Shane O'Neill

Liberty, equality and the rights of cultures: the marching controversy at Drumcree

This article offers a normative-theoretical assessment of a key aspect of the continuing cultural conflict in Northern Ireland. The marching controversy at Drumcree has had a destabilising effect on the peace process and it represents a serious threat to the achievement of the kind of political accommodation outlined in the Good Friday Agreement. The aim is to apply Jurgen Habermass discourse theory of rights to this dispute so as to assess which, if any, of the conflicting claims should take priority. By seeking to assess the rational acceptability of the better arguments on either side, I reject the view that these claims are irreconcilable. In the concluding section I outline four principles that provide a normative basis for just resolutions to conflicts over contentious marches in Northern Ireland.This article offers a normative-theoretical assessment of a key aspect of the continuing cultural conflict in Northern Ireland. The marching controversy at Drumcree has had a destabilising effect on the peace process and it represents a serious threat to the achievement of the kind of political accommodation outlined in the Good Friday Agreement. The aim is to apply Jürgen Habermass discourse theory of rights to this dispute so as to assess which, if any, of the conflicting claims should take priority. By seeking to assess the rational acceptability of the better arguments on either side, I reject the view that these claims are irreconcilable. In the concluding section I outline four principles that provide a normative basis for just resolutions to conflicts over contentious marches in Northern Ireland.

The Politics of Inclusive Agreements: Towards a Critical Discourse Theory of Democracy

This article offers a critical assessment of Jürgen Habermass discourse theory of democracy. It suggests that the main thrust of a discursive account of legitimacy is the attempt to show how the demands of maximal democratic inclusion might be reconciled with a politics of reasoned agreements. While this aim is endorsed, the thrust of the argument is that a critical theory of democracy requires that normative frameworks that bring certain substantive features of democratic life into focus should supplement Habermass procedural approach. First, the account of maximal inclusion has to be developed in a way that clarifies the egalitarian demands of distributive justice. Secondly, the account of a politics of reasoned agreements has to be connected to a theoretical analysis of the bonds of solidarity that could underpin such a form of political engagement. These developments contribute to a critical theory that gives a more adequate account of the motivational basis of discursive democracy.

Justice in Ethnically Diverse Societies: A Critique of Political Alienation

The article presents a normative principle of constitutional justice that acknowledges ethnocultural and ethnonational diversity by addressing the injustice of political alienation. It is suggested that this principle could be the subject of a methodological overlapping consensus among several comprehensive normative-theoretical frameworks that are influential in current debates. The main implication of the principle for ethnically diverse societies is that it demands a deconstruction of hierarchical group relations among citizens along with the simultaneous achievement of an inclusive political culture. I apply this normative framework to the struggle for constitutional justice in the ethnonationally divided context of Northern Ireland. The principle would seem to demand a binational egalitarian arrangement and it is argued that this would be most effectively achieved under joint British-Irish sovereignty. I conclude by considering how to minimize the risk that such institutional recognition of national identities could further alienate citizens who do not belong to either of the main national groups.

Pluralist Justice and its Limits: The Case of Northern Ireland

This article is a philosophical critique of certain communitarian conceptions of justice. It focuses on the work of Michael Walzer who argues that justice reflects the shared understandings of particular historical communities. In assessing the implications of this view for a divided society such as Northern Ireland I wish to set limits to this pluralist notion of justice. In the later part of the article I turn to Jürgen Habermass proceduralist, universalist discourse ethics so as to transcend these limits and to argue that justice in Northern Ireland can only be achieved if the participants involved begin to adopt the critically-reflexive stance towards their identities that real discourse requires.

The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus in Northern Ireland: Stretching the Limits of Liberalism

Abstract This article offers a theoretical perspective on the dispute about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. It seeks to revise and adapt the framework of justice advanced in John Rawlss Political Liberalism so as to respond effectively to this particular conflict of identities. This necessitates two significant revisions to the structure of Rawlss theory. These revisions allow us to formulate a principle of justice that could, it is suggested, be the focus of a reasonable overlapping consensus in this context. The article maintains that the generation of such a consensus will be far more demanding than Rawlss liberalism implies. The argument shows that only a theoretical approach which stretches significantly the limits of liberal political theory can give a convincing account of how a just constitutional settlement could be achieved in Northern Ireland.

