James W. McAuley

The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest to Power

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland has undergone a remarkable transformation. Having been a party of opposition and protest for decades following its foundation in 1971, the DUP is now the leading party of government in the region, one which dominates unionist politics. The party moved from a religiously influenced determination to face down the ‘enemies of Ulster’ to acceptance of the need to share power with those ‘enemies’ in the form of Sinn Fein. In so agreeing, via the 2006 St Andrews Agreement, the DUP secured the sharing of power first attempted in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. It was a deal which startled many of even the most loyal followers of the DUP’s leader for decades, the Reverend Ian Paisley, but one which has stuck under his successor, Peter Robinson Yet, despite its colourful past and contemporary prominence, the DUP has rarely been the subject of detailed academic analysis. This unique book is the first to examine who are the DUP’s members and explore what they believe. Drawing upon unprecedented access given by the party, including a Leverhulme Trust-funded survey of the membership and over one hundred detailed interviews, this book analyses what makes individuals join the DUP; who those members are in terms of age, gender, and religion; what they think of the political institutions and power-sharing; attitudes to policing changes and dissident threats and what issues, constitutional or otherwise, concern them most.

‘JUST FIGHTING TO SURVIVE’: LOYALIST PARAMILITARY POLITICS AND THE PROGRESSIVE UNIONIST PARTY

Throughout the contemporary period, Unionists and Loyalists in Northern Ireland have reacted in contradictory ways to the peace process. This article highlights some of the key political and social dynamics within loyalism. In particular, it considers the positioning of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and their linked political representatives in the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). The response of the PUP to the peace process has revealed several important tensions within unionism. These include the notions that Loyalists can no longer be assured that the UK government will maintain the Union; expressions of class and gendered identities; a lack of trust of mainstream unionism; and, sectarianism, which although it remains a key element within Loyalist identity, is by no means its only dimension. Finally, the article outlines the broader construction of Loyalist and Unionist ideologies, and positions the PUP within broader politics of contemporary unionism.

Whither New Loyalism? Changing Loyalist Politics after the Belfast Agreement

Abstract This article focuses on the politicisation of sections of the Loyalist paramilitaries and the consequences for the restructuring of the politics of Loyalism in the contemporary period. Following the signing of the Belfast Agreement, Loyalism found new expressions through several groupings, such as the now disbanded Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). These parties came to prominence in 1994 following the ceasefire statement issued by the Combined Loyalist Military Command. The politics they projected was seemingly different and more progressive than that which had been heard before from Loyalism. Hence it was soon dubbed ‘New Loyalism’. This article analyses the political and social dynamics behind New Loyalism. It suggests reasons why it took the form it did. It explains why New Loyalism has failed to mark a permanent fissure within Unionist politics. It sets this in the context of the reconstruction of contemporary Unionist political hegemony around the DUP and the marginalisation of other political groupings within unionism.

Conflict, Transformation, and Former Loyalist Paramilitary Prisoners in Northern Ireland

Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, levels of paramilitary violence have declined substantially. Among loyalists, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and associated Red Hand Commando (RHC) have formally renounced violence, and dissolved their ‘military structures’, and perhaps the most reticent of all of the major paramilitary groupings, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), has taken on board the central tenets of conflict transformation, and ‘stood down’ all of its ‘active service units’ in the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). Thus, paramilitary violence now is mainly confined to the activities of ‘dissident’ republican groups, notably the Real and Continuity IRAs, although low-level sectarian violence remains a problem. Such dramatic societal and political change has resulted in a focus on the roles of formal party political leadership as agents of social change. This gaze, however, tends to obscure other important events such as the efforts, structures and approaches taken at the grassroots level to uphold and sustain conflict transformation and to maintain a reduction in violence. This article provides analysis of the role played by former loyalist paramilitary combatants in conflict transformation, and draws on material obtained through significant access to those former paramilitaries engaged in processes of societal shifts. In both personal and structural terms there is evidence of former combatants working to diminish the political tensions that remain as a result of the long-term inter-communal hostility developed across decades of violence and conflict.

Formerly Abducted Child Mothers in Northern Uganda: A Critique of Modern Structures for Child Protection and Reintegration

The study documents and analyzes the community structures supporting reintegration of the formerly abducted child mothers (FACM) within postconflict northern Uganda. A qualitative approach assesses the relevance and effectiveness of child protection structures created by different development agencies to enhance the reintegration of FACM and protect vulnerable children more broadly. Findings suggest that the efficacy of the community-based structures to support the reintegration efforts have been hampered by the creation of competing structures by the different nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and major development organizations, such as UNICEF. The limited community ownership of these structures and the inadequate psychosocial training of child protection workers are problematic in meeting the needs of FACM. Other constraining factors are the limited government role in supporting these child protection structures, the challenge of adapting the structures to the new postactive conflict development context, and limited outreach to FACM. These factors limit the prospects for supporting formerly abducted children and sustaining structures within the community once agencies and donor support is withdrawn. The key lesson for social work practice and social development in Africa is that effective interventions at supporting the reintegration of children affected by armed conflict need to consider the importance of indigenous institutions and structures within the implementation areas.

