Peace with strings attached: exploring reflections of structure and agency in Northern Ireland peacebuilding funding
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 2; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/21647259.2013.866459
ISSN2164-7267
Autores Tópico(s)Irish and British Studies
ResumoAbstractThis article examines Northern Ireland's peacebuilding process by analysing perspectives about economic assistance to determine if the peacebuilding process contributed to the reification of structure or the promotion of human agency. Economic assistance, a key pillar of liberal democratic peacebuilding, has been credited with creating a political economy of civil society peacebuilding in Northern Ireland by either incentivising or coercing community groups to participate in the peace process. Interviews with 120 community group leaders who received International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and/or EU Peace III funding are analysed to see how the respondents' perspectives reflect aspects of the structure–agency debate. Rules, resources, mental schemas and knowledge are used as criteria for evaluating statements from respondents to determine if community groups feel empowered, invested and capable of sustaining peace in post-peace accord Northern Ireland. The study concludes by discussing the implications for sustaining peace in Northern Ireland and other post-peace accord environments where liberal democratic peacebuilding methods are used.Keywords:: peacebuildingNorthern Irelandliberal democracyexternal fundingstructureagency AcknowledgementsThe research for this article is supported by a three-year research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors thank Tom Boudreau, Jessica Senehi, Hamdesa Tuso and Brian Creary, and the anonymous reviewers from the Journal of Peacebuilding for commenting on various drafts of the article.Notes 1 Roger Mac Ginty, 'Indigenous Peace-Making versus the Liberal Peace', Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 2 (2008): 139–63. 2 For discussions of the limitations of the liberal peace see Roger Mac Ginty, Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding (London: Routledge, 2013); Chuck Thiessen, 'Emancipatory Peacebuilding: Critical Responses to (Neo)Liberal Trends', in Critical Issues in Peace and Conflict Studies: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy, ed. Thomas Maytok, Jessica Senehi, and Sean Byrne (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2011); Oliver Richmond, 'Emancipatory Forms of Human Security and Liberal Peacebuilding', International Journal 62, no. 3 (2007): 458–77; Vivienne Jabri, 'War, Government, Politics: A Critical Response to the Hegemony of the Liberal Peace', in Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, ed. Oliver Richmond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Tim Jacoby, 'Hegemony, Modernisation and Post-War Reconstruction', Global Society 21, no. 4 (2007): 521–37; and Andrew Williams, 'Reconstruction: The Bringing of Peace and Plenty or Occult Imperialism?', Global Society 21, no. 4 (2007): 539–51. 3 Sean Byrne et al., 'Economic Assistance, Development and Peacebuilding: The Role of IFI and EU Peace II Fund in Northern Ireland', Civil Wars 10, no. 2 (2008): 108–26; Sean Byrne and Cynthia L. Irvin, 'A Shared Common Sense: Perceptions of the Material Effects and Impacts of Economic Growth in Northern Ireland', Civil Wars 5, no. 1 (2002): 55–86; Roger Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid Forms of Peace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 4 Byrne et al., 'Economic Assistance, Development and Peacebuilding'. 5 Byrne and Irvin, 'A Shared Common Sense'; Roger Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace: The Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Processes and Peace Accords (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 6 Byrne et al., 'The Role of the International Fund for Ireland and the European Union PEACE II Fund in reducing Violence and Sectarianism in Northern Ireland', International Politics 47, no. 2 (2010): 229–50. 7 Roger Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace; also see Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Oliver Richmond, 'Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism: Liberal–Local Hybridity via the Everday as a Response to the Paradoxes of Liberal Peacebuilding', Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 3, no. 3 (2009): 324–44 and Oliver Richmond, 'A Post-Liberal Peace: Eirenism and the Everday', Review of International Studies 35, no. 3 (2009): 557–80 for a description of liberal democratic peacebuilding. 8 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance. Also see Sandra Buchanan, 'Transforming Conflict in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties: Some Lessons from the Peace Programmes on Valuing Participative Democracy', Irish Political Studies 23, no. 3 (2008): 387–409; Liam O'Dowd and Cathal McCall, 'Escaping the Cage of Ethno-National Conflict in Northern Ireland? The Importance of Transnational Networks', Ethnopolitics 7 no. 1 (2008): 81–99. 9 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace; Roger Mac Ginty and Andrew Williams, Conflict and Development (London: Routledge, 2009).10 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.11 Byrne et al., 'Building the peace Dividend in Northern Ireland: People's Perceptions of Self and Country', Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 15 no. 2 (2009): 160–188.12 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.13 Ibid.; Lisa Schirch, The Little Book of Strategic Peacebuilding (Intercourse, PA: GoodBooks, 2004); John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington: USIP Press, 1997); Thania Paffenholz, ed., Civil Society and Peacebuilding: A Critical Assessment (London: Lynne Rienner, 2010); and Paul van Tongeren et al., eds., People Building Peace II: Successful Stories of Civil Society (London: Lynne Rienner, 2005) provide useful discussions about the role of reconciliation and civil society groups in peacebuilding.14 Lederach, Building Peace; see also Herbert Kelman, 'Interactive Problem Solving: An Approach to Conflict Resolution and Its Application in the Middle East', Political Science and Politics 31, no. 2 (1998): 190–8.15 Louis Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).16 Lederach, Building Peace, 75, 82.17 Ibid., 82–3.18 Ibid., 52.19 Ibid., 87.20 Ibid., 94.21 Timothy Donais, 'Empowerment or Imposition? Dilemmas of Local Ownership in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Processes', Peace and Change 34, no. 1 (2009): 3–26, quote at p. 3.22 William H. Sewell