lost in transformation: violent peace and peaceful conflict in northern ireland (rethinking peace...

Lost in Transformation

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Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies

Series Editor: Oliver P. Richmond, Professor, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews, UK

Editorial Board: Roland Bleiker, University of Queensland, Australia; Henry F. Carey, Georgia State University, USA; Costas Constantinou, University of Keele, UK; A.J.R. Groom, University of Kent, UK; Vivienne Jabri, King’s College London, UK; Edward Newman, University of Birmingham, UK; Sorpong Peou, Sophia University, Japan; Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, University of Sheffield, UK; Professor Michael Pugh, University of Bradford, UK; Chandra Sriram, University of East London, UK; Ian Taylor, University of St. Andrews, UK; Alison Watson, University of St. Andrews, UK; R.B.J. Walker, University of Victoria, Canada; Andrew Williams, University of St. Andrews, UK.

Titles include:

Roland BleikerAESTHETICS AND WORLD POLITICS

Morgan BriggTHE NEW POLITICS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTIONResponding to Difference

Susanne Buckley-ZistelCONFLICT TRANSFORMATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN UGANDARemembering after Violence

Jason FranksRETHINKING THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM

Vivienne JabriWAR AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF GLOBAL POLITICS

James Ker-LindsayEU ACCESSION AND UN PEACEMAKING IN CYPRUS

Roger MacGintyNO WAR, NO PEACEThe Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Processes and Peace Accords

Carol McQueenHUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND SAFETY ZONESIraq, Bosnia and Rwanda

Audra MitchellLOST IN TRANSFORMATIONViolent Peace and Peaceful Conflict in Northern Ireland

Sorpong PeouINTERNATIONAL DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE FOR PEACEBUILDINGCambodia and Beyond

Sergei ProzorovUNDERSTANDING CONFLICT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EUThe Limits of Integration

Oliver P. RichmondTHE TRANSFORMATION OF PEACE

Bahar RumeliliCONSTRUCTING REGIONAL COMMUNITY AND ORDER IN EUROPE AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Chandra Lekha SriramPEACE AS GOVERNANCEPower-Sharing, Armed Groups and Contemporary Peace Negotiations

Stephan StetterWORLD SOCIETY AND THE MIDDLE EASTReconstructions in Regional Politics

Rethinking Peace and Conflict StudiesSeries Standing Order ISBN 978–1–4039–9575–9 (hardback) & 978–1–4039–9576–6 (paperback)

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Lost in TransformationViolent Peace and Peaceful Conflict in Northern Ireland

Audra MitchellLecturer in International Relations, University of York, UK

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© Audra Mitchell 2011

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of thispublication may be made without written permission.

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First published 2011 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN

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For Liam Kelly, to whom this book, and all my love, is dedicated.

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vii

List of Figures viii

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xi

List of Abbreviations xii

1 Introduction: Peace-Building or World-Building? Peace Interventions, Conflict and Violence 1

2 Violence against Conflict: Radical Peace, Radical Violence and the Paradox of Conflict Transformation 24

3 Radical Violence and the Beginning of ‘the Troubles’ – Northern Ireland 1965–72 45

4 Radical Peace?: The PEACE Programmes and Transformative Peace-Building Strategies after 1994 73

5 Irresistible Transformations: Radical Violence and the Peace Process 92

6 From Prison Protest to Peace Process: The Trans-Formation of the ‘Ex-Combatant’ 117

7 Long Division: Ex-Combatants, Transformation and Radical Threat 138

8 Dangerous Remainders: Long Division and Cycles of Violence in the Northern Ireland ‘Peace Process’ 168

9 Conclusions: From Peace-Building to (Plural) World-Building? Implications for Peace and Conflict Studies 202

Notes 224

Bibliography 225

Index 240

Contents

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viii

List of Figures

2.1 A basic ‘cycle of violence’, using actors in the Troubles as an example 42

2.2 Contextualizing the cycle of violence in the dynamics of radical violence 43

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ix

Preface

The image on the cover of this book may at first appear humorous, or even light-hearted, but it conveys several serious messages. Images of stylized, ‘non-nationalist’ figures holding hands – and indeed, the symbol of hand-holding itself – is commonly found in policies and initiatives related to conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. Indeed, images very similar to this one (but of course, minus the central figures fighting) have been seen on signs, posters, documents and even the sides of buses in Belfast in recent years. They are used to confirm, espouse and advertise the ‘peace process’, evoking a specific image of peace as a rational, universal and harmonic state of affairs. This subver-sion of the typical paper-chain motif reflects the ambiguities of this kind of peace: it may be premised on violence or, on the other hand, it may only be possible when the actors in question are able to conflict. I shall leave it to the reader to decide which (or if both) of these state-ments the cover image reflects. It is also worth noting that many of the terms used in this book are contestable. I have placed certain terms (for instance ‘peace process’ or ‘dissident Republicans’) in apostrophes not because I necessarily disagree with their use, but rather because they should be viewed as sites for careful critical reflection. Moreover, I have used some idiosyncratic spellings of contentious terms – for instance ‘Good Friday/Belfast Agreement’ or GF/BA instead of either term, and (London)Derry – to avoid the well-worn problem of choosing terms that are associated with one or another ‘community’, although attempting to escape this particular language trap is most likely futile.

While it is a play on words, the title, like any pun, also has a very literal meaning. At the time of writing, Northern Ireland is indeed ensconced in a very violent ‘peace’. Violence on the part of ‘dissident Republicans’ is on the rise, as well as low-level violence in areas such as (London)Derry and Belfast, where attacks on citizens and police officers, hoaxes and viable explosives are found week after week. At the same time, as this book will illustrate, many people attempt to contest this violence, not simply by condemning it, but also by engaging in embedded – and often conflictual – means for resisting it. Yet for more than a decade, the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’ has been lauded as a model for conflict transformation, and one that should be exported to other ‘conflicted societies’ around the world.

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Before accepting this premise, I shall argue, it is crucial to examine what is lost in transformation – in the complex language, activities and processes of conflict transformation, and also in the more literal erasures it enacts, not only of the evidence of ongoing conflict, but also of the violence it may help to engender.

x Preface

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xi

My most heartfelt thanks goes to my family, Linda, Peter and Justin Mitchell, whose moral support has been vital not only in writing this book, but in my career as a whole. They have always championed ‘healthy irreverence’ and ‘radical ideas’, some of which I hope are reflected in this book. I am also grateful to my mentors at Queen’s University in Canada, Professors Nadia Khalaf and J. A. W. Gunn, who endowed me with a love of political theory and inspired me to pursue it in my own way. I would also like to thank Thomas, Bernadette and Madeline Kelly for their support, and for always making me feel like part of the family. This book, and the research it is based on, would simply not have been possible without the continuous care, patience, support and critical insight of Liam Kelly, to whom it is dedicated.

In Belfast, I benefited from the guidance of my supervisors, Shane O’Neill and Cathal McCall, and my thesis examiners, Simon Tormey and Susan McManus, as well as a number of people who provided help and support at various stages: Roberto Belloni, Lorenzo Bosi, Dominic Bryan, Richard English, Elena Gnedina, Milena Komarova, Cillian MacBride, John Nagle, Simon Prince and Rosellen Roche (many of whom have since moved to other institutions). Special thanks to Fabian Schuppert, my friend and collaborator in the ‘Transformation’ confer-ence, to Sara Templer for her incisive reading of the initial draft, and to Daniel Brown for his unique insights into Belfast life. At the University of St. Andrews, where I undertook my postdoctoral research, I would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues for their insight and support, including Roger Mac Ginty, Sandra Pagodda, Jeffrey Murer and Trenholme Junghans. Special thanks to Oliver Richmond for his insightful editorship of this book and the series in which it appears, and for the very constructive comments of an anonymous reviewer. Finally, I am indebted to the more than 50 individuals who took time out of their busy lives to talk to me and share their concerns over the past four years, including all of the respondents discussed in the chapters that follow, and many others. Naturally, all errors are mine alone.

Acknowledgements

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xii

List of Abbreviations

CFNI Community Foundation Northern IrelandCLMC Combined Loyalist Military CommandCRC Community Relations CouncilDSD Department of Social DevelopmentDUP Democratic Unionist PartyEU European UnionGF/BA Good Friday/Belfast AgreementIFB Intermediary Funding BodyINLA Irish Nationalist Liberation ArmyIPLO Irish People’s Liberation Organization IRA Irish Republican ArmyIRSP Irish Republican Socialist PartyLAW Loyalist Association of WorkersLVF Loyalist Volunteer ForceMI5 Military Intelligence, Section 5NGO Non-governmental organizationNIAP Northern Ireland Alliance PartyNICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights AssociationNICRMs Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement(s)NICVA Northern Ireland Community and Voluntary AssociationNILP Northern Ireland Labour PartyNIO Northern Ireland Office OFMDFM Office of the First Minister and Deputy First MinisterOIRA Official IRAPD People’s DemocracyPEACE European Programme for Peace and Reconciliation PIRA Provisional IRAPROPP Progressive Release of Political PrisonersPSNI Police Service of Northern IrelandPUP Progressive Unionist PartyQUANGO Quasi-nongovernmental organizationRAAD Republicans Action Against Drugs RHC Red Hand CommandoRIRA Real IRARUC Royal Ulster Constabulary

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SDLP Social Democratic Labour PartySEUPB Special European Programmes BodySF Sinn FeinUDA Ulster Defence AssociationUDP Ulster Democratic Party UFF Ulster Freedom Fighters UPV Ulster Protestant VolunteersUUP Ulster Unionist PartyUVF Ulster Volunteer Force

List of Abbreviations xiii

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1

1Introduction: Peace-Building or World-Building? Peace Interventions, Conflict and Violence

Peace-building can be an act of violence. Conflict, on the other hand, may not be a cause of violence, but rather a crucial means for resisting, constraining and preventing it. Violence occurs when the plural worlds occupied and created by conflicting groups are damaged or even destroyed, and when it is impossible to resist or counteract this destruction. However unintentionally, transformative peace interventions, which aim at radi-cally altering conflict to produce a particular model of peace, may enact violence against the plural worlds they transform. This, in turn, can produce subtle cycles of violence that may evade the attention of intervening actors until they manifest themselves in acts of physical or material violence that endanger the peace process. If peace interventions are to be non-violent, I argue, they should be premised not on particular models of peace-building, but rather on supporting plural world-building, or creating the conditions in which plural worlds can exist non-violently.

Lost in Transformation explores these seemingly counter-intuitive statements, re-thinking the relationships between peace, conflict and violence. To do so, it examines a transformative peace intervention that has been lauded worldwide as a success and exported as a model for peace-building: the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’. I place the words ‘peace process’ in quotation marks for two reasons: first, the range of negotiations, initiatives, policies and dynamics that resulted in the current state of affairs were not a single process but rather, as I shall illustrate, a set of interlocking, transformative processes of democratization, governance, development and securitization. More importantly, perhaps, I question to what extent this peace process was ‘peaceful’, if peace is defined as non-violence. Indeed, I shall argue that interventions in Northern Ireland since the mid-twentieth century (and quite likely before) have involved significant violence, which in turn has helped to generate the

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2 Lost in Transformation

cycles of physical and material violence between paramilitary actors that have furnished the most common images of the Troubles. In examining this case in detail, I demonstrate the ways in which these dynamics of violence have unfolded, rethinking the sources of the Troubles and the nature of the fragile ‘peace’ that exists today. I also examine in detail how the logic of securitization creates particular violence within and among the ‘target category’ of ex-combatants, and how this has helped to generate the cycles of ‘dissident’ violence, as well as many forms of conflict, including rioting and ‘sectarianism’, that characterize the Northern Irish polity. The final chapter of the book argues that the latter must be reconsidered, not as mere obstructions to the ‘peace process’, but rather as responses to the patterns of violence it has helped to generate, and as attempts to resist and constrain these.

Although Lost in Transformation focuses on Northern Ireland, it sug-gests a new direction in theories of (political) violence and conflict, and in critical peace and conflict studies more generally. It challenges the basic assumption that conflict causes violence, and argues instead that conflict is more closely aligned with plural forms of peace. Moreover, it moves beyond debates about the ‘(post)liberal peace’ to suggest that the sources of violence in peace interventions are much deeper than the tenets of liberalism and that even the goal of ‘building peace’ requires reflex-ivity. In promoting an orientation to intervention that prioritizes plural world-building over peace-building per se, it not only criticizes existing practice but also provides an alternative lens through which to view the phenomena of violence, conflict and peace, one which significantly changes the way in which they are interpreted and addressed. In so doing, it moves towards a new ethos of intervention in which less will be lost in transformation and, hopefully, much can be gained.

War of the worlds? Peace-building and (plural) world-building

In their everyday lives, people engage with challenges of occupying, preserving, altering and sustaining the plural worlds that they occupy. Here, the term ‘world’ refers to spaces and experiences in which human groups create and sustain their collective lives, interacting with their material environment. I use the term ‘world-building’ to refer to the practices through which they create, alter and move among worlds. In their everyday lives, human beings inhabit not one ‘world’, but rather a series of overlapping worlds which sometimes collide, conflict or threaten one another. Worlds, I shall argue, are inseparable from the


Introduction 3

modes of world-building through which people create and experience them. The ability to create, sustain and engage with multiple worlds is an essential and unique facet of human life. Thus, the destruction or elimination of worlds is experienced as a severe threat and, when it occurs in ways that cannot be resisted or prevented, as violence. As such, worlds and modes of world-building are central to the relationship between peace, conflict and violence; the former two are forms of world-building, and the latter signifies the destruction of worlds. Non-violence, whether ‘peaceful’, ‘conflictual’ or both, depends on conditions in which multiple worlds or forms of world-building can coexist without enacting or experiencing violence or the threat of eradication. In other words, non-violence takes place within and among multiple worlds. What, then, does the concept of ‘worlds’ mean?

There is a tendency to refer to ‘the’ world as a single, physical space, viewed and used differently by a range of groups, but ultimately monadic. However, another strand of thought suggests that human beings occupy multiple worlds, which are not simply different interpretations of or per-spectives upon ‘the’ world, but rather unique ontological spaces in which different people act, experience their lives and interact with others. Since these worlds are based on the activities of unique individuals, each world is as distinct and changeable as the people who compose it. In other words, the human condition is made up of multiple worlds which are created, preserved and altered through human action.

One of the best-known theorists of ‘worldliness’ is Hannah Arendt. Although she refers to ‘the’ world, her thought provides the basis for deep pluralism upon which a theory of multiple worlds can be con-structed. According to Arendt (1965) the world is not only a physical space – although physical places, objects and institutions act as its medium – but also the set of memories, experiences and traditions that allow human beings to recognize themselves as simultaneously con-nected to and distinct from others. ‘Worldly’ objects, spaces and events are permanent phenomena which are not used instrumentally for work, production or consumption; rather, they create and preserve the space in which human beings may appear and ‘act’. They may take the form of art, which Arendt claims to be the most worldly of objects, but also public spaces, buildings and other objects which act as repositories of memory and, at the same time, innovation; they are changed or reinter-preted with the entry of each new individual.

Arendt’s analogy of the table (Arendt, 1998, p. 63) is useful in this sense. A table, she claims, acts as a worldly object because it simultane-ously connects those sitting around it while guaranteeing their plurality



by assigning each a different perspective. In this sense, human beings share their world by using or inhabiting spaces which constitute them as a group, but this experience is based on their essentially plural experience of the phenomena in question. As Arendt avers, ‘only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, so that those who are gathered around them know they see sameness in utter diversity, can worldly reality truly and reliably appear’ (Arendt, 1998, p. 57). Each worldly object, space or event around which people are gathered in this manner may give rise to a different ‘worldly reality’ on the basis of its unique existence and the manner in which it gathers and relates diverse individuals. This is enabled by what Arendt calls ‘natality’ (Arendt, 1965; Bowen-Moore, 1989): the novelty that arrives not only with the birth of each new individual but also with each appearance or action that this individual makes in the public sphere.

Worldly objects and spaces, Arendt states, may be produced through work (the creation of durable objects), but they are rendered worldly through human action. For example, the table mentioned above may be produced through the activities of a craftsperson, but it is made worldly when the individuals who use it appear to each other by gathering around it. For Arendt, action involves ‘appearing’ in the world in front of plural individuals who, in witnessing one’s appearance, confirm one’s individu-ality while recognizing one as part of a collective. Action is a crucial form of world-building; indeed, according to Arendt it is through action that worlds are ‘founded’, ‘augmented’ and preserved, even if they are built through work and sustained by human labour (Arendt, 1965). The con-cept of augmentation is crucial. It suggests that human beings constantly alter the worlds they occupy as they preserve them by reinterpreting collective memories and, in ‘recovering’ traditions, reinventing them (Bowen-Moore, 1989, p. 135). In other words, action, including collective acts such as revolutions which begin a world anew (Arendt, 1969), found the world, but the simple manner in which we continually experience our worlds through the lens of our own plurality preserves and alters it.

