protest and repression transformed insurgent prison culture—through material, emotional, and perceptive changes—and the importance of leadership in the transformation. Special attention is given to prisoner activities in appropriated spaces that reinforced the culture of resistance: promoting the Irish language, cultural production, and the production of propaganda.

Innovation and the World-System Hierarchy: British Subjugation of the Irish Cotton Industry, 1780-1830

Analyses of innovation generally assume that it is a local or national process. This article uses world-system concepts and the case of the Irish and English cotton industries to argue that innovations are not intrinsically local but must be localized. Irish and English customs data and historical analysis are used to demonstrate how the localization of innovation around Manchester involved the peripheralization of the Irish industry by Britain. This peripheralization involved, first, the destruction of Irish spinning and the subjugation of Irish weaving and, eventually, the transformation of Irish textile activity into linen. It is further argued that innovation (Schumpeters innovative response) is the defining characteristic of coreactivities, while adaptive response characterizes semiperipheral industry.

How has Peace Changed the Northern Irish Political Economy

Abstract The northern Irish peace process spawned a discourse that promises high quality employment led by foreign investments. Such a peace dividend has been absent, however, and employment in state-aided foreign projects has actually fallen since 1994. Results are especially bad for the most marginalized areas that were at the centre of conflict. A more satisfactory conception of a peace dividend would be based on the regeneration of marginalized communities. Yet the revival of devolved power-sharing government promises little change, mainly because Northern Irish policy is restricted by British Treasury rules that impose neoliberal principles of reduced government spending and privatization.

TNCs, intervening mechanisms and economic growth in Ireland: A longitudinal test and extension of the Bornschier model

Abstract Bornschier has tested the association between foreign investment flows and stocks, and economic growth in 90 LDCs. His thesis is more useful in longitudinal analyses of specific developing countries than in cross-sectional tests. The case of Ireland after the late 1950s exemplifies the usefulness of the Bornschier analysis in a time-series context. A weak positive relationship is found between foreign investment flows and economic growth, and a strong negative association between the stock of foreign assets and growth. In an extension of the model, it is suggested that free trade intermediated between foreign penetration and stagnation in Ireland, and econometric tests support this conclusion.

The Road from Import-Substituting to Export-Led Industrialization in Ireland: Who Mixed the Asphalt, Who Drove the Machinery, and Who Kept Making Them Change Directions?

WHY do developing countries shift from one economic development regime to another? The development literature includes numerous cases and models that divide the post-World War II history of Third World economic development into two stages: import-substituting industrialization (ISI) and export-led industrialization (ELI), with a crisis sandwiched in between. Although there is little comprehensive theory to explain the transition from ISI to ELI, a common approach identifies an autonomous technocratic coalition within the domestic

Turning Agreement to Process:: Republicanism and Change in Ireland

In this article we examine the northern Irish peace process and the 1998 Belfast Agreement to ask whether they provide the basis for radical change of that society. We analyse the problems of ethnic and class inequality in the north, and the associated need for the regeneration of economically marginalised areas. Two questions are examined in this regard. First, does the peace process provide a basis for the social changes that will be necessary to move toward equality and democracy? Second, can Republicanism, in particular, promote the radical agenda that is necessary to provoke such basic social change?

Cycles of Accumulation, Crisis, Materials, and Space: Can Different Theories of Change be Reconciled?

In this chapter I outline different theories of ascent to and decline from hegemony. In particular, I discuss Arrighis finance-based theory of cycles of accumulation and Stephen Bunkers materio-spatial theory of hegemonic ascent and decline. Then, I ask whether the different explanations of ascent and decline can be reconciled and/or how we can begin to adjudicate between them in terms of their relative explanatory powers throughout the history of the world-system or at different times in history. Finally, I discuss the implications of theories of hegemonic change for our understanding of local economic change, and particularly the relationship between path dependencies and points of exit from them.