Jr, 'A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency and Transformation', American Journal of Sociology 98, no. 1 (1992): 1–29.23 Anthony Giddens, Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984); Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (London: Macmillan Press, 1979).24 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace, 176.25 Giddens, Constitution of Society.26 Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory, 71–2.27 Ibid., 5.28 Sewell Jr, 'A Theory of Structure', 24.29 Keith Krause and Oliver Jutersonke, 'Peace, Security and Development in Post-Conflict Environments', Security Dialogue 36, no. 4 (2005): 447–62, 459.30 Sewell Jr, 'A Theory of Structure'.31 Reginald Herbold Green, 'Rehabilitation: Strategic, Proactive, Flexible, Risky?', Disasters 24, no. 4 (2000): 343–62.32 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.33 Lederach, Building Peace.34 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance; Mac Ginty and Williams, Conflict and Development; Thania Paffenholz, 'Civil Society and Peacebuilding', in Paffenholz, Civil Society and Peacebuilding.35 Byrne et al., 'Economic Assistance, Development and Peacebuilding', 108.36 Ibid., 111.37 Byrne et al., 'The Perception of Economic Assistance in Northern Ireland and its Role in the Peace Process' (475–494), in Sandole, Byrne, Sandole-Staroste, and Senehi, eds., Handbook of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, (London, Routledge, 2009).38 Ibid., 491.39 Michael Pugh, 'The Political Economy of Peacebuilding: A Critical Theory Perspective', International Journal of Peace Studies 10, no. 2 (2005): 23–42; see also Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.40 Jacoby, 'Hegemony, Modernisation and Post-War Reconstruction'.41 Beatrice Pouligny, 'Civil Society and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Ambiguities of International Programmes Aimed at Building "New" Societies', Security Dialogue 36, no. 4 (2005): 495–510.42 The International Fund for Ireland, 'International Fund for Ireland', http://www.internationalfundforireland.com/index.php (accessed July 10, 2013).43 Ibid.44 Ibid.45 Deloitte, External Review of the International Fund for Ireland: Final Report, 2010.46 The International Fund for Ireland, Effective Peace Building: The International Fund for Ireland Experience (undated), http://www.internationalfundforireland.com.47 The International Fund for Ireland, 'International Fund for Ireland'.48 Ibid.49 Byrne et al., 'Building the Peace Dividend in Northern Ireland', 164.50 Ibid.51 Ibid.; see also Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance, 196.52 'Northern Ireland Peace Fund Faces EU Budget Axe', Euractiv, 4 February 2013, http://www.euractiv.com/regional-policy/eu-peace-fund-trouble-despite-no-news-517541 (accessed July 10, 2013).53 Ibid.54 European Commission, Peace and Reconciliation: An Imaginative Approach to the European Programme for Northern Ireland and the Border Counties of Northern Ireland (Luxembourg: Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities, 1998), 10.55 Special EU Programmes Body, '2007–2013 Programmes', http://www.seupb.eu/programmes2007-2013/peaceiiiprogramme/overview.aspx (accessed July 13, 2013).56 Ibid.57 Ibid.58 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.59 Ibid.60 Mac Ginty, 'Indigenous Peace-Making'.61 Ibid.62 Sewell Jr, 'A Theory of Structure', 13.63 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace; Lederach, Building Peace.64 Catherine Barnes, 'Weaving the Web: Civil-Society Roles in Working with Conflict and Building Peace', in Van Tongeren et al., People Building Peace II, 7–24.65 Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory.66 Mukesh Kapila, 'Healing Broken Societies: Can Aid Buy Love and Peace?', Global Governance 13, no. 1 (2007): 7–24 presents an interesting discussion about the securitisation of aid. See also Michael Koros and Xiang He, 'The Role of Development in a Comprehensive Approach', in Security Operations in the 21st Century: Canadian Perspectives on the Comprehensive Approach, eds. M. Rostek and P. Gizewski (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011), 109–20.67 Mac Ginty, 'Indigenous Peace-Making'.68 Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995).69 Boulding, Cultures of Peace.70 Lederach, Building Peace.71 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.72 Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory.73 Richmond, 'Emancipatory Forms of Human Security'.74 Byrne, Irvin, and Fissuh, 'The Perception of Economic Assistance'.75 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace, 179.76 Richmond, 'Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism'.77 Richmond, 'A Post-Liberal Peace', 558.78 Lee Smithey, Unionists, Loyalists and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).79 Giddens, Constitution of Society.80 Lederach, Preparing for Peace.81 Peter Shirlow, The End of Ulster Loyalism? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).82 Sewell Jr, 'A Theory of Structure'.83 Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.84 Timothy White, ed., Lessons from the Northern Ireland Peace Process (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013).85 Pouligny, 'Civil Society and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding', 496.Additional informationNotes on contributorsPatlee CrearyPatlee Creary is a PhD student in the Peace and Conflict Studies programme at the University of Manitoba. She holds an MA in Political Studies from the University of Manitoba and a BSc in International Relations from the University of the West Indies. Her current research interests include: the role of the military in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction in fragile states. She is a current recipient of the University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship and the Manitoba Graduate Scholarship.Sean ByrneSean Byrne is professor of PACS, and founding head of the PhD and joint MA programmes in peace and conflict studies at University of Manitoba (UM), and founding director of the Arthur Mauro Centre housed in St Paul's College at UM. He is author, co-author and co-editor of numerous books, journal articles and book chapters. He has published extensively in the area of ethnic conflict analysis and resolution. His current research interests include: ethnic conflict analysis and resolution; economic aid and peacebuilding; children and war; women and peacebuilding; the deconstruction of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm; and third party intervention. He is a native of the island of Ireland.
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