Indeed, Arendt focuses on the capacity of action – including monu-mental acts such as revolution (Arendt, 1965 – to create physical worlds, and places less importance on the work and labour that sustain and alter them (although these are indeed an important underlying factor in her analysis). However, another line of thinking associates ‘world’ less with great acts, monuments and spaces, and more with in social patterns, structures and everyday practices. This approach involves what I shall call ‘world-building’: that is, the wide set of human activities that involve the creation, preservation and alteration of multiple worlds. This strand of


Introduction 5

thought can be found in the work of theorists of the ‘everyday’, such as Agnes Heller. Like Arendt, Heller writes that human beings appropriate and sustain their worlds through their daily activities. She explains how the basic human ‘refusal to accept the [world] in ready-made fashion involves a reciprocal relationship between the individual and his world. Every individual entity forms, articulates his world, and in so doing forms himself as well’ (Heller, 1985, pp. 20–1). More specifically, each individual ‘appropriates’ her world by engaging with small circles of others in which the norms of society are reflected, but also refracted through each indi-vidual’s experience and that of the group. Heller claims that the daily interactions of people engaging in practices such as talking, cooking or caring for oneself and others, constitute their individual plurality, but also create solidary, richly linked communities composed of plural indi-viduals – worlds which an individual may appropriate, alter or transcend. This idea is echoed by Dorothy E. Smith (1987). She articulates the way in which individuals move between ‘worlds’ – for instance, from the ‘eve-ryday’, domestic world to worlds composed of hierarchy and professional practice – simply in order to navigate their daily lives.

Crucially, these everyday perspectives do not reify specific worlds or suggest that they are unchanging. According to Heller, an important quality of everyday life is ‘inventive praxis’: unique, non-repetitive activities such as original thought that allow them to make changes in their worlds (Heller, 1985, p. 128). This idea is echoed in the work of Henri Lefebvre, another theorist who perceived human life in terms of a range of interacting and coexisting spaces, ‘levels’ or worlds, from the immediate world of the everyday to the abstracted worlds of the state and economy (Lefebvre, 2008). He highlights the manner in which moments of ‘play’, central to everyday life, disrupt and alter the world of the everyday, but may also change the structures of or relationships between levels of existence. Similarly, the work of Michel de Certeau (1984) makes a distinction between two major worlds: one dominated by the ‘place’ of power and the strategies it uses to constrain and control human life; and another dominated by the everyday and its tactical responses to power. He illustrates how people employ ‘savoire faire’ (or practical, common knowledge) as a source of tactics that can be used to contest the ‘strategic’ powers that constrain and control them. For instance, by simply walking, he claims, individuals inscribe their own unique (and illegible to struc-tures of power) poetics of movement upon it (de Certeau, 1984) and thus appropriate their own unique space for the instants in which they occupy it. In so doing, human beings create and inhabit unique worlds by resisting the forms of world-building promoted by strategies of power.



These theories suggest that the everyday activities which Arendt (1998) tends to dismiss as mere ‘labour’ or ‘work’ are in fact crucial forms of what I shall call world-building, in which people seek to ‘to make the earth a true home’ (Heller, 1985, p. 269) or create a space for themselves within the universe. Therefore, in using the term ‘world-building’, I shall combine the ideas of pluralism and ‘worldliness’ found in Arendt’s theory with the world-building sensibility of theorists of ‘everyday life’. This approach conceptualizes worlds and modes of world-building – that is, of creating, occupying and experiencing worlds – as inseparable.

This perspective views human life in terms of plural worlds and modes of world-building. It suggests that human beings occupy not a single world, but a series of overlapping, interlinked worlds, which are bounded in complex ways that may be evident only to those who occupy them. These worlds may bridge different aspects of human life; they may extend all the way ‘up’ from the individual to the global level, or only part of the way; likewise, they may include one person or several million. As such, an approach focused on plural worlds is not relevant merely to domestic politics or sociology; it is also a promising lens for approaching global or international politics. Anna Agathangelou and L. H. M Ling (2009) have applied a similar argument to the sphere of world politics, calling for an approach to international relations and intervention based on ‘worldism’, or the dismissal of hegemonic discourses that posit politics as a dichotomy between self and other. Instead, they turn their attention to the ways in which peoples survive hegemony by using the lens of ‘worldism’, which ‘springs from and points to the multiple social ontologies that give meaning to social relations and account for their contestations entwinements, and transformations’ (Agathangelou and Ling, 2009, p. 5). This analysis suggests that the analysis of multiple worlds and forms of world-building is just as relevant to the realm of global politics as it is to everyday life.

Violence against worlds

Creating, building and altering worlds is, from this viewpoint, an essential part of being human, and necessary to sustaining communal life. It is no surprise, then, that the destruction of worlds, or threats to them, evoke a powerful response in human beings, of fear, anxiety, resentment, anger, shock or other, perhaps less coherent, reactions. In non-violent conditions, groups are able to create, sustain and reshape their multiple worlds without creating such a situation, and, ideally, to move between several worlds, even those constructed by others.


Introduction 7

The inability to engage in world-building, or to create and protect one’s world, is therefore an acute violation. Indeed, I shall argue, the destruc-tion of worlds, and the preclusion of forms of world-building – whether Arendtian action or the simple practices of ‘everyday life’ – is a defining characteristic of violence. Arendt (1967) articulated the powerful argu-ment that the opposite of action, and indeed humanness, is violence. I shall take this argument a step further, suggesting that violence is not only the opposite of action, but is a logical outcome of its absence, or the void left when worlds or forms of world-building are destroyed. Violence, as I shall argue in the next chapter, is quite literally a violation which damages worlds or forms of world-building, and which cannot be resisted by those it affects.

Conflict, however, is conceptually and qualitatively distinct from violence. It takes place at the boundaries between worlds, and is often manifested as a struggle to preserve, assert or create them. Crucially, it is engaged in as a means of resisting, preventing, constraining or controlling violence. However, as the next chapter will illustrate, trans-formative peace interventions target violence for alteration or even ‘eradication’. Moreover, they tend to frame conflictual forms of world-building as acts of ‘backsliding’, ‘spoiler activity’ or even preludes to a return to violence. In so doing, they may promote a hegemonic form of world-building which erases others (Agathangelou and Ling, 2009). While ‘conflicting’ actors have limited abilities to force or construct their own versions of the world upon others, the (often internationally based) actors involved in peace interventions have the power to imple-ment their visions almost comprehensively. This, I shall discuss shortly, may lead to radical violence. As such, peace, as a dominant form of world-building, is constructed in the ruins of worlds damaged by violence, and it may remove the last vestiges of these.

While studies of conflict, violence and peace-building tend to focus on the world-destroying capacities of so-called combatants or other conflict-ing actors, this book shifts the focus in two ways. It examines both the world-destroying and world-building capacities of international actors in peace-building, and the world-building dimension of conflict. To under-stand both, it is necessary to look more closely at their ‘radical’ nature.

Re-appropriating ‘the radical’

Transformative peace interventions are radical projects. To appreciate how, it is necessary to re-think the concept of the ‘radical’ and its relationship to peace, conflict and violence. The word ‘radical’ may refer to widespread,



comprehensive change which alters (or promises/threatens to change) the very foundations of society and, as a result, every aspect and expe-rience within it. It also refers to the attempt to identify and alter the ‘roots’ or sources of a particular group, society or tradition. These two elements are not mutually exclusive or even separate interpretations of ‘the radical’; rather, they are two facets which may, and often do, coexist in any event of radical change. For instance, they are intertwined in both of the examples given above: ‘radical left’ politics seek to bring about large-scale change by altering the ‘roots’ of society; while ‘violent radicals’ or extremists often engage with the perceived ‘roots’ of their own traditions or histories in order to bring about such change. Thus, the radical is a common thread between political change and political violence.

The terms ‘radical’, and particularly ‘radical violence’ (see below) have taken a particular residence in mainstream discourses on peace and violence, one that is experiencing a resurgence in the context of Islam-related terrorism. Within these discourses, the term ‘radicaliza-tion’ tends to refer to an intense, often sudden, return to the ‘roots’ (or ‘fundamentals’) of a group’s history or ideology, and the use of these to mobilize political violence. These assessments are not inaccu-rate; indeed, ‘the radical’ involves something of deep, perhaps even primal, importance. However, accessing the radical or orienting oneself towards it – another interpretation of the concept of ‘radicalization’ – is not just a means for inciting violence or whipping up fervour. Engaging with roots or radical sources is, in fact, an important part of the way in which groups constitute, maintain or ‘orient’ (see Taylor, 1989) them-selves in everyday life. In other words, engaging with the radical is a necessary form of world-building as I have discussed it above.

Indeed, an important connotation of ‘the radical’, I have suggested, refers to the realm of sources, origins or deeply embedded collective phenomena which individuals and groups access in order to (re)constitute themselves and maintain a degree of integrity in the face of change. Hannah Arendt (2003, p. 95) uses the term in this manner to refer to the sources through which the world of traditions are created and sustained. Charles Taylor (1989, p. 97), too, evokes this usage of the radical in his notion of ‘moral sources’ – the set of values, practices or even contingent conditions – which groups use to generate and re-generate themselves. From these perspec-tives, the radical as root is a source of sustenance and regeneration.

Radical sources are crucial to the (re)constitution of groups, social structures and societies; they are, in fact, the resources upon which groups draw in order to create, sustain and alter their worlds. In accessing their radical sources, groups engage with their most valued norms,


Introduction 9

goals or ideals, which are perceived as ‘horizons’ towards which they must move and against which they may measure their progress (Taylor, 1991, p. 10). In so doing, they constitute and reconstitute themselves as a way of ‘locating’ or understanding themselves in a changing world. This is central to the integrity and self-recognition of groups, as several writers on the subject of ethnic conflict have noted (Oberschall, 2007; Ross, 2007); it helps determine their ability to persist despite changes in their structure or appearance, their immediate surroundings or the perceptions of others. As such, what is radical to a group is not abso-lute; it depends upon the parameters of a given world and the forms of world-building that are deemed necessary by its inhabitants in order to preserve it. Engaging with the radical, or radicalization, as I have called it above, is an important form of world-building.

Another facet of this use of the term ‘radical’ is its allusions to the subterranean or, ‘underground’ – the unseen, and perhaps suppressed underside of the observed world. Rather than simply referring to past or remembered events and traditions, the radical may also be the realm of the unrealized, or the ‘void’ from which emerge the ‘Events’ through which worlds are constituted and altered (see Badiou, 2007). Deleuze and Guattari, too, explore the idea of the radical in their notion of the ‘rhizome’. This term refers to an underground network of practices and movements, through which human beings ‘migrate’ beneath the social world, and thus simultaneously escape and contest the constric-tive ‘machines’ of social, political and economic reproduction (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, pp. 361–2). This idea of the radical is in itself an innovation: the notion of the rhizome is intended to contrast with the ‘arborific’ organization of capitalist societies and states, whose rigid, vertical roots act like those of trees to extract sustenance from the soil in which they grow –in this case, human life (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 361). In both cases, the connotation of the radical as the ‘underground’ refers not only to its hidden nature, or its necessary role in underpinning existing human society. It also invokes the threat – or promise – of an insurgent underground, of rich deposits of unrealized potential that might emerge, or indeed erupt, into familiar, ‘terrestrial’ worlds.

This notion of the radical, then, goes far beyond the ideas of essen-tialism, extremism and fundamentalism with which it is often elided or simply confused. The former two connote absolutism, or elements of a group’s constitution which are rigid, dogmatic or interpreted and applied to social activity with extreme simplicity and literalism. Radical sources, on the other hand, are much more fluid and changeable; they are the sources upon which a group draws at any given moment to



(re)constitute itself in the face of a dynamic reality. Most importantly, the ‘roots’ described above undergird and nourish the plural worlds built and inhabited by human beings, and are central to the establishment, preservation and, as I have just argued, alteration of these worlds. These roots may, indeed, be essentialized, interpreted in a fundamental way, or used to provoke violent responses, but they need not be. As I shall argue, it is not radical sources themselves, but threats to them and the worlds that they sustain, that are most likely to accomplish this latter effect.

Radical change and transformation

A second way of using the term ‘radical’ is inseparable from the notion and goal of radical change, or the manner in which engaging with the radical (as described above) can be used to bring about major, com-prehensive change. Indeed, it is this version of the term that is most often conflated with the concept of ‘transformation’ (see below). It is more closely associated with the politics of the left and, in recent years, ‘post’ (-Marxist, -structuralist, -modernist and so on) theories. Its much broader and more vague scope takes in the entire range of ‘progressive’, large-scale, deep or total, often (post) Marxist, socialist or democratic change. For Agnes Heller (1985), radical change may be gradual and subtle, but it must emanate from the most basic level of society to encompass the entire polity in a movement towards the deeper realization of human potentialities. Similarly, according to Mouffe and Laclau (1985), radical change involves the alteration of the ‘signifiers’ that channel, regulate and determine meaning in the social sphere, and the contestation of hegemony. From a more extreme perspective, Zizek identifies radical change as that which alters the basic framework in which social life takes place, and the very parameters by which we understand and engage with it; anything less, he argues, is not radical but works within the existing dynamics of hegemony (Butler et al., 2000). The crucial element, however, is that radical change is perceived as something comprehensive and deep, which emanates from the roots of society – the concept of the radical dis-cussed above – to change the basic framework of the polity.

As I shall argue in the chapters that follow, this interpretation of the radical has undergone an important shift in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In Marxism and other theories of modernity, the radical tended to be associated with sudden, episodic or strategic events. However, as I shall argue in the following chapters, the contemporary version of radical change tends instead to be conflated with gradual but comprehensive processes (Mitchell, 2010), or the


Introduction 11

process-based ontologies that underpin ‘critical realism’ (see Bhaskar, 1979; Agar, 2007), or ‘autopoetic’ models of society (see Luhmann, 1995). This approach to radical change is unique in two ways. First, it removes the disruptive element of radical change, and posits it as integral to, or constitutive of, the processes that maintain or sustain the polity. From this perspective, radical change is not framed as a singular episode that tears down existing structures, but one that is inherent to them, and transforms them ‘from within’ or ‘below’, while retaining the basic stability and predictable structure of processes.

The reverse side of this argument is that radical change is considered to be less unique or historically significant; rather it is viewed as a necessary and almost banal part of daily life (see Heller, 1985). Secondly, the impulse associated with more ‘traditional’ ideas of radical change – the coup d’etat, for example, the revolution or even the mid-twentieth-century social movement – is given a new role in this model. To draw upon the Marxian sources of these theories, the emergent model involves the disciplining of the dialectic – and, in most cases, its sublimation. This means that the dialectics which create conflict, including moral difference, encounters with plural others, and so on, are no longer associated with ruptures and the direct production (or destruction) of entities or social structures. Rather, the dialectical moment is accelerated and abstracted to the point that conflict is ‘smoothened’ and no longer disrupts the functioning of the polity (see Deleuze and Guattari, 2004). Instead, in fact, the dialectic is channelled to drive the unfolding processes of transformation, and thus helps to constitute power and its manifestations (see Chapter 5).

‘Radical’ change cannot be defined in terms of specific techniques of change, nor specific objects. Instead, a change is radical if it is perceived by any group to alter the sources and practices through which it engages in world-building. For this reason, a change may be perceived as radical to one group, and merely superficial or functional to another, or unequal forms of radical change may be experienced by two groups participating in the same policy (see Chapter 7). Economic change, for instance, may be perceived as a purely epiphenomenal experience, separate from the realm of meanings and significations associated with the first definition of the radical. However, economic activities and structures may also act as deeply embedded radical source and/or forms of world-building. This problem can be posed in the context of the changes experienced in rural Northern Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s (see Chapter 3). The influx of post-World War II economic change, including the advent of the welfare state and new forms of production led to profound changes in the organizations of social and family life, and the interactions between



groups of different ethnic and class backgrounds (Harris, 1972), which had been crucial to the constitution of specific social groups and the relations between them (Ruane and Todd, 1996).

How, then, is it possible to tell if a particular change affects the radical sources of a particular group? While it may not be possible to predict this in advance, it is possible to observe radical changes that create threats to specific groups by turning attention to the ways in which they attempt to resist, constrain, intervene in or otherwise shape these threats. As I shall discuss in the following chapter, groups experiencing radical threat as a result of radical change construct ‘threatworks’ – complex sets of practices, norms and activities, and sometimes physical or social structures, that are used to manage and cope with radical threat. Crucially, threatworks signal the sites where a threat of violence is currently extant; where an act is in fact experienced as violence, it is responded to with violence. Thus, this book will argue that although it is difficult to predict exactly what will pose a radical threat to specific groups, it is possible to identify the sources of radical threats by reflexively exploring threatworks, including long-standing threatworks that have been used to respond to the threat of violence in the past.