Critical Theory and Ethno‐National Conflict: Assessing Northern Ireland’s Peace Process as a Model of Conflict Resolution

Abstract This article assesses the peace process in Northern Ireland as a model of ethno‐national conflict resolution. It sets the argument in the context of some on‐going debates between advocates of the bi‐national, consociational features of the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and its integrationist critics (I). In order to avoid the danger of false analogy, the category of ethno‐national conflict is then placed in the broader context of ethnic politics (II) before the advantages of a critical‐theoretical methodological approach to the investigation of such conflicts are outlined (III). The explanatory, normative and practical dimensions of this approach are then presented so as to clarify how the causes of conflict in Northern Ireland are to be dismantled (IV). In assessing the merits of the peace process against this standard (V), some important criticisms of the Agreement that have emerged from an egalitarian, cosmopolitan, democratic perspective will be interrogated.

Are Moderators Moderate?: Testing the ‘Anchoring and Adjustment’ Hypothesis in the Context of Marking Politics Exams

On the basis of an experiment we confirm the hypothesis – derived from the ‘anchoring and adjustment’ heuristic – that the difference that a moderator makes to the grade awarded by a first marker is less than the difference between the grades awarded by two independent (or ‘double-blind’) markers. We suggest that double-blind marking is therefore more objective and reliable than moderator-based marking, although the former clearly has significantly higher administrative costs than the latter.

Are National Conflicts Reconcilable? Discourse Theory and Political Accommodation in Northern Ireland

Questions of identity and difference appear to be ubiquitous in the landscape of contemporary political theory. Debates among egalitarian liberals, libertarians, socialists, and Marxists about the appropriate distributive arrangements in modern societies have, for better or worse, been overshadowed of late by the challenge of a politics of identity. 1 The impulse for this form of politics has been articulated in theories that are inspired by communitarian, feminist, and poststructuralist concerns and the shift of emphasis from conflicts of material interest to conflicts of identity has brought the issue of incommensurability to center-stage in current debates. Is there any shared standard that might allow us to achieve political reconciliation among social groups whose identities appear to conflict? Is rational progress possible in regulating such conflicts or are we faced with competing and irreconcilable rationalities? Is communal ‘war’ of some form inevitable or can differences be sorted out through reasoned agreement? These issues are clearly urgent in contemporary politics at a global level and they continue to demand urgent attention at national level. Conflicts of national identity typically call into question the legitimacy of the state, the justice of its key institutions and the inclusiveness of the ethos in which those institutions are embedded. When the state and its territorial boundaries, or the fit between citizenship and national identity, are at stake the threat of incommensurability looms large. I want to address pertinent theoretical issues with reference to one of the most intractable national conflicts of the recent past: the dispute about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. I will first clarify the issues at stake by classifying into two teams those contemporary theorists who address such matters. My argument is that if theory is to have a critical role in the analysis of such conflicts then it should be used to indicate how political reconciliation might be achieved in a manner that is fair to all. One theoretical source for such a form of analysis can be found in the discourse theory of democracy defended by Jürgen Habermas, particularly when the institutional dimensions of this approach are given their due. Having outlined briefly some apposite features of the discourse theoretical approach, I will indicate how this theoretical framework might be put to use in analyzing the national conflict in Northern Ireland and the ongoing attempts to

Recognition and Redistribution in Theories of Justice Beyond the State

We consider here how cultural and socioeconomic dimensions of justice beyond the state are related. First we examine cosmopolitan theories that have drawn on John Rawlss egalitarian liberal framework to argue that a just global order requires substantive, transnational redistribution of material resources. We then assess the view, ironically put forward by Rawls himself, that this perspective is ethnocentric and insufficiently tolerant of non-liberal cultures. We argue that Rawls is right to be concerned about the danger of ethnocentrism, but wrong to assume that this requires us to reject the case for substantive redistribution across state boundaries. A more compelling account of justice beyond the state will integrate effectively socioeconomic and cultural aspects of justice. We suggest that this approach is best grounded in a critical theory of recognition that responds to the damage caused to human relations by legacies of historical injustice.

A Hardware Acceleration Scheme for Memory-Efficient Flow Processing

This paper presents a hardware solution for network flow processing at full line rate. Advanced memory architecture using DDR3 SDRAMs is proposed to cope with the flow match limitations in packet throughput, number of supported flows and number of packet header fields (or tuples) supported for flow identifications. The described architecture has been prototyped for accommodating 8 million flows, and tested on an FPGA platform achieving a minimum of 70 million lookups per second. This is sufficient to process internet traffic flows at 40 Gigabit Ethernet.