Peter Munce

Unionists as ‘Court Sceptics’: Exploring Elite-Level Unionist Discourses about a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights

One of the most significant characteristics of the peace process in Northern Ireland has been the profound importance attached by a range of academic, political and non-governmental actors to the concept of human rights. However, unionists, more so than other elite-level political actors in Northern Ireland, have expressed scepticism about proposals from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) for a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights. This article explores how unionists relied on a ‘court sceptic’ narrative to argue against the Bill of Rights proposals. It argues that at one level unionist reliance on ‘court sceptic’ arguments can be conceived of as instrumental in the sense that it was a mere tactical response to, as unionists argue, the inflation by the NIHRC of their mandate contained in the Good Friday Agreement to devise a Bill of Rights. However, at another level unionists reliance on ‘court sceptic’ arguments can also be traced to their constitutional experience within the British polity.

Timothy Heppell and David Seawright (eds), Cameron and the conservatives: The transition to coalition government, reviewed by Peter Munce

Zeynep Somer-Topcu and Lawrence Ezrow include median voter data from the Eurobarometer surveys and analyse whether parties indeed follow the median voter or respond to other incentives. This is a much more precise way of evaluating whether parties pursue electorate-orientated strategies than the one proposed by Loomes. Loomes presents a party-centric approach to party system change by placing party strategies as the crucial causal factor in changes in modes of representation. She does a nice job in discussing many classics of the study of political parties, but neglects some recent work by Bonnie Meguid, Sara Hobolt, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Catherine de Vries on the role of issue competition, niche parties and issue entrepreneurs. Also, it is curious that despite the party-centric approach the analyses are mainly done at the country level rather than the party level. This blurs an analysis of why parties in fact choose institutional-orientated strategies or electorateorientated strategies. Nevertheless, the collection and coding of a whole range of variables across 17 countries since 1950 is an invaluable data source for students of party politics. Also, by calling for renewed attention to the nastier side of party politics – the institutionalorientated strategy – Loomes has an important message for students of representation studies, who often focus on vote-seeking strategies at the expense of the more fundamental office-seeking strategies.

Unionism and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission 1999–2005: Hostility, Hubris and Hesitancy

The Belfast Agreement created an entirely new framework for the protection of human rights in Northern Ireland, the centrepiece of which was the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC). From the outset, human rights activists in Northern Ireland invested much hope in the ability of the NIHRC to help deliver a new rights-based approach to governance in Northern Ireland. However, since its inception, unionists in Northern Ireland have had a difficult relationship with this organisation, and the purpose of this article is to explore in greater depth the relationship between unionists and the NIHRC in the period between 1999 and 2005 during Professor Brice Dicksons tenure as Chief Commissioner. First, it considers the context, powers and remit of the NIHRC, before moving on to explore and analyse the relationship between influential strands of unionist opinion and the NIHRC 1999–2005, identifying what the key issues were for unionists during this period.