Radical change, radical threat and eradication

As I shall discuss below, transformative peace interventions attempt to bring about radical change in both senses of the term: they alter the perceived ‘roots’ of violence in order to bring about radical changes in the polity. As I argue in Chapter 3, these approaches presume that conflict is a root cause of violence, rather than an attempt to resist it. As such, conflict transformation initiatives seek to remove conflictual worlds and forms of world-building as a means for bringing about radical change. Thus, it is a form of deliberate, and often selective, destruction: quite literally, eradication. This term implies the removal of roots, but also of their capacity to regenerate a particular state of affairs or, more aptly, of those who draw upon them to do so.

This strategy of deliberate eradication, as we shall see below, is one of the central tenets of conflict transformation. Eradication may also occur through unintended or ‘semi-intended’ means. The latter refers to a situation in which the eradication of specific sources in unintended, but the strategy or policy that causes it is, in fact, intended to promote the removal or neutralization of certain radical sources. For instance, as I shall describe below, policies intended to contain or manage conflict may claim to preserve certain radical sources but, in severely restricting the


Introduction 13

ways in which groups may engage with them, they may create effects akin to the direct eradication of these sources. There is also a third, more subtle form, a by-product (intended or unintended) of the processes used to transform a conflicted polity. Processes of transformation, I shall argue, draw their ontological roots from the physical sciences; therefore, the imagery of physics may be most useful in understanding them. To this end, I shall compare the kind of loss that occurs as a by-product of trans-formative processes to the problem of entropy. Very simply put, entropy occurs when energy is not conserved. It involves a loss of the organization of the universe, or the gradual disintegration of the world through the unfolding of physical processes. Something similar, I shall argue, occurs in transformative processes: they do not simply change the organization of the polity without generating losses. On the contrary, in producing a new, over-arching world, they may also contribute to the disintegra-tion of the bases of the social, cultural and economic structures they transform – that is, to the loss of the smaller, overlapping worlds which human groups inhabit. This idea will be explored more thoroughly in Chapter 4. For the time being, I simply wish to note that not all forms of eradication are deliberate; this second, ‘entropic’ form is a subtle but powerful form of destruction, of which the agents who drive it may not be aware.

Eradication and the loss of world(s) and forms of world-building

What are the consequences of strategies that involve the deliberate or entropic loss of radical sources? In other words, what is lost when radical sources are damaged or removed? Charles Taylor’s work can provide some insight here. He explores the damages that occur as a result of the ‘loss of meaning’ in the modern world: literally, the loss of the traditions, symbols, institutions, practices and activities in which the norms, memories and ‘horizons’ of groups are ensconced (Taylor, 1989, 1991, 2007). This, he claims, occurs as the modern processes of production, consumption and interaction erode traditional social struc-tures, replacing them with rationalized networks and processes (Taylor, 2007). At the same time, the ethic of ‘authenticity’ – or the search for a life that reflects the uniqueness of the individual and his/her needs – compels individuals to turn inwards, causing these structures further to atrophy (Taylor, 2007). As a result, Taylor claims, human beings lose access to the sources through which they have traditionally oriented, constituted and expressed themselves, and through which



they have made sense of their universe. The loss of traditional moral sources has led, Taylor claims, to a profound form of ‘inarticulacy’: the inability to conceptualize and engage with the central moral and ethical questions faced by a community (Taylor, 1989, p. 89; Taylor, 1991, p. 18). Moreover, the erosion of traditions and institutions removes the ‘horizons of meaning’ by which communities and individuals gauge their place in the world by orienting themselves to transcendent goals (Taylor, 1989, p. 89).

The loss of what Taylor calls ‘meaning’, or the repositories in which it resides, may damage or destroy existing worlds, and prevent certain kinds of attempts to (re)build them.

Arendt’s work speaks to both of these problems. She, too, is concerned with the loss of the artefacts, institutions, traditions and memories in which sociocultural meanings are embedded, and of means for accessing them. These phenomena are destroyed, she claims, through the emergence of an ontology and set of dominant social structures based on modern processes of endless production and consumption (see Chapter 5). The ‘worldly’ phenomena that are lost in these processes, she claims, are in fact the common objects through which human beings constitute themselves as plural individuals – that is, as unique beings who are simultaneously separated and linked by the objects and spaces they cohabit. Shared objects and the world they create also enable remembrance: the act of calling to mind the radical sources of a group by engaging with objects like art, architecture and traditional institutions (Arendt, 1998, p. 57). Remembering, Arendt argues, helps to create and maintain the present world in which an individual is ensconced. In turn, it is the maintenance of memories and worldly objects that generates what she calls power: the collective capacity for creativity through which human beings are able to ‘found’ new institutions, ‘augment’ existing ones or create the permanent spaces in which human beings can engage in action and thus realize themselves as human beings (Arendt, 1998). Thus, it is not only the loss of specific elements of the world (for instance, particular forms of social organization or physical structures) that is a concern; for Arendt, the loss of these elements of the world also signals the loss of the human capacity to recreate them.

Eradication and forms of world-building

What both Taylor and Arendt describe is not only the loss of specific worlds, but also of the capacity to engage in certain kinds of world-building. The latter effect is of particular concern in the context of


Introduction 15

peace interventions, since much of their power lies in their attempts to constrain, control and shape human activity to ensure ‘peaceful’ interac-tions. Transformative peace interventions target worldly objects or social/cultural/economic structures, such as buildings, neighbourhoods, walls, flags, murals or symbols, or contentious activities such as parading that are associated with conflict (see Jarman, 1997; Ross, 2007). However, peace interventions also target the ways in which people engage with these objects, spaces and symbols. For instance, the Belfast City Council has attempted to manage the damage and violence that occurs around the 11th of July bonfires (which celebrate the Orange Order parades on the 12th of July) and St Patrick’s Day (an important holiday for nation-alists and Republicans) by simultaneously regulating aspects such as the location of bonfires and the use of ethnically defining symbols and providing alternative events that are funded, managed and governed under its own auspices (Francey, 2010; Hand, 2010; Kelly and Mitchell, 2011). These initiatives are expected both to prevent a particular way of engaging with radical sources – in these cases, the tradition and memory associated with specific holidays – that have been associated with inter-ethnic conflict, and to encourage a different way of engaging with these sources. As the next chapters will argue, those forms of orientation that do not conform to this model may be framed as violent acts, or at least tendencies towards violence.

It tends to be assumed that as long as certain markers of ethnicity or collective history are preserved the manner in which people engage with them is not important. However, restrictions on the ways in which groups engage with certain radical sources may be just as damaging as the destruction of these sources. For instance, in the example given above, it is assumed that as long as some kind of event is held to celebrate St Patrick’s Day or the 11th of July, people will not miss the more tradi-tional, if more disorderly, ways in which they previously celebrated such events (not only during the Troubles but for decades or even centuries – see Jarman, 1997). This, however, may constitute a misunderstanding of the significance of these events. The constitutive value of these events for those who engage in them is not simply their ‘content’ – for instance, the ability to celebrate an ‘Irish’ or ‘Protestant’ holiday in public – but rather the experience of enacting specific traditions, or, conversely, of upsetting public order through spontaneous, unpredictable activity. As Kelly and Mitchell (2011) argue, the sometimes violent events surrounding the bonfires, rioting and other controversial events have an element of what Henri Lefebvre calls ‘festival’ or ‘play’, and what Bakhtin calls ‘carnival’: the ability to upset, overturn or subvert order momentarily. These events,



in other words, provide people with a sense of their ability to challenge and undermine the powers that constrain them. Here, the medium is more than just the message – it may be the constitutive value of the act.

By restricting the way in which people can engage with certain radical sources that are perceived to be contentious or conflictual, peace inter-ventions preclude certain forms of world-building – and thus prevent or restrain the construction of certain kinds of worlds. They make it possible to engage in the building, preservation or alteration of the world only through very specific means, such as participation in regulated, govern-ment-funded ‘festivals’ centred around multicultural themes, street theatre and the consumption of food, through engagement in NGOs or parliamentary structures, or other formal activities. The worlds created by engaging in these practices are very different from those that might otherwise be built: they conform to the over-arching discipline of the logics of security, democracy, governance and development promoted through these forms of activity (see Chapters 4 and 5). As such, even if certain radical sources are ‘preserved’ through governmental initiatives – or, in the case of the very concept of ‘two communities’ in Northern Ireland, the constitution itself – the inability to access them or draw upon them in plural ways may be just as damaging as their destruction. The severe proscription of ways of engaging with radical sources is, therefore, a form of eradication, even if certain identities and symbols are formally protected.

Radical peace, radical violence

The transformative model of peace is predicated on a specific under-standing of violent conflict to the extent that it masks or sublimates the violence it commits. Simply put, it tends to focus on the dynamics of physical, and sometimes structural, forms of violence, and, in attempting to eradicate certain sources, it in fact deepens the radical violence upon which they are ultimately based. In fact, it is often during periods of rad-ical change, in which the conditions of coexistence between worlds are ruptured, that violence occurs. In such situations, groups are likely to engage in more intensive forms of world-making that threaten or even damage the worlds of others, often by breaking down their boundaries. In order to stabilize these situations, peace interventions introduce new forms of radical change which do not return these worlds to a position of balance, but rather clear them away to promote their own dominant form of world-building (see below). Of course, this does not occur without dis-tortion or resistance; as Richmond and Mitchell (2011) argue, the norms


Introduction 17

of peace interventions are always shaped by local, contextual elements and forms of agency, and their results tend to be ‘hybrid’ or at least nominally pluralized. However, peace interventions tend to complete the process of the destruction of worlds begun by physical violence, and may even generate new cycles of violence (see Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 8).

To escape this pattern, it is necessary to rethink the underlying assumption of peace interventions: that the ultimate goal is to transform existing conditions in the pursuit of a specific world – ‘peace’ – rather than helping to reinstate a balance between the multiple, overlapping worlds that vie for survival in a conflicted setting. Certainly mainstream models (whether ‘liberal’, ‘transformative’ or other) are not the only possible responses to the problem of conflict, and perhaps not even the most desirable. This book will explore the ‘post-peace’ perspective by positing that the ability to create and sustain coexisting worlds is far more important than any grand image of peace.

Beyond the (post)liberal peace

Peace interventions, like any form of world-building (see below), are driven by a particular set of practices, norms and ontological premises, or collective understandings. Since interventions are designed and implemented by a number of actors – including United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and powerful states such as the US – each may promote its own specific model of peace and means for achieving it. Indeed, in some cases where a number of these actors have converged – and conflicted – in their attempts to build peace, several models have been implemented at once; this is certainly the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo (Braathu, 2010; Leferrara, 2010). However, in recent years, both critics and proponents (see Mitchell, 2010) of mainstream peace-building have presumed that there is one dominant model: the liberal peace (see Paris, 2004; Doyle and Sambanis, 2006; Ikenberry, 2001; Richmond, 2005, 2008; Chandler, 2006; Sriram, 2008).

In brief, this term refers to a model of peace based on democratization, ‘good governance’, the development of the economy and civil society, and, above all, securitization. Both calls for and warnings against the ‘liberal peace’ model tend to focus on political procedure, institutions and structures, economics and social development, and security. ‘Political procedure’ refers to the elements of formal democracy and the manner in which it is enacted: electoral representation, open and free elections, and the right of all citizens to vote and stand for political office. Moreover,



peace-building has become increasingly conflated with policymaking (Rasmussen, 2003), as the functioning of institutions and the provi-sion of services has become equated with non-violence (Rummel, 1997; Jeong, 2005). Even the increasingly influential cosmopolitan version of democracy appears to focus more on the procedural relationship between individuals and the structures and norms that govern them than on the content or experience of normative life. In turn, these priorities are closely tied to the agenda of development which, as Mark Duffield argues, has become synonymous with both security and the creation of stable markets as a means for controlling, disciplining and maintaining life and its ‘excess’ (Duffield, 2001, 2007). Moreover, contemporary peace interventions tend to place a strong emphasis on the creation of a robust sphere of ‘civil society’ (Kaldor, 2003; Lederach, 2005) that is expected to channel the ‘energies’ of society and direct them towards the reproduction of patterns of democratic governance and economic exchange. Indeed, the notions of civil society and socio-economic development have become deeply intertwined, if not synonymous, particularly as civil society has been framed as a form of ‘social capital’ which can be exploited for the purposes of socio-economic development. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this model of peace is predicated on the goal of creating security within and among states and supranational organizations. In the post-Cold War era, emphasis has increasingly shifted towards the notion of ‘human security’, or the physical safety of individuals and populations (Richmond, 2005; Duffield, 2001; Paris, 2004). Crucially, con-temporary peace interventions embody a turn towards viewing security as the governance – that is, the control and disciplining – of conflict, threat and instability. Each of these intertwining logics is explored in more detail in Chapter 5. In combination, they have created a powerful and appealing – even hegemonic – model of a ‘peaceful’ world.

Some of the authors discussed above criticize international actors for failing to implement this model widely or robustly enough (see Paris, 2004; Doyle and Sambanis, 2006; Jeong, 2005; Chandler, 2006). However, others (see Richmond, 2005, 2008; Jabri, 1996, 2007; Duffield, 2001, 2007; Mac Ginty, 2008) challenge its basic norms and call for ‘post-liberal’ or emancipatory approaches which can better approximate the ideal of ‘positive peace’. Simply put, ‘positive peace’ seeks to bring about radical change in the structures and institutions of the polity in order to promote not only security but also well-being and harmonious relations among groups (see Curle, 1971; Galtung, 1996; Jabri, 1996; Boulding, 2000; Lederach, 2005). Since the end of the Cold War, the European Union (EU) has begun to develop an approach to peace-building which,


Introduction 19

normatively speaking, appears to reflect this post-liberal, emancipatory or, as I shall call it, ‘transformative’ frame. In fact, the entire develop-ment of the EU can be viewed as an ongoing conflict intervention at a large scale, and as the unfolding of narratives that conform to a specific (democratic, cosmopolitan) interpretation of the causes of conflict and the means for its transformation. Increasingly, more ‘traditional’ liberal peace-building actors such as the UN are also adopting transformative approaches to their projects of peace-as-polity-building, as evidenced by the popularity of transformative strategies such as ‘Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegraiton’ (DDR), the development of NGO-based civil societies and norms of ‘human security’ (see Muggah, 2005).

The emergence and growth of this ‘variation’ poses an important question: is it still part of the ‘liberal peace’ paradigm which has domi-nated debates in peace and conflict studies for decades? Some elements suggest that it might be – for instance, its insistence on cosmopolitan forms of democracy, including democratic institutions, the development of civil society and beneficial forms of socio-economic development. However, there are many ways in which this model challenges the idea that the defining notion of peace is liberalism. For instance, this model of peace is implemented almost entirely through policymaking and logics of governance; from this perspective, it could be called a bureaucratic or governance model of peace. In addition, its proponents are deeply concerned not simply with raw economic gain, but, at least nominally, with forms of economic development that seek to modernize whole societies. For this reason, it could be called a developmental model of peace. Moreover, the form of democracy it promotes is not usually (or merely) the traditional, parliamentary model central to classic versions of the ‘liberal peace’. Instead, it calls for various forms of participation, integration and public input into policymaking processes at the local, national and supra-national level. For these reasons, it could just as easily be called a participative, integrative or social-democratic approach to peace. Finally, it promotes a model of security that is not limited to realist assumptions which posit that rational choice and strategy are the basis of conflict and thus of security. Instead, it frames security in terms not only of biological control, but also of psychological, attitudinal and affective (for instance, emotions, fears and memories) elements. As such, it could easily be called a biopolitical, therapeutic or affective model of peace (see Mitchell, 2011). None of these elements in itself expresses the totality of this model, or even acts as a single defining factor. Even less, then, can the over-arching concept of ‘liberalism’ be claimed to be the defining factor of these interventions, let alone of peace itself. Indeed,



‘post-liberal’ norms, techniques and practices such as those discussed above are much more constitutive of contemporary peace interventions than is traditional liberalism.

This interpretation suggests that ‘post-liberal’ peace-building is not a future projection, or even a critical perspective, but a reality which itself needs critiquing. In other words, rather than fixating on liberalism, critical perspectives on peace, conflict and violence should focus attention on non-ideological aspects of peace interventions, including their ethics and their (onto)logical bases. Indeed, debates regarding the (post)liberal peace have in a sense drawn discussion towards the content of models of peace rather than their basic norms and logics. As such, they threaten to overshadow two crucial questions: Is peace-building (of any ideology) peaceful? And how does peace relate to conflict and violence?