(Re) Constructing Ulster Loyalism? Political Responses to the ‘Peace Process’

This paper attempts to analyse and understand loyalist reactions to the ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland since the summer of 1994. It highlights the strategically insecure position of the Unionist community and the variety of attempts which have been produced from within this community to respond to a changing political context - albeit on the basis of a political philosophy not free from internal contradictions. These attempts are based on re-statements of Unionist fundamentals; while there are indications of new forms of self-questioning within the Unionist community, particularly in its working class, these are vulnerable to etoliation by the dominant Unionist discourse.

The Party Politics of Post‐devolution Identity in Northern Ireland

Research Highlights and Abstract Offers one of the first detailed considerations of how political parties in Northern Ireland have adapted to the impact of the dual legitimacy of Protestant-British-Unionist and Catholic-Irish-Nationalist identities central to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement Extends debates about devolution and party competition which have been centred on Great Britain to the United Kingdom. Outlines how the continuing bi-communalism of the electorate discourages parties from reshaping identity or chasing votes beyond the ethnic divide Analyses how nationalist parties, Sinn Féin in particular, have developed the rights of all citizens on the island of Ireland to be Irish, under the post-Good Friday Agreement Irish constitution Assesses the data indicating a modest growth of a common Northern Irish identity In this article we examine how party political competition in Northern Ireland impacts on understandings of national identity and citizenship both within the region and elsewhere in the UK. These dynamics can be seen in expressions of political identity and through organisational change and electoral strategies. The consociational framework in which Northern Irish parties operate is one of the most powerful dynamics and we assess how it has shaped intra-community party competition, most notably through the emergence of the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin as the strongest unionist and nationalist parties respectively. However, our analysis of campaigning and voting in the 2010 General Election and 2011 Assembly elections also shows that the transformation of party political competition in the UK after devolution is an important dynamic and one that has shaped unionist electoral strategies in particular.

So Why Did the Guns Fall Silent? How Interplay, not Stalemate, Explains the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Abstract The precise rationale for, and timing of, the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s and beyond, which developed after more than two decades of conflict, has yet to be fully explained. It has been a common assumption that it arose from a stalemate involving the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the ‘regular’ pro‐state forces of the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary and the ‘irregular/ultra’ pro‐state loyalist paramilitary groups of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Under this interpretation, military/paramilitary deadlock led to ripeness for peace, amid reappraisals by all parties to the conflict of the utility of violence accompanied by reinterpretations of earlier political orthodoxies. The IRA could not remove the British sovereign claim to Northern Ireland; British forces could not militarily defeat the IRA and loyalists and republicans were engaged in a futile inter‐communal sectarian war. This stalemate thesis has obvious attraction in explaining why a seemingly intractable war finally subsided, but is less convincing when subject to empirical testing among republican and loyalist participants in the conflict. This article moves away from ‘top‐down’ generalist narratives of the onset of peace, which tend to argue the stalemate thesis, to assess ‘bottom‐up’ interpretations from the actual combatants as to why they ceased fighting. It suggests an asymmetry, rather than mutuality, of perception that there was ‘military’ cessation by the armed non‐state groups, with neither republican nor loyalist interpretations grounded in notions of stalemate. The article concludes by urging a wider consideration of the important and persistent interplay of the military and political in conflicts such as Northern Ireland.

Conflict resolution in asymmetric and symmetric situations: Northern Ireland as a case study

Conflicts between or within states can be characterized as symmetric or asymmetric by a number of objective criteria. Subjectively, however, there is often room for considerable ambiguity about the relative power of belligerents, with different perceptions associated with different political dynamics and outcomes. Here we suggest that creative use of this ambiguity can support a consensus that acknowledges that the belligerents have symmetric interests in the peace process, the peace settlement, and the rewards of peace. In the case of Northern Ireland, although the conflict there could be depicted as asymmetric, the peace process that led to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement only gained momentum when it began to draw on perceptions of symmetry between the factions. Crucial in this momentum towards settlement were the changing perceptions of those involved, particularly former combatants and their political representatives. Increased perceptions of symmetry allowed successive British and Irish governments to gain authority as legitimate mediators and guarantors. In turn, both republican and loyalist paramilitary organizations were able to promote the merits of a ‘political’ solution to their supporters. Finally, the development of a working political coalition among political representatives marked the transformation from asymmetric conflict to symmetric peace.

Mobilising Ulster Unionism: new directions or old?

One consequence of the contemporary peace process in Ireland has been the surfacing from deep within working class loyalism of groupings openly challenging the traditional values of Unionism. For socialists one of the key questions is whether this marks some form of permanent change, or something that will be neutralised by the counter-positions taken by traditional supporters of Unionism. This article argues that while ‘new loyalism’ may modify the central themes of Unionism, it is unlikely in the foreseeable future to herald a break from them. (C)ultural identity has itself become a term much used and abused. In Ireland, it is thrown around like a frizbee. Terms such as Irish, British; nationalist, Unionist; protestant, catholic. But what does identity actually mean, or, more importantly, are people really so preoccupied with it in Ireland as compared with people in England, France or the US? (Gerald Dawe, The Rest is History, 1998: 113-114) (P)olitical-cultural identities are ways of reading enfolding structural circumstances. These subtle constructs are contested; they express a balance between private thoughts and public truths. The nature of political-cultural identity will be shaped by the exchange of powerful groups, established institutions and the informal resources of everyday life. (P. W. Preston, Political/Cultural Identity, 1997: 175)