This book attempts to move ‘aside’ from, without abandoning the basic principles of, debates about the ideology of peace to focus on these other aspects, including the ethos of transformation that underpins most contemporary peace interventions. Transformation, as I shall argue in the chapters that follow, is no longer viewed as a transitory state of affairs, but rather as a dominant logic of (re)production, control and, ultimately, world-building. It has also been framed as an ideal, particularly within peace-building discourses; the word itself is redolent of change, hope and progression, at least in the eyes of its proponents. However, as I shall discuss shortly, transformative peace interventions are ‘radical’ projects in two senses of the word: first, they seek to bring about large-scale, comprehensive change that alters the very framework of the polity; and secondly, they seek to do this by targeting, changing or removing the perceived ‘roots’ of violence and disorder. This, I shall argue through-out the book, is the source of much of the violence that they (however unintentionally) promote.

Methodology and approach

This book is pluralist both in its normative stance and in its approach. Although primarily grounded in political theory and philosophy, it will encompass elements of social anthropology (largely ethnographic research based on four years of living and working in Northern Ireland), history, sociology and policy analysis, using both primary and secondary resources. It engages three main axes of analysis: conceptual, normative and practical. Conceptually, it reframes the relationships between peace, conflict and violence. It also builds a detailed portrait of the paradigm of transformation, the motivations, assumptions and ideas behind it,


Introduction 21

and its ethical and ontological underpinnings. Its normative facet draws on a range of ideas that have influenced the ‘transformative turn’ in peace and polity-building, including international political theory; theories of political violence; conflict transformation, critical peace and conflict studies; radical, agonistic, communicative and participative theories of democracy; governance; and civil society. For the empirical chapters and examples, critical policy analysis is employed, based on the rhetorical and conceptual examination of key primary policy documents and secondary commentary. The analysis of a variety of major and minor policies and their interrelations provides an account of the nuances and varied approaches of policymakers at different levels to the project of transformation. In Chapters 3 and 4, primary and secondary historical materials – including public records, reports of governmental bodies and the paraphernalia of the actors in question – are counter-posed with these ‘official’ documents. Chapters 7 to 9 engage with newspaper reports, as well as qualitative and quantitative data from a number of surveys, public offices and commissioned research undertaken in Northern Ireland in recent years. Finally, and crucially, these chapters and several passages throughout draw upon over 50 semi-structured interviews undertaken between 2006 and 2010 with members of the groups in question, as well as actors in governmental agencies, NGOs and other organizations responsible for developing the policies that effect them.

Transformative peace in context: Structure of the book

Lost in Transformation presents a new approach to peace, conflict and violence. Chapter 1 has posited that both peace (-building) and conflict can be modes of world-building, and it has defined violence as an irresistible violation that destroys worlds or precludes forms of world-building. It has also argued that, due to their radical nature, trans-formative peace interventions may promote forms of radical violence. Chapter 2 explores these issues in greater depth. It challenges one of the main orthodoxies of peace interventions: the presumption that conflict is a ‘cause’ or ‘root’ of violence, and that it must be removed or significantly altered in order to create peace. Then, it demonstrates how ‘violence against conflict’, often promoted by transformative peace interventions, can create cycles of violence by breaking down the ‘threatworks’ that are used to resist, constrain and cope with them.

To explore these issues in depth, I shall locate them in a specific context: peace-building in Northern Ireland since the late 1950s, with a special focus on the post-1994 ‘peace process’ and the role of the



EU’s PEACE programmes and auxiliary policies within it. As mentioned above, the EU has emerged as one of the most clear-cut examples of transformative peace-building. However, the other actors involved in policymaking during this period, including the British government, also adopted a distinctly transformative approach, particularly in the ‘New Labour’ period post-1997 (see Chapters 4 and 5). This book will focus on the transformative peace and securitization policies promoted by the EU, the British and Irish governments and other international actors and national/local governments (including municipalities) since the beginning of the Cold War (see Chapters 3 and 4).

In an attempt to understand the experience of transformation and radical violence throughout this period, I shall trace its effects at several levels of analysis. Chapter 3 examines how the radical violence of mod-ernization disrupted the long-standing balance between plural worlds (not only of ‘ethno-religious’ groups, but also socio-economic stations, regions and so on) by breaking down long-standing threatworks, and how this helped give rise to a period of frequent violence which became known as ‘the Troubles’. In so doing, it explores how radical threats and violence generated by external trends and forces, including the processes of state-building, shaped the emergence of physical and material violence between key conflicting actors. At the same level of analysis, Chapter 4 demonstrates how post-1994 ‘transformative’ peace interventions created a similar dynamic of radical violence by attempting to sweep away the damaged radical sources of the main conflicting groups, and how they promoted irresistible forms of radical change.

Shifting to the personal, communal and local level, and the experience of transformation, Chapters 6, 7 and 8 explore the effects of transfor-mation on two groups who were intensely targeted or excluded from it: Republican and Loyalist former prisoners and paramilitary actors. Chapter 6 critically examines the construction or trans-formation of a spe-cific demographic group targeted by most transformative peace-build-ing policies: the ex-combatant. It follows the way in which the worlds and forms of world-building of this category were literally transformed, starting within the prison system and continuing through the policymak-ing processes, NGOs and service provision imperatives of the post-1994 period. Chapter 7 explores the subtle and perhaps surprising ways in which this transformation created a dynamic of radical change – and loss – for ex-combatants which was, in many cases, experienced as irre-sistible, and thus as a threat of violence. It also examines the logic of ‘long division’, through which many ex-combatants were ‘transformed in’ to the processes of peace-building, and as a result of which those


Introduction 23

who were not transformed became the ‘remainders’ of these processes. These remainders are not passive, I argue; they not only attempt to resist radical threats faced (in particular with regard to their exclusion from the processes of peace-building and the preclusion of their normative objections to it) but they are also the objects of radical violence, often a reaction to their attempts to resist. Chapter 8 shows how the logic of long division creates cycles of violence within paramilitary groups engaged in the ‘peace process’, re-constructing the source of ‘dissident’ violence – of Loyalists in the early 2000s and Republicans at the time of writing – and (re)establishing links between it and the processes of peace-building. Chapter 9 concludes by arguing that plural world-building – not ‘peace-building’ per se – should be the goal of interventions into cycles of violence. It also argues that conflict should not be treated as a root of violence, but rather, as a possible condition of peace. In so doing, it reframes several forms of conflictual world-building – rioting, division and ‘sectarianism’ – from this perspective. It concludes by articulating the ways in which a perspective based on plural-world building can shift the emphasis of peace, conflict and violence studies and promote conditions of peace as non-violence between plural worlds. This approach, I argue, can help to create interventions in which less is lost in transformation and much more may potentially be gained.


24

Strategies of conflict transformation are intended to transcend violence and promote peaceful change (see Miall, 2007; Lederach, 2005). Yet these strategies may be premised on a specific form of violence: violence against conflict. In other words, they may enact violence against conflictual forms of world-building, including the threatworks I have described in Chapter 1. This is due largely to the assumption that conflict, left unchecked, causes violence, and indeed that the forms of physical, material and structural violence which these strategies are designed to ameliorate, are forms of ‘violent conflict’. This chapter will raise a counter-hypothesis: that conflict itself can neither be conflated with violence, nor is it necessarily a cause of violence. The incidences of conflict and violence are indeed very often correlative, and even causally related, but not in the way that theorists of conflict often assume. Conflictual forms of world-building, I shall argue, are used to manage, minimize, cope with or resist radical threat. When these forms of world-building are breached or made impossible through acts of coercion or violence, the breach is responded to with violence. As Arendt (1965) argues, violence is purely instrumental and reactive, and occurs only when human action is impossible. Conflict, on the other hand, is a powerful means for creating, asserting and protecting elements of plural worlds, as theorists of agonism aver (see Chapter 4 and Mouffe, 2000; Honig, 1993; and Conolly, 1995). In ‘conflicted’ contexts – that is, contexts where threatworks and conflictual forms of world-building are constitu-tive of daily life – violence occurs where these phenomena are breached or precluded and the radical threats they resist become irresistible (see Arendt, 1998). As such, it is not conflict per se that causes violence, or conflict that is left unmanaged. On the contrary, it is the inability to conflict that is most likely to foster violence.

2Violence against Conflict: Radical Peace, Radical Violence and the Paradox of Conflict Transformation

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Violence against Conflict 25

Strategies of conflict transformation, however, are premised on the assumption that conflict causes, rather than resists, violence. In attempting to remove or significantly alter conflictual forms of world-building, they may (however inadvertently) create irresistible radical threats – and therefore enact radical violence – against conflicting groups. As a result, the form of peace it creates may be premised upon, and generative of, violence for many constituent groups. In the light of this counter-hypothesis, this chapter re-examines the relationships between the concepts of conflict, violence and (ir)resistibility and their role in strategies of conflict transformation.

Violence

The concepts of conflict and violence are often blurred, used inter-changeably, or conflated into a single concept – ‘violent conflict’. In many conceptualizations, particularly those that inform the field of conflict transformation, violence is viewed as an escalation, accentuation or intensified ‘stage’ of conflict (see Lederach, 2003; Miall, 2007; Burton, 1997). Here, I shall argue that conflict and violence are not distinguished merely by degree or intensity, but rather that they are qualitatively distinct – even mutually exclusive – phenomena. The relation between them may be causal, but not because conflict ‘causes’ violence. Rather, I shall argue, it is in the absence of conflict that violence thrives.

Violence, I shall argue, is the infliction of harm over which those harmed have no control, ability to intervene or capacity to resist. It is literally the violation of the autonomy or integrity of its object, and the negation of the latter’s capacity to act or determine the conditions in which it exists. As Hannah Arendt argues, violence is the opposite of ‘action’ or the capacity of human beings to appear as unique, plural individuals and to found the worlds they inhabit and share (Arendt, 1969). Rather than founding, preserving or creating worlds in which human life can thrive, violence destroys and dehumanizes these worlds and their inhabitants (Arendt, 1967). I want to take this argument a step further, to claim that violence is not only the opposite of action, but the condition created by its absence or impossibility. To elucidate this concept, Arendt’s notion of ‘irresistibility’ is useful. Violence, I shall argue, is the experience of an irresistible radical threat – that is, a threat against one’s world which one has no means of resisting, altering, shaping or intervening in. From this perspective, violence can assume many dimen-sions, often simultaneously. For instance, the destruction of a building may involve physical or material violence against property and people,



structural violence against the people who use it for family life or work, and radical violence if the building is, for instance, the site of collec-tive memories, or a place in which action takes place – for instance, a public building or one with historical significance. Here, the term ‘physical or material violence’ should be taken to refer to physical harm to bodies, structures or other material phenomena. ‘Structural violence’ (see Galtung, 1996) refers to the kind of harm that is created by particular social, political or economic structures – for instance, extreme, intentional deprivation or social alienation that may create threats among groups and/or be heightened by physical or material violence (see Ramsbotham et al., 2005; Miall, 2007).

Violence, in its many forms and facets, is not simply an acute form of conflict. It is often enacted by individuals or groups engaged in conflictual forms of world-building, since these groups are actively engaged in navigating the exchange of radical threat. Yet that does not necessarily mean that conflict causes violence; indeed, as I shall argue presently, it is a powerful means of resisting it. Moreover, violence does not always occur in relation to conflict; it is of course possible to undertake a violent act, such as murder or the destruction of property, or even accidental killing, without a pre-existing dynamic of conflict between the parties concerned. Even in conditions in which conflict is strong and widespread, violence need not derive from it. As Chapter 8 will describe, many individuals engaged in violence related to crime in Northern Ireland did not employ this form of violence only (or even primarily) in relation to conflictual issues. Even the ‘Shankill Butchers’, a group infamous for perpetrating gruesome killings during the Troubles, were believed to be motivated primarily not by the dynamics of conflict. Instead, they were thought to be psychopaths who ‘would have offended even had there been no civil unrest’ (Dillon, 1989) and simply took advantage of the chaos to cover their acts. These examples demonstrate that violence is a phenomenon distinct from conflict, and the presence of conflict – however aggressive or unruly – is not a sufficient cause of violence.

What about forms of conflictual world-building that engage with or even appear to promote violence? In some cases, these forms of world-building may embed violence as an ideal (Galtung, 1996; Jabri, 1997), create a ‘culture of violence’ (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, 2005, p. 216) or even be used as tools for motivating and mobilizing violence (Galtung, 1996; Burton, 1997; Oberschall, 2007). The com-memoration or glorification of violent events may be a powerful form of conflictual world-building and the (re)construction of communal



histories (see Ross, 2007) – not only among actively conflicting groups, but indeed within the histories and cultures of most contemporary societies. For instance, it is common to commemorate the violence of the World Wars in Western Europe and North America as a means of affirming the communal memory of sacrifice and triumph. These com-memorations are not intended to incite citizens to war, but rather to affirm an important element of their world and the defence of it. In many cases, even those elements of world-building which engage with or valorize violence are not acts of violence in themselves, nor direct causes of them, unless they are taken literally and acted upon. At this moment, the actors in question are no longer engaging in conflictual world-building, but rather in the violent destruction of other worlds.

This distinction may seem narrow, but it has important implications with regards to how the relationship between conflictual forms of world-building and violence are interpreted. For instance, in the context of Northern Ireland, many individuals and groups engage in behaviour that appears to incite violence against others, but is not understood literally and almost never acted upon. For instance, it is very common to see graffiti in various parts of Belfast which presents sinister acro-nyms such as KAT or KAH (‘Kill All Taigs’ [Catholics] or Kill All Huns [Protestants]). However, these graffiti and other forms of ‘sectarian’ behaviour are generally written by groups of young people who do not intend to do serious physical harm to one another, and certainly not on the genocidal level the acronyms suggest, but rather to mark and contest territory and the authorities that maintain it (see Kelly and Mitchell, 2011; Roche, 2008). Another example can be found in the songs of the ‘Loyalist Songbook’, which refer to historic battles or violent acts against Catholics and are often sung during the ‘marching season’ that leads up to the Orange Order Parades on 12th of July (see Shankill Defence Association, 1970). While incidents of violence have taken place after or during the singing of these songs, particularly in the disorderly and often conflictual events (largely marches, parades and bonfires) in which they are sung, for the most part, those singing and listening to the songs do not act upon them literally, but rather view them as the reenactment of rituals that assert the collective presence of the Loyalist or Protestant community (see Jarman, 1997). Moreover, it is common for acts of violence that take place at events such as the marches on the 12th of July to be enacted within or among groups and not merely against members of other groups. Indeed, in my experience of attending and observing several of these bonfires, it is more common for physical violence to emerge over small personal (that is, not necessarily communal



or ‘sectarian’) insults or aggravations. It is also common for violence to be initiated by members of Republican/nationalist or Catholic communities acting upon the provocation raised by offensive lyrics, images or events, especially when they perceive these acts to be irresistible to them. This, in turn, may lead to violent exchanges between groups – the Drumcree riots of the mid-1990s are a prime example of this (see O’Neill, 2000). In this sense, the ‘culture of violence’ promoted by Loyalist groups is not primarily used to incite acts of violence against Republicans/nationalists or Catholics, but may (indirectly) be used to mobilize violence against them. As such, regardless of how undesirable they may be, even those forms of conflict which appear to engender a ‘culture of violence’ are not acts of violence, or even causes of violence, until they are interpreted literally and acted upon. Rather, they are acts of conflictual world-building.

Conflict

Conflict, I shall argue, is a form of world-building used to respond to the threat of violence (radical, physical, material or structural), or any other radical threat to the worlds inhabited by conflicting groups. It is the state of affairs in which two or more parties are engaged in activities that create a tangible threat to each others’ worlds or forms of world-building. As such, it makes perfect sense that high degrees of conflict, some very overt, can be observed in close temporal and physical proximity to acts of violence, which directly threaten worlds and forms of world-building. Conflictual forms of world-building act as a form of scar tissue around sites of violence, creating tangible manifestations of threat, attempting to protect against violence and allowing for the regeneration of damaged worlds in condi-tions of extreme threat.

They give rise to what I shall call ‘threatworks’: the sets of practices, institutions or customs through which people exchange, acknowl-edge, evade, manouevre, contest and otherwise resist radical threats. Threatworks are sets of tactics and objects used to maintain a world, and to protect it against the encroachment of other worlds or indirect forces which might damage it. Visible or tangible elements of a threat-work may include, for example, physical objects, such as barriers, gates and walls; social practices such as (‘voluntary’) segregation, ostracization or reticence around members of a different groups; or cultural markers such as symbols, flags, the use of non-mainstream languages and other tactics for promoting or preserving a particular way of life. In some cases, the development of a threatwork may involve ‘emergency world-building’: that is, the rapid or intense (re)construction of certain elements



of a group’s history, culture or social structures. Below, I shall examine several examples in which threatworks were used to resist radical threats and may have helped to prevent cycles of violence.

In any polity in which plural worlds coexist, the acts through which they are built, preserved and altered frequently collide with those of other groups and create radical threats. For instance, even in ‘peaceful’ societies, the forms of world-building undertaken by immigrant groups in making new homes may create radical threats to worlds based primarily around a single ethnic identity. The threats raised by this form of pluralization may be reacted to with hostility or even aggression, but it may also be greeted by responses ranging from simple toleration (see Brown, 2006) to friendliness. The practices associated with these responses all constitute part of the threatworks used to respond to the threat in question. Some may be undesirable and reactionary, while others may be creative and progressive, but all constitute means of responding to, resisting and coping with threat.

Under certain conditions, threatworks are marginal, in that they do not constitute a significant part of everyday life and other, non-conflictual forms of world-building are predominant. These include situations in which plural worlds are perceived by their inhabitants to be relatively balanced and stable (if not strictly equal) in terms of their power, influence or degree of security; where they may overlap without threatening damage or destruction, and where people may move between them with relative ease, and without raising a radical threat to the worlds in question. Where there is a perceived imbalance of threat – that is, where one world or form of world-making appears likely to broach, compromise or even obliterate another – threatworks may be more visible, tangible and play a bigger role in everyday life. They may, for instance, take the form of segregation, the erection of boundaries or walls, or even forms of low-level violence such as rioting, which may be perceived as ways of securing the boundaries of a world or limiting the threat of violence against it.

The contexts generally defined as ‘conflict zones’ or ‘societies in conflict’ are those in which threatworks are significant or even predominant within everyday life. They are often also places in which violence takes place. This is not, however, a direct result of the presence of threatworks or even their importance in daily life. The causation, I have argued, is reversed: the degree and intensity of conflictual forms of world-build-ing is a response to the intensity and frequency of the radical threat that exists between groups, and an attempt to prevent the destruction of plural worlds. It is when coercive or otherwise violent acts are taken



against these threatworks or non-conflictual forms of world-building, that cycles of violence emerge.

Irresistibility and violence

Whether an act is violent has a great deal to do with whether the groups it affects feel capable of intervening, shaping, blocking or indeed acquiescing to it. When a radical act – in particular an attempt to eradicate a world or form of world-building – is perceived as irresistible, it is experienced as violence. As discussed above, violence is an instrumental process which precludes creative human action and instead leads to cycles in which irre-sistible acts are exchanged until one group or another ceases. What, then, is meant by the concept of ‘resistibility’, and indeed, irresistibility?

The dynamics of resistance and irresistibility are perhaps best explored in the work of postmodern and post-structuralist theorists. For Michel Foucault, resistance is always opposition to or a struggle against power, and the particular rationalities that power inculcates (Foucault, 1982, p. 210). In this sense, resistance takes the form of an ‘agonism which is at the same time reciprocal incitation and struggle’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 221) – in short, a situation of mutual struggle between the person resisting and the power that, in turn, resists her. It is also, he claims ‘a permanent political task inherent in all social existence’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 223). From this perspective, resistance is the permanent dynamic between power and the people that assert and define their sub-jectivity against it. Foucault does not seem hopeful about the prospects of transcending this dynamic of ‘perpetual reversal … [in which] at every moment the relationship of power may become a confrontation between two adversaries’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 226). Moreover, if there is any way of resisting power that does not involve adopting and using its own processes and rationalities against it, he is not forthcoming about this. This is the primary dilemma that Foucault raises with regards to resistance: in order to resist, one must reproduce the power that one is resisting. However, from a Foucaultian perspective, it is resisting which preserves the human being’s status and agency as a subject, and not a mere object determined and controlled by the powers of government, the economy and social life. As long as people can resist, therefore, they can live human lives.

The post-Marxists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2004) expand upon this argument by insisting on the ‘primacy’ of resistance. That is, they claim that resistance determines the uses, strategies and manifesta-tions of power (Hardt and Negri, 2004, p. 68). Thus, by appropriating



and subverting logics of power, groups and individuals can reclaim agency. This argument chimes with de Certeau’s notion of tactics. He claims that, in their everyday lives, individuals use ‘strategic’ logics such as consumption and regulation in subversive ways (for instance, by purchasing goods on the basis of mood and taste rather than bare need, or by using streets to forge one’s own unique path through the city) (de Certeau, 1984, p. xix). In other words, simple acts of world-building – even those which comply with the forms of power exerted – can be used to resist these powers, and thus to (re)appropriate and alter them instead of simply acquiescing to them. It is this element of every-day resistance, often through the subversion of the logics of power, that human beings can shield themselves against the potential violence of forces that seek to objectify them and preclude resistance.

Therefore, where violence is a reactive chain of uni-directional events, resistance is a creative, often conflictual dynamic, in which actors are often simultaneously the object and subject of resistance and power. From this perspective, resistance is not simply the preserve of weak or non-institutionalized actors. Nor, for that matter, is power the sole privilege of states or other large, well-armed bodies. As we shall see in the chapters that follow, the ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’ described by de Certeau can be engaged in by citizens and governing bodies alike, not to mention groups such as paramilitary organizations that do not fit neatly into either category. As such, both the ‘powerful’ and the ‘weak’ are subjects and objects of resistance – and of irresistible acts (see Chapter 4). Resistance, then, is a mutual dynamic in which all parties feel capable of (at least to some degree) controlling, shaping or intervening in the acts, powers or logics that shape their lives.

Engaging in conflictual forms of world-building is an important way in which groups can resist radical threats to their worlds, whether these are raised directly by the goals or acts of other groups, or through powerful, large-scale forces of change. This statement is not inconsistent with the literature on conflict transformation, in which resistance is closely linked, if not equated to, conflict. The incompatibility of the aims of different groups creates a situation in which one must relinquish its aims, or even compromise its survival (Kriesberg, 1998) and conflict is used to ‘resist’ this outcome (Tidwell, 1998). The dynamics and practices of conflict are often viewed as resistant to change, either because they are too ‘deeply rooted’ to be easily removed (Mitchell, 2004), or because the changes proposed by peace-building actors are treated with suspicion or mistrust (Selby, 2004). This definition is reflected in studies of violent conflict in Northern Ireland, which tend to refer to resistance as the attempts of



conflicting parties to oppose pressure to change or conform, as exerted by their opponents (Ruane and Todd, 1996). Interestingly, in this context, the word ‘resistance’ is often used to distinguish ‘principled’ or ‘political’ acts from criminality or violence for the sake of itself (see Patterson, 2006). In short, resistance tends to be associated with acts of struggle or attempts to intervene in the course of events, although it need not be active, nor even intentional. In these analyses, the very intransigence (or resilience) of a group or object constitutes a form of resistance which shapes the dynamics of change by obstructing or modulating them. Indeed, the unwillingness of the dominant unionist state to submit to demands for change, and the more extreme violence of Loyalist para-militaries in response to changes in the state are often cast in this light (Nelson, 1984; Cusack and MacDonald, 2000; O’Dochartaigh, 2005; McGrattan, 2010). In short, resistance tends to be conceptualized within these discourses in terms of conflictual activities.

This analysis supports the thesis I have advanced above: that resistance is often conflictual or, more importantly, that conflict is a form of resist-ance. In other words, the presence of conflict is a physical manifestation of the conditions of resistibility; where it is possible to conflict, violence is not perceived to be necessary or desirable. Where resistance and conflict are precluded, or are not sufficient to resist a radical threat, uni-directional, irresistible and usually coercive acts occur. In these con-ditions, the recipients of an action have no recourse to resist, reshape or intervene in it, nor any subjective agency which would allow them to appropriate, subvert or alter its logic. These are conditions of mutual irresistibility which, when combined with radical threats to one more group, create cycles of violence.

Radical peace or radical violence? The paradox of conflict transformation

Conflict transformation is shaped by a central contradiction: it aims to eliminate violence, but, as I shall argue, it may promote radical threats or even violence in attempting to remove conflictual attitudes, practices or threatworks. It is based on the assumption that conflict left unchecked will necessarily accelerate or intensify into violence. As such, it attempts to change the ways in which people conflict, and the acts or objects through which they conflict, as a means of converting conflict into non-violent forms (see Burton, 1997; Miall, 2007; Ramsbotham et al., 2005). In many cases, the transformation of conflict involves altering or even removing practices and manifestations of conflictual world-building,



or elements of threatworks. Indeed, many of the conflict transformation initiatives I shall discuss in the following chapters seek to break down key elements of threatworks such as ‘sectarian’ social behaviours, ‘interfaces’ and enclaves dominated by one ethnic group (see European Union, 2008; OFMDFM, 2005; Hamber and Kelly, 2004). In so doing, these strategies and initiatives may create radical threats to the groups and worlds they seek to transform.

Conflict transformation frames violence as a radical problem, in the first sense discussed in Chapter 1. Indeed, unlike theories of conflict and violence based on rational choice or socio-economic determinism, the paradigm of conflict transformation is based on the assumption that violence has deeper roots in the collective history, memory, cul-ture and practices of conflicting groups (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, 2005; Lederach, 2005; Miall, 2007; Oberschall, 2007; Burton, 1997). Many of these ‘roots’ are perceived to inhere in the conflict-ual goals, values, beliefs and aspirations of differentiated groups, or the competitive or conflictual social and economic practices through which communities constitute and advance themselves (Kriesberg, 1998; Burton, 1997; Curle, 1971; Jabri, 1996; Oberschall, 2007). For instance, in the academic discourses surrounding conflict in Northern Ireland, it tends to be assumed that the ‘divided’ nature of the region (see Little, 2004) – including social practices such as the use of slogans, clothing or symbols that mark off distinct ethnic or social groups – directly prompted the outbreak of violence (see McGrattan, 2010). In addition, there is a widespread assumption that economic practices which privilege or advance one group at the expense of another create conditions, such as relative poverty and the inequitable distribution of resources, that are perceived to be root causes of conflict (Duffield, 2007; Galtung, 1996). Some proponents of conflict transformation recognize the constitutive value of these ‘roots’ of conflict. Indeed, their capacity to provoke violence is often attributed to the perception that threats against ‘roots’ are threats to the very survival of the groups in question (Kriesberg, 1998, p. 45). However, it is assumed that the acts under-taken to protect them are causes of violence.

Indeed, most models of conflict transformation seek to understand these root causes instrumentally, as a means for altering or even removing them. For instance, Lederach (2003), Miall (2007), Kriesberg (1998) and others use variations on the image of cycles and spirals to conceptualize the emergence of conflict from a particular ‘root cause’ or set of conditions. By identifying and altering the perceived roots of a cycle of violence, or intervening in the practices believed to promote it, proponents of these



models seek to prevent or preclude the perceived escalation of conflict into violence among the groups (O’Reilly, 2010). More specifically, the perceived roots of violence must be altered so that the groups no longer possess incompatible aims. From this viewpoint, ‘since a conflict exists when two or more parties manifest their belief that they have incompat-ible goals, when they no longer contest a particular goal, that conflict ceases’ (Kriesberg, 1998). By altering or removing the need for conflict in this manner, strategies of conflict transformation are designed to act as an intervention in, and a prophylactic against, cycles of violence. To this end, conflict transformation promotes a gradual but comprehensive altera-tion of the symbols, attitudes, identities, norms, practices and institutions that have been identified either as proximate or general root causes of conflict (Burton, 1997; Miall, 2007; Ramsbotham et al., 2005). Eventually, the processes of conflict transformation are expected to replace the per-ceived roots of violence – threatworks or conflictual forms of world-build-ing – with a new set of roots which which produce or promote toleration, a ‘shared’ or universal set of norms, a democratic disposition, a concern for the common good, and other tenets associated with liberal, social and/or democratic models of peace (Jabri, 1996; Burton, 1997).

From this point of view, peace interventions which draw on the logic of conflict transformation are radical in that they seek to bring about widespread and comprehensive change by identifying, then altering or removing the perceived roots of violence: ‘violent conflict’ and the conditions that promote it. Conflict transformation is portrayed as a gentler or more accommodating, or even emancipatory response to violence than the use of coercive sanctions against one conflicting group or the implementation of a straightforward victor’s peace (see Richmond, 2005). As Adam Curle, an early proponent of conflict trans-formation, argues,

one of mankind’s most urgent challenges is … to find ways of elimi-nating unpeaceful relationships without eliminating people, to help people to change their perceptions and enlarge their understanding, not to destroy them.

(Curle, 1971, p. 26)

This statement could form the basis of forms of peace based on the peaceful co-existence of plural worlds. In practice, however, conflict transformation may enact violence by misinterpreting the causal relationship between conflict and violence, and enacting its own form of violence. Simply put, by altering or removing threatworks, strategies



of conflict transformation may raise and realize radical threats to conflicting groups. These, in turn, may give rise to subtle, often indirect or unintended, cycles of violence which may go unnoticed until they emerge in physical or material forms.

Physical and material violence tends to be privileged by international peace-building actors, who have a vested interest in controlling the bio-political aspects of violence. Indeed, as Duffield (2007) argues, peace interventions are increasingly concerned with bio-political control – that is, with exercising power over death, physical harm and (excess) life, and peace is a project concerned in large part with governing these elements. In addition, peace is conceptualized in terms of affect, the manipulation of which can be a powerful form of control (see Deleuze and Guattari, 2004 and Hardt and Negri, 2004). For instance, the ideal of ‘positive peace’ is often associated with both socio-economic equality and development, and the experience of moral, spiritual or social well-being (see Galtung, 1996; Lederach, 2005; Bush and Folger, 1994). Since peace is associated with a concept of human flourishing based on these principles, violence tends to be framed as acts which disrupt, destroy or diminish them. This, in turn, is based on the assumption that the development and mainte-nance of lifestyles, patterns of social organization and experiences are intrinsically more peaceful than others (see Boulding, 2000). As such, it is assumed to be not only defensible, but even necessary to peace, to eliminate worlds and forms of world-building that obstruct these goals. In other words, there is perceived to be a trade-off between conflictual forms of world-building and the model of peace described above, and violence against conflict is justifiable if it removes obstructions to the perceived conditions of non-violence.

Yet this trade-off, I shall now argue, is a chimera. Radical violence underpins the more obvious and visible forms of violence combated by models of ‘positive peace’ – for instance, physical, material and structural violence. The destruction of threatworks or (conflictual) forms of world-building, whether through direct acts of violence or gradual, processual forces such as radical socio-economic change, constitutes an act of radical violence in itself. Moreover, by removing or weakening the means through which conflicting groups respond to and resist radical threats or the threat of violence, it may help to give rise to cycles of violence within and among conflicting groups. To illustrate this problem, I shall now examine the role of threatworks in Northern Ireland before the Troubles, arguing that they did not cause this prolonged cycle of violence, but in fact played a crucial role in constraining and preventing it.



Why the Troubles did not emerge: Threatworks and the resistance of violence in Northern Ireland, 1950s–1960s

To approach this narrative, I shall start with a counterfactual question: why didn’t the modern Troubles begin in the 1950s (or indeed at any point after the partition of Ireland), and why, specifically, did they begin at the end of the 1960s? Post-partition Ireland, in particular Northern Ireland, possessed all of the ‘root causes’ and conditions necessary to give rise to a ‘cycle of conflict’ of the kind envisioned by theorists of conflict transformation. It was characterized by entrenched ‘division’ between two major groups; unequal social and economic conditions (not only between Catholic and Protestants, but also between different economic echelons); and a series of riots and disturbances that could have acted as ‘triggers’ for the escalation of conflict (Mulholland, 2000); indeed, later, very similar acts would be identified as catalysts of the Troubles (see Chapter 3). These ‘triggers’ did not lead to a prolonged cycle of violence, I shall argue, in large part because, and not in spite, of long-standing conflict. Put more simply, centuries of coping with the threat of multiple, shifting and sometimes opposing worlds had provided the communities, villages and cities of Northern Ireland with strong threatworks and a wide repertoire of modes of world-building (some conflictual) that allowed them to resist or control threats to their worlds. The rupturing of these threatworks, and the removal of the capacity to conflict by powerful forces of social, economic and political change made possible the cycles of violence known as the Troubles. To explore this, I shall examine the role that threatworks played in resisting, containing or coping with the threat of violence in three cases directly preceding the outbreak of the Troubles.

Prejudice and toleration in ‘Ballybeg’

When Rosemary Harris researched her book Prejudice and Tolerance in Ulster (1972) between the mid-1950s and early 1960s, she was fascinated to discover that, despite significant ethnic, social, economic and cul-tural cleavages, the inhabitants of the pseudonymical border town of Ballybeg enjoyed relatively peaceful relations on a daily basis. In addition to developing a complex system of social, familial and trade relation-ships among co-inhabitants of the town, each group (and numerous subgroups) engaged in exclusionary (and sometimes openly hostile) activities of the kind that would later be framed as triggers of the mod-ern Troubles. For instance, some Protestants organized and attended Orange Order parades, which contained music and symbols that overtly



insulted Catholics, while some Catholics organized nationalist activities and clubs or attended Gaelic sporting events from which Protestants were excluded (Harris, 1972, p. 146). In addition, through her in-depth interviews of various inhabitants of Ballybeg, Harris discovered that each group regarded the other with a certain degree of mistrust, ranging from wariness based on hearsay or vague stereotypes to deep hostility. Yet, Harris noted, the citizens of Ballybeg deliberately avoided confrontation in their daily interactions, and instead adopted activities and strategies that promoted ‘toleration’ of the other group(s). For instance, Catholics and Protestants of the more prosperous economic groups interacted regularly, but they refused to discuss political issues which might provoke contro-versy among members of the other group. Both groups tolerated overt displays of the other’s culture, such as parades, even when they were perceived as demeaning.

Moreover, the various groups lived in separate areas, but mixed in certain public settings, in the weekly market or town events, say, or in cases where members of one group were employed in the homes of another. In addition, people of specific classes could interact more easily than others; for instance, high-class Protestants could employ working-class Catholics with little friction. In this sense, the boundaries of one world (socio-economic class) transgressed those of another (ethnicity) and made them more porous for certain individuals. In these condi-tions, members of each group clearly experienced a sense of threat in relation to the other, and engaged in a range of activities that tend to be identified with conflict. However, they were still able to live, work and interact in certain social or economic settings without violence. Here, the strong patterns of geographical, social and economic separation, and subtle but established patterns of interaction, created a set of clear boundaries between worlds that allowed inhabitants of the town to move between and even share them without raising irresistible radical threats to one another.

The other Civil Rights Movement (CRM) in (London)Derry

Another example can be found in the episodes of collective action that began to emerge at the time. A common explanation of the origins of the Troubles is that the sudden rise in collective action that occurred in the late 1960s (see Chapter 5), including the protests organized by the various Northern Ireland civil rights movements (NICRMs) and the groups that opposed them, directly precipitated violent conflict by destabilizing and bringing overtly political activity into the political sphere. Indeed, Harris concluded her study by chastising the organizers



of these groups for disrupting relatively peaceful conditions by exercising the tactics of social movements. Yet the CRMs of the late 1960s were certainly not the first instances of modern social movements in the region. As early as 1951, similar activities were taking place in the city of (London)Derry, where the Nationalist Party leader Eddie McAteer and his small Anti-Partition league paraded through town wielding an Irish tricolour and succeeded in provoking the police. The protest they undertook the following year involved violence that was ‘comparable to that unleashed on 5 October 1968’ (Prince, 2007, pp. 54–5). Simon Prince claims that the relative invisibility of this campaign – it was not, as the later Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA – see Purdie, 1990) march would be, broadcast on television or widely reported elsewhere – meant that it received little attention even within the city (Purdie, 1990). Furthermore, since the police were ultimately able to control the protestors, it posed a minimal threat to the Unionist state and was not perceived as a harbinger of more intense threats. The social, economic and cultural structures in (London)Derry at the time included marked division between the two major groups, inequality and political friction, territorial boundaries marking the neighbourhoods occupied by each group, and frequent episodes of public disorder (see O’Dochartaigh, 2005). Indeed, those approaching the context from the perspective of ‘positive peace’ could rightly argue that structural violence, in the form of the social and economic exclusion of Catholics, was rife. However, terming these conditions structural violence suggests, as the discussion above has outlined, that Catholics were unable to resist the dynamics in which they were ensconced. This is simply not accurate; in addition to the protests in question, Catholics were not passive objects of violence, but instead resisted their position in a variety of ways, whether by speak-ing the Irish language, attending Gaelic sporting events, organizing clubs and protest groups, or simply speaking against Unionist political officials in their families and social circles. Thus, the presence of struc-tural conflict in this case signalled that the threat of structural violence experienced by Catholics was not irresistible or total. Catholics could, and did, resist the exclusion foisted upon them by engaging in overtly conflictual forms of world-building.

Indeed, (London)Derry was at that time home to a vast and intricate set of threatworks, an emblem of which are its ancient walls, which reflect the centuries-old need to control and cope with radical threat between its constituent groups. Moreover, London(Derry), like many towns in Northern Ireland, is characterized by complex patterns of social, economic and geographic division (see O’Dochartaigh, 2005)



and subtle but pervasive rules for the conditions in which people may transgress its internal boundaries. Moreover, the Catholic and Protestant populations of London(Derry) have strong, local cultural traditions and rituals, including those of the Orange Order and Gaelic games discussed above.

The protests discussed above challenged and transgressed these well-established threatworks but, crucially, did not rupture or break them. In addition to the efficacy of policing in this situation and the lack of knowledge of the protest, these structures were sufficient to cope with the threat raised by the latter. In other words, those who might be threat-ened by such a protest either did not believe that civil disturbances such as this were forceful enough to change things or, in the case of more moderate actors, that disruptions like this – and perhaps even some of the changes they called for – could be accepted since they did not threaten to damage the world in question. For Unionists, this meant that conflictual protest on the part of Catholics was not sufficient to threaten their ability to create and maintain social, economic and political control over the city and region. Ultimately, as I shall explore in Chapter 4, coercive responses to this kind of conflictual activity provoked cycles of violence. At this juncture, however, the disturbances in London(Derry) altered the threatworks in question, but did not rupture or threaten to destroy them – to the chagrin of protestors. This is a crucial point: threat-works need not be obstacles to change. In some cases, their function is not to prevent change but to modulate it and perhaps even enable those living within a threatened world to adapt to it. In any case, much more in-depth analysis needs to be undertaken to determine what effect, if any, the existence of entrenched threatworks had on preventing the emergence of protracted violence in (London)Derry. Suffice it to say that it cannot, and has not, been ruled out (or even considered) as a factor.

Disorder on the border

Even sporadic acts of overt physical violence did not lead to a pro-tracted exchange of violence between the two major groups. In 1956, the remnants of the old IRA in the north were regrouping from their campaigns against the formation of the Northern Irish state, and were largely inactive in terms of physical violence. However, a small group of radical, anti-Treaty1 republicans in the border regions of Northern Ireland, supported by IRA members in the South, began to bomb selected Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) targets and plan attacks on B-Specials (predominantly Protestant special security forces who worked within local communities) (Patterson, 1989). This drew the



attention and participation of the flagging IRA leadership, who saw it as an opportunity to rally the broader nationalist community behind their goals. To this end, they initiated the bombing campaign known as ‘Operation Harvest’, a series of over 500 attacks that took place between 1956 and 1962 (English, 2003, p. 76). But ‘Operation Harvest’ was to fizzle out with little impact, and was suppressed by regular police forces with relative ease. As Richard English (2003, p. 75) argues, the campaign ‘had not gained … any hold on popular Irish nationalist imagination … amongst the reasons for calling off the project had been “the attitude of the general public” ‘. Even though it consisted of clear and overt threats to the existence of the Unionist state, it appeared that the IRA was perceived as ‘no particular threat to anyone’ (English, 2003, p.76) in the Republic, and to few in Northern Ireland. The fact that it was not perceived as a threat suggests that the threatworks in place, along with the police response, were deemed sufficient to control and manage this threat. Crucially, even when acts of direct physical violence occurred in the conditions of conflictual world-building, a prolonged cycle of violence did not begin. Here, multiple threatworks – including efficient policing, a degree of local trust for the police, and social norms, opinions and networks of communication that discredited or downplayed the significance of the IRA attacks – appeared to play a significant role in preventing a major cycle of violence.

These examples raise an important challenge to orthodox theories of conflict and its relationship to violence. In each case, the emergence of differentiated groups created a tangible threat to the radical sources (such as patterns of living and working, identities and the physical safety) of another group – whether a rival national group or the state. In each case, one or more groups engaged in overtly conflictual forms of world-building, whether in subtle everyday practice or public displays of ‘sectarianism’ or political contestation. According to the theories of ‘root causes’ and conditions discussed above, these conditions should have yielded significant cycles of violence, particularly when acts of violence were used. Yet, in many cases, the dynamics of conflict and threat-works discussed above had existed (see Stewart, 1977) and large-scale exchanges of violence only occurred at infrequent junctures. By the late 1960s, this situation had changed dramatically. Why is this so?

One explanation could be that these events and phenomena were pre-cursors to violence which, once they accumulated in sufficient numbers or passed a certain threshold of intensity, provoked the exchange of violence. This explanation adopts the mainstream interpretation: that unmanaged conflict, left unchecked, eventually produces violence.



However, I want to pose a different argument: violence occurred when regular patterns of conflict, and the threatworks used to conduct it, were ruptured by the sudden threat of large-scale radical change stemming from external socio-economic forces, shifts in governmental decision-making, and the reactions of established and emerging actors. More specifically, the dynamics of change (outlined in detail in the next chapter) were experienced as irresistible by the actors they affected, and they destroyed long-standing means or techniques for resisting: not only existing forms of social, economic and cultural life (non-conflictual aspects of world(building)) but also the threatworks used and adapted over many years to protect plural worlds, secure their ever-shifting boundaries and sustain the conditions of their (conflictual) co-existence.

When it is possible for groups to resist radical changes or threats, eradication is not perceived as an imminent reality, and the change in question may be tolerable, acceptable or even welcome. The long process of violent exchanges that unfolded during the years of ‘the Troubles’ was triggered not by dynamics of conflict reaching a boiling point, but rather by the sudden disruption of established threatworks and patterns of conflict. Prior to the 1960s, the multiple worlds inhabited by the people of Northern Ireland co-existed through conflictual (and non-conflictual) forms of world-building, and had done since the last period of large-scale radical change: the civil war and partition of Ireland in 1922. In the intervening period, these multiple worlds and their inhabitants coped with the threats generated by the creation of a new polity – and, of course, the massive threat raised by World War II. In many cases, they co-existed through the conflictual creation and testing of boundaries; the 1930s, for instance, was a time of frequent rioting and disorder between different social, cultural and economic groups (see Patterson, 2006). Yet violence was, for the most part, localized, contained and constrained. By the 1960s, however, a new and powerful form of radical threat emerged.

This programme of change threatened the destruction of traditions, customs, socio-economic patterns and other patterns of world-making that were radical to the groups it affected. Secondly, when attempts to resist arose, they were interpreted by the state, governing bodies or armed groups as irresistible radical threats and responded to with force. Crucially, much of the irresistible threat experienced by the actors affected was ‘entropic’ rather than direct: that is, the logic of the changes in question, rather than overt violence or coercion, was respon-sible to the threat against existing worlds and forms of world-building (see Chapter 3). Moreover, the violence that ultimately arose between different ethnic groups did not spring spontaneously from tensions between



them, as ‘ethnic conflict’ narratives of the Troubles tend to suggest (see McGrattan, 2010), but also (and perhaps rather) from large, impersonal forces such as economic change which indirectly heightened threats between groups and made these threats seem irresistible. Indeed, it is the presence of irresistible radical threats – not conflict – that leads to prolonged cycles of violence.

Conclusions: Resistance, radical violence and ‘cycles of violence’

In this chapter, I have argued that the relationship between peace and violence requires a fundamental (and perhaps counter-intuitive) re-thinking. Conflict and violence are most certainly related, but not in the manner in which mainstream theories of peace and conflict suggest. Simply put, these theories assume that conflict is a precursor or cause which, when left unmanaged, is almost certain to lead to violence. Based on this assumption, they seek to remove many of the phenomena and tactics used to engage in conflict, including the threatworks built to iden-tify, navigate and resist the threat of eradication or radical violence. In so doing, they may enact radical violence, not by engaging in direct acts of physical violence or coercion, but rather by implementing these changes through irresistible means (see Chapter 4). In turn, the various groups affected are likely to respond with violence, either against the perceived force of radical violence or, when this is indirect or impersonal, against each other. This is the source of the self-sustaining processes of violence which theorists of peace and conflict term as ‘cycles of violence’.

The figures below illustrate this point. Figure 2.1 shows a basic conceptualization of the ‘cycles of violence’ described above (for more

The stateRepublicanparamilitaries

Loyalist paramilitaries

KeyActorsThreats/CausesEpisodes of Violence

Figure 2.1 A basic ‘cycle of violence’, using actors in the Troubles as an example



complex constructions, see Lederach, 2003; Miall, 2007; Ramsbotham et al., 2005).

As is clear from this figure, the analysis of cycles of violence focuses on the exchange of violent acts between key groups, and assumes that the impetus for this exchange arises from structural conditions or causes, or a precipitating event. The dynamics in which these groups are locked are assumed to be those of conflict, and the socio-economic conditions in which they are embedded are the perceived roots of conflict.

Figure 2.2, however, provides a very different image. It suggests that the cycle of violence shown in Figure 2.1 does not emerge directly from the ‘conditions’ of conflict or the relationships between conflicting actors. Rather, it illustrates (in a very crude and simplified form) how various, interlinked episodes of sudden change created very real threats of eradication for each of the groups that would become ensconced in this cycle of violence. The boxes in each corner represent sources of sudden,

Key

Sources of sudden change

Radical change

Radical violence

Physical/structural violence

Socio economic conditions

Actors in the ‘cycle of violence’

Loyalist paramilitaries The state

Republican paramilitaries

Changes in state policy/organization

Socio-economicchange

New forms of activity

Religious, cultural and ideological change

Figure 2.2 Contextualizing the cycle of violence in the dynamics of radical violence



large-scale change which raised radical threats for various groups and, in some cases, the threat of eradication. The dotted lines show how these changes affected and compounded one another. Arrows mark the dynamics of radical violence – that is, events in which the radical change in question became irresistible to the respective actors, either because of the mode of their implementation (for instance, through the use of physical force or irresistible processes – see Chapter 4). Crucially, the heads of the arrows mark the points at which existing threatworks or other means of resistance are ruptured.

Although these figures are perhaps simplistic, they function as a basic visual representation of the multiple dynamics of threat and (ir)resistibility that influence violence. By focusing on the exchange of threat and the capacity of groups to resist this, they suggest that conflict (in this case, the formation of distinct organizations with conflicting aims) is not necessarily a cause of violence, although it may be the medium in which processes of violence unfold. Rather, when resistance becomes impossible and the actors in question are reduced to inert objects of power, violence is the likely response. Due to the purely instrumental, irresistible and ultimately processual nature of violence, these cycles unfold in an almost mechanical way, leading to the prolonged cycles of violence with which most students of violence are familiar. Now, I shall demonstrate how, in attempting to halt and prevent cycles of violence by removing their perceived roots, transformative peace interventions may create conditions of irresistible radical threat – that is, of radical violence. They do so not through the coercive or military means relied on by wars and peace agreements of the past, but rather through the strategies of democratization, development, governance and securitiza-tion, whose logics promote a dynamic of irresistible, often radical, threat to the multiple worlds they transform.


45

3Radical Violence and the Beginning of ‘the Troubles’ – Northern Ireland 1965–72

Mainstream narratives of the prolonged cycle of violence that took place in Northern Ireland during the twentieth century tend to frame it as the explosion of tensions between ethnic groups (see McGrattan, 2010). Yet, as I argued in the last chapter, the conditions of tension, division and overtly conflictual forms of world-building had existed in the region for years, even centuries, prior to the outbreak of this particular cycle of violence. Established threatworks were often in place, which helped groups, communities and individuals to resist radical threats and thus to coexist for the most part non-violently. What, then, changed these conditions? Here, I shall re-examine the beginning of the Troubles from the perspective of threatworks and their destruction by means of radical violence. The source of this radical violence was not the spontaneous or opportunistic clash of rival groups; rather, it was in large part caused by the dilution or destruction of threatworks, or violence against conflictual forms of world-building, that occurred through large-scale social, eco-nomic and political change.

In the twentieth century, Northern Ireland experienced several waves of large-scale change. The first occurred in the period between 1916 and 1922, during the civil war which resulted in the creation of the province. This was followed by a period of apparent consolidation and state-building, albeit jarred by frequent episodes of social unrest and ten-sion (see Ruane and Todd, 1996; O’Neill, 1969) before the emergence of recognizable events of the Troubles in the late 1960s. Between these two points, however, another period of radical change took place in the form of post-WWII and early Cold War modernization, which swept through Northern Ireland from the continent. It arrived partially through the impersonal forces of macro-economic change, ideology-driven forms of world-building and new forms of social consciousness, and partly



through the deliberate efforts of would-be popularizers such as the then prime minister, Terrence O’Neill. This wave of radical change took place gradually, and largely through changes in everyday life, but it signalled the breach of Northern Ireland’s multiple, tenuously balanced dynamics of world-building.

Indeed, the wave of modernization that I will describe below was part of a vast peace intervention and state-building associated with the Cold War, in which Northern Ireland was included (if belatedly) as a region of Western Europe. This was a comprehensive, hegemonic and trans-formative strategy of world-building designed to counteract a similarly ambitious world-building strategy taking place across the iron curtain: state communism. The extension of this ‘Cold’ peace intervention, itself an attempt to repair the damage caused by WWII and to bolster Europe against its recurrence, altered various aspects of everyday life and ruptured existing threatworks, often in irresistible ways. Even when the threats in question were never realized, as in the case of many of the reforms promoted by O’Neill, the intention of bringing about these changes and the threat they created was sufficient to create a dynamic of radical violence. This dynamic altered the relationships between key groups, who would become the protagonists of the Troubles. The appear-ance of new, powerful sources of radical change – social, economic, administrative and moral or religious – created or intensified the relative radical threat experienced by each group and embodied new threats of eradication in themselves, and/or made existing threats between the two groups appear so (see Chapter 2). This dynamic of radical violence, I shall argue, underpinned the initial cycles of violence between Republicans, Loyalists and the state which are generally perceived to be the causes of the Troubles.

The post-1945 peace project: Basic tenets

As I have argued elsewhere (Mitchell, 2010), the ‘Cold’ peace intervention that was extended into Northern Ireland post-WWII had its roots in the liberal, democratic, state-based peace agreements forged at the conclusion of the world wars. Thus, they reproduced, through various strategies, a key set of goals and principles. Firstly, both world wars in Europe were thought to be caused or at least prompted by the structure of increasingly nationalistic states which had recently competed for colonial power and were then engaging in alliances to balance each others’ domi-nance. Thus, the attempt to reform not only the relationship between states, through collective arrangements such as the United Nations and


Radical Violence and the Beginning of ‘the Troubles’ 47

NATO, but also the internal nature and structure of states was deemed necessary (Richmond, 2005; Rasmussen, 2001). Importantly, the rise of depoliticizing logics of administration and welfare-state models of public management was to act as a replacement for and a safeguard against the emergence of highly ideological modes of governance such as those that gave rise to state socialism and fascism in previous decades. As such, the development of stable, systematic bureaucracy and functioning liberal-democratic electoral systems was emphasized. Secondly, economic and social development were primary concerns. It was widely believed that the economic collapse of Germany had been a primary factor in its bel-licosity, and that the widespread destruction and poverty following World War II would need to be addressed if such trends were to be avoided in future (Ikenberry, 2001; Clark, 2001). Moreover, the pressure to mobilize market-based economies against the threat of state-based com-munism compounded the perceived urgency of economic development. This strategy of development was intended to address another perceived cause of war: the social problems, including deprivation, unemployment and the social dislocation cause that plagued Europe after both world wars, and which was thought to engender war-like attitudes. As such, in Kantian fashion, this model of liberal-democratic polity-building was expected to engender ethical changes that would support positive attitudes and interactions among the various states, cultures and ethnic groups of Europe, and to aid in their integration. Indeed, this was the ethical basis of the EU, one of the most important manifestations of the Cold War transformative polity-building project. In combination, these factors were expected to address the root causes of the two world wars and prevent the emergence of war between the super-powers. They did so by engaging in comprehensive, hegemonic forms of world-building, in which the func-tioning of these systems of democratization, governance, development and securitization were juxtaposed with the threat of the emergence of communism as the dominant world order on the one hand, and nuclear annihilation (see Clark, 2001) – perhaps the most powerful threat of eradi-cation ever posed – on the other.

The ‘Cold’ peace intervention in Northern Ireland: Background

The project of post-WWII polity-building Northern Ireland began with the reform initiatives of the Basil Brooke government (1943–63). These included the implementation of a new, single member-plurality electoral system; the vast expansion of social services and the creation of a post-war



welfare state; the signing of the Ireland act of 1949, which guaranteed Northern Ireland’s position as a part of the UK until such time as its parlia-ment determined otherwise; a strong focus on economic development in the wake of the decline of the region’s major industries, ship-building and linen; and the reform of the educational system (Patterson, 2006; Bosi, 2008). These reforms were initiated (reluctantly) due to increasing pressure from Westminster upon Brooke and his administration; indeed, Westminister, not to mention the US, was crucial in shaping the ethos of Western Cold War polity-building.

Brooke’s successor, O’Neill, took this programme of reform in a different direction. O’Neill had various motivations for adopting the basic tenets of the Cold War peace-building project and merging them with his own ambitions for reform; indeed, although the Northern Irish state had existed for several decades since the partition of Ireland, O’Neill believed that he was faced with the unique task of ‘turning a Province into a state and of constructing the whole apparatus of government and parliament’ (O’Neill, 1969, p. 41). As a liberal and a reformist, O’Neill was eager to become more directly ensconced in this project, not only because of the strong personal resonance of his own service in France (O’Neill, 1972), but because he viewed these processes of modernization, and closer ties with the UK, the US and even the emerging European Community as crucial to Northern Ireland’s appearance as a world actor (O’Neill, 1972). Moreover, although the reforms he championed were, as I have argued, designed as part of the Cold War peace-building project, he reframed them as a means for overcoming communal division and, ultimately, preventing the recurrence of conflict in Northern Ireland (O’Neill, 1972; Gailey, 1995). Tellingly, he began to use this rhetoric in defense of his reforms as the cycles of violence they helped to generate began to break out around him. The rhetoric found in his speeches, writings and the policy documents directly appropriated the major tenets of the post-1945 liberal peace project in Europe and framed these in terms of modernizing processes of administration, development, democracy and security, which were to intended to become unstoppable – and, as I shall argue, irresistible – forces for change.

Despite the fact that his efficacy in implementing reforms was negligible, he added a normative gloss to the project of modern polity-building, and made its public promotion and the generation of support for it a priority. Thus, O’Neill’s reforms were ‘rhetorical’ (see Bosi, 2008) in two senses. Not only were they largely architectonic, but, by virtue of this fact, O’Neill and his government used rhetorical flourishes and lofty images of Northern Ireland as an emerging international actor and harmonious,



prosperous society (see below) to enliven the otherwise banal project of administrative reform. Drawing attention to his project of reform in this manner had ambivalent effects for O’Neill: it may have garnered some public support, as he intended, but it also provoked and helped to crystallize opposition from nationalists and unionists alike. As such, even though most of O’Neill’s reforms ultimately foundered, the ambi-tious and very public manner in which they were developed articulated sources of radical change that may have been obscured by their subtle nature and the fact that they arrived, gradually, through mundane processes such as administrative reform and economic change. In this sense, the rhetoric of O’Neill highlighted new and existing radical threats, to which a number of parties, including the emerging Northern Ireland Civil Rights movements (NICRMs), political parties (including O’Neill’s own party) and newly re-forming paramilitary organizations then attempted to resist. For example, O’Neill’s attempts to correct inequalities between Catholics and Protestants in education (an issue his predecessor had engaged in, but with less fanfare) underscored the potential of his reforms to entrench inequalities from the perspective of some Catholics or, from the perspective of some Protestants, to concede to nationalist demands. Thus, in publicizing and creating momentum behind these projects of proposed radical change, he opened new opportunities for protest (see Bosi, 2008), which were then interpreted as irresistible threats to his government. The response to this threat, as we shall now see, threatened direct eradication for some groups (largely, traditional Unionists and/or Loyalists), relative eradication for others (for the most part, nationalists and Republicans), plus indirect and entropic forms of eradication for all, particularly those at the lower socio-economic echelons, due to the nature of the processes through which these threats arrived.

Now, I shall briefly discuss the dynamics of radical violence in relation to three key groups involved in the Troubles: unionists and Loyalists, the state, and nationalists and Republicans (see Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2 in the previous chapter). In each case, I shall describe how the massive changes brought about by modernization (via the ‘Cold’ peace interven-tion and other international trends) affected each group. Then, I shall explain how this created a form of radical threat which became irresist-ible and thus helped to spark and even justify violent actions on their parts. In so doing, I shall critically reconstruct one of the cycles of violence that was central to the Troubles: one between Republican paramilitaries, Loyalist paramilitaries and the state. These brief analyses are limited in that they examine only some of the dynamics of irresistibility as they



affected the ‘key actors’ in the large-scale cycle of violence known as the Troubles; to examine how each change affected all of these actors, let alone the myriad other social groups involved, is far beyond the scope of this book. My goal here is simply to illustrate the subtle and complex ways in which radical violence, promoted through irresistible processes of change, underpinned the cycles of violence that emerged at the time. These examples will illustrate how the sudden influx of the Cold War peace-building project generated the various threats of eradication dis-cussed in Chapters 2 and 3. First, they threatened indirect eradication as they arrived through the force of global-scale trends such as ideological, economic and administrative change that could not be attributed to any single actor or source. Secondly, they involved entropic eradication, since they took place through processes of modernization which, in themselves, altered and destroyed existing worlds and forms of world-building. Thirdly, they threatened the direct eradication of some groups, and as a result, the sense of relative eradication among these groups.

Radical violence, Unionism and Loyalism: Changes in the state, security and politics

One of the most important aspects of the post-Cold War peace project was the creation of states that embodied the principles of liberal democracy, efficient, neutral public administration and security forces capable of maintaining stability and order. The development of the welfare state, strong and competitive parliamentary politics and the modernization of policing and the military were thus crucial. In order to keep pace with reforms along these lines taking place on the mainland, O’Neill pledged himself to ‘transform the face of Ulster’ (O’Neill, 1972, p. 7) by means of comprehensive planning and development. This involved surveys to assess the human and natural resources of the region, to streamline its industrial infrastructure, to coordinate its government and planning mechanisms, and even to build a new town and university (Matthew, 1963; Wilson, 1963; Lockwood, 1965). In addition to their immense social and economic effects, these efforts at reform entailed a substantial change in the nature, size and ethos of the state, and the manner in which it related to citizens. They constituted what O’Neill regarded as the ‘first major alterations to the structure of Government since its inception’ (O’Neill, 1972, p. 61). The expansion of the state also meant that its role in the polity had changed dramatically; O’Neill himself exclaimed that ‘never before has the Government played such an active role in Ulster life’ (O’Neill, 1969, p. 49). For instance, the advent of a professional-ized, technocratic welfare state reliant on planning, investment and



development drastically altered the way in which political decisions were made and implemented. Likewise, the centralization of power and the formation of new ministries fractured deeply entrenched systems of local power and patronage (Bew et al., 2002).

Although it was cloaked in the relatively mundane guise of policy reform and bureaucratic restructuring – and perhaps in part because of this – this project of reform was far from uncontroversial. ‘O’Neillism’ and the liberal programme it represented created massive rifts within the Unionist party, which had ruled virtually undisturbed for 30 years (Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007). While liberals viewed O’Neillism as a positive force for modernization and development, many ‘dissidents’ within the party viewed it as a dangerous display of weakness towards the traditional enemies of the Unionist state: nationalists and, increas-ingly, Republicans (Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007). At the same time, links between the Orange Order and the Ulster Unionist Party became increasingly tenuous and even, at times, hostile as the Unionist party moved towards a more secular programme of governance (Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007). This fragmentation of the party, and the tendency of anti-O’Neill factions to adopt more extreme attitudes against nationalists and their political demands was one of the most important factors in the rise of Ian Paisley and his hard-line Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), formed in 1971. However, it was not only the conservative supporters of the UUP who became restive during this time; O’Neillism was a response to an already powerful demand for social and industrial reform from workers and lower income voters. Many of these voters were con-sidered vulnerable to the advances of the social-democratic policies of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), which had formed in the 1940s but appeared to be gaining momentum on issues such as new demands for social services and working conditions (Patterson, 2006). Moreover, new nationalist parties were intensifying electoral competition, including the moderate Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP, formed in 1965), which supplanted the more familiar Nationalist Party, and the Northern Ireland Alliance Party (NIAP, formed in 1970), which also supported con-tinued union with the UK. The political authority of the UUP, then, faced radical threats from several quarters.

Simultaneously, the power of the state to maintain security was simi-larly compromised. Since 1933, the Special Powers Act had given the government significant power over law and order, including the ability to (among other things) ban parades, close meeting places and remove potentially divisive cultural symbols from public places and deploy the controversial B-Special units to suppress public disorder (Cameron, 1969).



Under its auspices, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was treated with derision by nationalist groups, who viewed it as a Unionist instru-ment designed to suppress their demands. This attitude crystallized in 1968–9, when clashes between police and protestors involved in civil rights demonstrations (see below) and also during a number of riots in Belfast and (London)Derry diminished the RUC substantially in terms of its authority and effectiveness among these groups (Scarman, 1972). This perceived weakening of the security forces and their ultimate inability to contain outbreaks of violence in 1969 led to the placement of British troops in Northern Ireland in August of 1969 and the disbanding of the B-Specials, an event that was greeted with outrage by extreme unionists and the emerging Loyalist defense organizations (Taylor, 2000). A brief ‘honeymoon period’, in which the army was greeted by national-ists, broke down quickly as violent confrontations between nationalist citizens and members of the armed forces increased, particularly in the city of (London)Derry (O’Dochartaigh, 2005). These tensions peaked in the 1972 incident known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, in which 13 protestors at a civil rights march were shot dead by the army, an event which is often marked in common parlance as the start of the most intensely violent period of the Troubles.

This, however, was only the beginning of a series of changes that would take place in the security forces over the coming years, including the implementation of ‘Operation Demetrius’, the massive sweep of sus-pected IRA and Loyalist combatants that took place when the policy of internment was introduced in 1971 (Patterson, 2006). The introduction of this policy was the precursor of the prison protest discussed below. Shortly after, the ‘Ulsterization’ of security policy saw a reduction in the presence of armed forces and the task of suppressing paramilitary activity was increasingly placed in the hands of the (largely Protestant) Ulster Defense Regiment and the RUC. This underpinned the strategy of internment (see Chapter 4) which allowed the army to detain without trial anyone suspected of involvement in paramilitary or other violent activity, constituting a major change in the structure of police power and re-focusing the efforts of paramilitary organizations towards the security forces. Thus, this period saw the expansion and contraction of the power of local police forces, the dispatch and gradual removal of the army, and, more generally a shift of power away from – and back to – the Northern Ireland state apparatus in times of disorder.

This had important symbolic and practical implications for the role of the British state in Northern Ireland. Initially, the British govern-ment was reluctant to become involved in Northern Ireland for fear of



entangling itself in an intractable and politically damaging situation. Cabinet secretary Harold Black was warned that ‘it would be advisable for Northern Ireland to endure a quite considerable degree of disorder before invoking military assistance’ (Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007, p. 92). Indeed, the British army was not deployed until events occurred which made it almost impossible not to respond with force: extensive rioting throughout Belfast and, ultimately, the burning of Bombay Street in West Belfast in 1969. The involvement of the British army, characterized as a state of ‘direct rule by proxy’ (Patterson, 2006, p. 214), was attributed with the fatal weakening of Chichester-Clark’s1 government, a precursor to the imposition of direct rule in 1972 and an unsuccessful power-sharing government in 1974. This cautious and rather reluctant approach on the part of the British government was regarded by senior civil servant Kenneth Bloomfield as a failure on a national level (Bloomfield, 2007, p. 16) which would only enflame animosities between the state (including the British state), paramilitary groups and the less extreme, ostensibly non-sectarian Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), whose leaders referred to the early Troubles as a ‘British-created mess’ (NICRA, 1973).

At the same time, the Irish Republic exerted a changing influence upon Northern Ireland. Growing in economic and political strength, it presented a looming socio-cultural threat to Northern Unionists, while more tangible threats lay in the immigration of Southern workers (Patterson, 2006), Fianna Fail’s remaining ties to the IRA (some of its high-ranking party members were involved in arranging support and weaponry for PIRA members in 1969) (English, 2003, pp. 118–19) and changing relationships between politicians in the North and South, including the invitation of Taoiseach Sean Lemass to Stormont by Terence O’Neill in 1965. These events were viewed with great suspicion by unionists vigilant of any sign of treachery on the part of their leaders. Finally, economically speaking, the outside world was also breaching the boundaries of the new state, through economic globalization (see below) and the formation of the European Economic Community, with which the British government was entering discussions.

Since these modernizing processes involved the restructuring of power, authority and decision-making throughout the region, they had great potential to threaten the radical sources of almost all groups within it. Here, however, I shall focus on just one of the groups whom these changes threatened or inflicted radical violence on: hard-line unionists and, ultimately, Loyalists. O’Neillism was a powerful source of radical threat to many factions within the UUP and its traditional supporters. According to Richard Rose, ‘Terence O’Neill’s programme proposed radical



changes in the practice of Ulster politics. Because it threatened this, to some it betokened hope, to others hypocrisy; to yet a third group, it made O’Neill a traitor to the regime. The result was that “a policy intended to lead to the full legitimation of the regime threatened its repudiation”’ (Rose, 1971, p. 100). For instance, the activist role of the central state was highly disruptive to local politics, eroding the pattern of clientelism through which local Unionist politicians had traditionally consolidated power (Prince, 2007). It also appeared to create a new platform for per-ceived ‘Catholic’ grievances that threatened to supplant or detract from the unionist tradition (Ruane and Todd, 1996). In this sense, it threat-ened relative eradication of Unionist radical sources in relation to, and perhaps even to the benefit of, nationalists and Republicans. Indeed, as Sarah Nelson argues, these changes were viewed by many unionists as an attempt to change the very embodiment of Ulster Protestant culture – the Northern Irish state – and to weaken its prospects for long-term stability and dominance (Nelson, 1984).

Thus, even the seemingly benign reforms of the O’Neill era were radical and had an ‘unsettling effect on the Protestant psyche’ (Bew et al., 2002, p. 104). The fragmentation of the UUP only exacerbated these threats. Unionism, for its supporters, was more than a political ideology; it was the expression and realization of a culture, and its embodiment within the state was deemed crucial to the survival of the Protestant tradition in Ireland. In this sense, the promotion of modern-izing processes threatened to damage existing forms of world-building via the preservation of the state. It also created a strong threat of direct eradication: the most extreme interpretation of this threat was the fear that Northern Ireland might be subsumed into the Republic of Ireland, where Protestants might become a persecuted and endangered minority, and the Ulster Protestant culture lost irretrievably (Patterson, 2006; Ruane and Todd, 1996). Changes in the security forces not only signaled a loss of traditional symbols of unionist power and dominance (Ruane and Todd, 1996), but also of the ability of the government to protect and defend these (Bruce, 2007) and to maintain the legitimacy of the state in which they were perceived to be embedded (Bloomfield, 2007). Moreover, the treatment of hardline unionists as a problem to be suppressed by the British army was perceived as an extreme betrayal by Protestant paramilitaries who believed they were upholding law and order (Taylor, 2000; Nelson, 1984) and protecting the British heritage of the region (Ruane and Todd, 1996).

Thus, from the perspective of many unionists and Protestants more generally, the changes in question posed direct radical threat in the



form of the loss of their culture and tradition. They also generated relative radical threat vis-à-vis the Republican movement whom they thought the changes benefited at their expense. Moreover, they raised indirect radical threat as a result of the demands for political, social and economic change that appeared from outside Northern Ireland in the form of modernization, and entropic radical threat in that the very processes through which these reforms were implemented themselves destroyed or replaced traditional forms of world-building considered crucial to the survival of this group. But were these changes perceived as irresistible, and if so, who responded? I shall now argue that they were experienced as irresistible by conservative or hardline unionists and Loyalists, who in turn adopted a stance of resistance towards them. This dynamic of irresistibility/resistance, I shall argue, created the conditions in which Loyalist paramilitary groups were able to adopt and condone violent attitudes and activities despite the significant misgivings of much of the Protestant population (Taylor, 2000).

Why, then, were these threats experienced as irresistible? In large part, this related to the inaccessibility of the changes in question, and the inability of those they most affected to intervene within these changes. Since many of the changes in the state were brought about through closed policymaking processes and governmental edicts, there was little publicity of the actual practical implications and details, despite O’Neill’s very public trumpeting of his eventual decisions and their benign effects (Mulholland, 2000). Likewise, changes in security policy and contacts between the government and foreign officials were publicized only after the fact – that is, after any effective intervention could be made to approve or object to them. The crumbling of the Unionist party may have been well-known to insiders, but for party supporters it was a looming but often inchoate threat, and access to information about it was scarce and unreliable, since it was often sourced from dissenters within the party. The effective capacity of these groups to resist differed depending on one’s position; those who were ensconced firmly within the party may have had more ability to affect and shape changes, while dis-senters were quickly sidelined and absorbed into alternative organizations, whether by party supporters or through their own choice. This was the fate of many of those who joined Loyalist defense groups and paramilitary organizations. Even the government lost much of its effective capacity to resist the changes implemented by Westminster in the events which preceded direct rule. In all of these cases, those who believed they were most deeply affected by the changes – and often those who were most negatively oriented towards them – appeared to have the least capacity



or willingness to contest them. As such, the processes of policymaking and reform that brought about these changes embodied the qualities of the processes discussed in Chapter 4: they became the dominant logic of institutional world-making (that is, state-building); they threatened to destroy or replace other forms of world-building and the structures of power or influence these sustained; due to the nature and momentum of the processes in question, they appeared to be impregnable to action on the part of those affected.

These circumstances prompted two important forms of resistance, which were to be interpreted by O’Neill’s government as irresistible threats: the rise of Paisleyism and the appearance of new Protestant paramilitary groups. The mobilization of the latter against their Republican counter-parts marked the emergence of a cycle of violence. These paramilitary groups arose not only in response to the activities of the IRA, but also to those of the state. Severe legal constraints and frequent banning of Orange marches and Paisleyite demonstrations (Jarman, 1997) symbolized the reactive response of the state to attempts at resisting changes within it by hardline Protestants (a subject to which I shall return shortly). However, this attitude of mutual threat, and escalating irresistibility, led to the adoption of violence on the part of emerging Loyalist paramilitary groups and the organizations – both state and paramilitary – that would engage in violence against them. Loyalist paramilitary groups began, for the most part, as local organizations which acted as alternative police forces, vigilante ‘defence’ squads or even youth gangs during the many eruptions of civil disorder between 1969 and the early 1970s (Wood, 2006), which acted as important reinforcements for existing social, economic and cultural threatworks. In addition to ‘policing’ Protestant-dominated communities, these groups began to harass or intimidate Catholics who ventured into these areas. Although these acts were clearly conflictual (and certainly undesirable from a moral and norma-tive standpoint), they were resistible in that they mobilized the threat of violence, and maintained this through actual violence mostly when the boundaries they set were breached. For instance, Catholics could avoid the areas in question or find ways of subverting these boundaries. As the conflictual threatworks built by these groups were weakened, both by attacks on the part of Republican groups and the changes in the state discussed above, violence between Protestants and Catholics increased. As a result, these groups solidified into a number of violent paramilitary units, who engaged actively in violence against members of the Catholic community. The most important of which were Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) initially formed in 1964, the Ulster Freedom



Fighters (UFF), formed in 1969, and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), formed in 1971. The first was a highly secret organization comprised largely of ex-servicemen and based on an earlier movement, also named the UVF, which had opposed Home Rule in the previous century (Taylor, 2000). The latter two (the former was absorbed within the latter and used as a cover name) were larger, more publicly visible and overtly ideological entities. Some smaller groups, including the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, set up by followers of Ian Paisley, and TARA, formed by an ex-British intel-ligence agent, also emerged (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000).

All of these groups would attempt to undermine the ailing state in addition to carrying out attacks on Catholic organizations, as exempli-fied by the UVF’s siege upon Belfast’s power supply in 1969 (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). As the changes discussed above unfolded and were augmented by new events such as the CRMs (see below), the intensity of direct and relative threat increased between Loyalist and Republican groups, and the exchange of episodes of violence between these groups emerged. Indeed, the level of violent activities undertaken by these groups tended to respond to perceived gains by Republicans, particularly with the reforms brought about following civil rights demonstrations (see below). Recruitment to these groups often spiked when the IRA engaged in acts of violence, such the ‘Bloody Friday’ bomb, which exploded in central Belfast in 1972 (Taylor, 2000). From this perspective, Loyalist paramilitary organizations appeared to engage in violence at points when resistance to the various forms of radical threat discussed above appeared no longer possible. The violence that they enacted was conditioned by the patterns of radical threat and/or violence which surrounded them and damage to the threatworks on which they relied to protect their worlds – not just the direct threats raised by the IRA.

Radical violence and Republicanism: Economic and social change

The substantial changes that took place in the state had a number of direct and indirect effects on other realms of activity, most importantly the economic and socio-cultural. As Mark Mulholland writes, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland alike experienced ‘a broad reaction against the political in favour of the socio-economic’ (Mulholland, 2000, p. 2) in the 1960s. In an unstable political climate, socio-economic reform appeared to be a means for bringing about change without overtly engaging in normative or cultural politics. To this end, O’Neill adopted a programme of ‘modernization’ which entailed an encom-passing programme of rationalization, coordination, training and



development. In order to undertake this ambitious programme, the government commissioned a range of surveys and employed expert planners and economists to determine the economic strengths, weak-nesses and needs of Northern Ireland vis a vis Europe and, increasingly, the US (O’Neill, 1972), which had become the hallmark for post-1945 economic development and its driving force (Ikenberry, 2001). One influential report, conducted by Professor Thomas Wilson, entailed a comprehensive survey of the physical, material, industrial and human elements of the Northern Irish economy (Wilson, 1963). A number of other influential documents, including the Matthew Report (1963) and the Lockwood Report on Higher Education (1965), proposed changes that would support Wilson’s overall recommendations.

These reports called, among other things, for the reduction of long-term unemployment that had long plagued the region and become, in Wilson’s words, a massive ‘waste of resources’ (Wilson, 1963, p. 25). To alter this, it would be necessary to move from the traditional industries of ship-building, linen production and agriculture into manufacturing, services and other more ‘modern’ economic sectors (Patterson, 2006). This would require massive training and re-training, including the development of vocational skills, particularly of a technical nature, and more college and university courses to provide these (Lockwood, 1965). Wilson framed this project as a kind of ‘rehabilitation’ for the unemployed (Wilson, 1963, p. 139). In addition, workers, including management, would need to undergo training in order to modernize their skills and practices to respond to the demands of an increasingly open economy (Lockwood, 1965, p. 7; O’Neill, 1969, p. 37) which was being actively promoted by the US as part of its post-peace policy towards Europe (Ikenberry, 2001).

These reforms were expected simultaneously to develop and integrate the economy, and to become a self-sustaining dynamic (Wilson, 1963, pp. 12, 141). Development would take the form of steady progress marked by a consistent improvement in material wealth and well-being (O’Neill, 1969, p. 40). Meanwhile, the streamlining of development between different localities, ostensibly (although not often in practice) in an even-handed manner, would integrate Northern Ireland as an economic region (Wilson, 1963, p. 134) which could, in turn, be integrated into the wider European economy (Matthew, 1963, p. 21; Lockwood, 1965, p. 3). This was the only way to avoid, as O’Neill put it, ‘running a race with a handicap’ (O’Neill, 1969, p. 37) vis a vis the rapidly reconstructing states of Europe. This was also a core tenet of O’Neill’s specific brand of Unionism, which promoted union with the UK on the basis of material interests and benefit.



The thorough social and economic surveys carried out during O’Neill’s premiership called for a drastic restructuring of the economy, the physical landscape and the social structures these were believed to create (Matthew, 1963; Lockwood, 1965). For instance, the expansion of the Ministry of Education, and in particularly the increased attention paid to Catholic schooling, was intended to modernize the vocational skills of citizens while helping to integrate the two major groups economically (Patterson, 2006), thus altering the relative status of each. Similarly, the recommen-dations of the Matthew report in particular called attention to the need for a massive expansion and renovation of public housing (Matthew, 1963, pp. 19, 24). This, along with the streamlining and centralizing of government recommended by the Report, threatened to unsettle the entrenched patterns of housing and thus the electoral districts of council politics, in which Unionists benefited from effective gerrymanders. Both Protestants and Catholics objected to changes for this reason, the former for fear of losing local power, and the latter due to concerns that moderni-zation might entrench the gerrymander (O’Dochartaigh, 2005). The latter precipitated the formation of a number of groups involved with housing issues, including the early Campaign for Social Justice in Dungannon and the Derry Housing Action Committee, both of which ostensibly promoted the needs of the working class but effectively campaigned mostly on behalf of Catholics (see below, and Purdie, 1990). As the next section will demonstrate, the use of direct forms of protest to address these issues constituted a new radical threat for several groups.

It is important to note that, by the early 1970s, O’Neill was quite explicitly promoting his programme of reforms as a method of breaking down communal divisions by restructuring the socio-economic landscape. These projects of economic and social reform were also expected to catalyze substantial reform in the values, ethics, habits and behaviours of people in Northern Ireland, orienting them towards a more universal set of ethics. For instance, they were thought to engender an ethos of ‘self-help’. For O’Neill, this term connoted an amalgam of enterprise and altruism, which he defined in his famous ‘Pottinger Speech’ in 1963 as a matter of personal and community initiative, industriousness, mutual help and the abandonment of complacency or indifference towards the broader welfare of the region (O’Neill, 1969, pp. 32–3). He told Northern Ireland’s citizens that ‘self-help means you’ (O’Neill, 1969, p. 33), drawing on the martial imagery of conscription that would under-pin his later ‘Programme to Enlist the People’. This programme encour-aged greater participation in government, local development efforts, especially among youth, and the creation of voluntary organizations



to foster this kind of participation (O’Neill, 1969, pp. 43, 133, 151–2). This, in turn, was expected to generate trust (O’Neill, 1969, p. 133) and toleration between different groups, while encouraging the formation of moderate opinion (Prince, 2007, p. 35). Some later commentators have interpreted it as an attempt to ‘assimilate’ or placate the Catholic popula-tion (Mulholland, 2000, p. 11; O’Dochartaigh, 2005, p. 10) or to weaken nationalism (Prince, 2007, p. 47). Indeed, although O’Neill appeared to experience hurt feelings when his efforts were not appreciated (O’Neill, 1972), these changes in attitude were not straightforwardly benevolent, but came with a price-tag: support for the new state. O’Neill felt that it was the duty of every citizen to support the constitution and could not countenance opposition to it (Mulholland, 2000, p. 130). Thus, widespread attitudinal change – a direct attempt to alter Catholic forms of world-building – was to generate the requisite support, while the material benefits promised by his reforms would counter resistance from several sources: ‘treacherous’ conservative UUP supporters, who were suspicious of O’Neill’s liberal approach (O’Neill, 1972, p. xi); the new Northern Ireland Labour Party, which threatened to detract from the UUP support base (Mulholland, 2000, p. 46); and even the extremist groups and, eventually, paramilitary organizations that would seek to undermine the government (Nelson, 1984; Scarman, 1972).

In addition to the deliberate socio-economic reforms brought about by O’Neill, a number of unplanned changes were also taking place, which increased indirect and entropic radical threats. Importantly, the cultural and religious landscape of Northern Ireland was changing rapidly and, although the conflict was not theological in nature, changes to religiously oriented groups affected social relations deeply (Mitchell, 2006). First, an international movement towards ecumenism, which pro-moted a gradual but total integration of Christian religions, Protestant and Catholic, was sweeping across Ireland (Nelson, 1984). This trend caused considerable concern among Protestants, who were at the same time experiencing the fragmentation of various denominations and a drop in formal religious participation, and many of whom feared subsumption within the Catholic Church (Harris, 1972; Bruce, 2007). Another threat lay in the trend towards secularization, which appeared to follow from the modernizing tendencies of the post-war period. The liberal news-paper editor Jack Sayers described secularizing Northern Ireland as a ‘society racked by social change and separated from “old anchorages”; a society where, paradoxically, “social security” has only produced a “new psychological insecurity”’ (Gailey, 1995, p. 103). For many conservative Protestants, O’Neillism threatened to change Northern Ireland from



an (albeit embattled) Protestant society to a ‘secular modern society in which religious affiliation would be of little consequence’ (Bruce, 2007, p. 92). Reactions to both trends helped to give rise to a new strain of Protestantism under the direction of the Reverend Ian Paisley, who began to organize groups of fundamentalist2 Presbyterians in the early 1950s (Nelson, 1984; Bruce, 2007) – long before the commonly held ‘causes’ of Paisleyism – the civil rights protests and Catholic paramilita-rism, began in earnest. The rise of Paisleyism marked not only a change in religious practice, but also new forms of collective activity and political ideology.

Indeed, the period in question witnessed a number of ideological changes, including the rise in radical religious conservatism on the one hand, and of socialism as a mainstream political programme on the other. Socialism had previously been a staple of the original IRA, who drew their intellectual sources from socialists such as James Connolly. In the period in question, however, it was taken up by a number of political parties, including the NILP, SDLP and Alliance, the NICRM, and even a number of working class Protestant movements. In addition to its effects in the parliamentary political sphere, it also played a central role in sectarian activity, in particular in the re-emergence and restructuring of armed Republicanism following the failed border campaign. Under the leadership of Cathal Goulding, and the intellectual interventions of the socialists Desmond Greaves and Roy Johnston, a socialist brand of Republicanism rose to prominence (Patterson, 1989, p. 85). The IRA’s activities were increasingly directed towards agitation in support of social reforms, the defeat of capitalism and the harnessing of the ‘energies of the people’ – including, ostensibly, working class Protestants – towards the goal of a united, socialist Ireland (Patterson, 1989, pp. 84–95). These changes, however, were not uncontroversial; they stoked the anger of a number of more conservative IRA members who were committed to rev-olutionary and indeed violent methods (English, 2003). These dissenters either ‘dropped out in disgust’ or moved on to become the Provisional IRA (PIRA), a new faction dedicated to traditional ‘physical force repub-licanism’ (English, 2003, p. 94), while those loyal to Goulding remained to constitute the Official IRA (OIRA).

This split is often characterized as one between those who promoted violent forms of political struggle and those who opposed it. I want to argue, however, that it was at least in part the result of an attempt to con-test radical change and its threat of eradication. Those individuals who would go on to form the OIRA still believed that the changes imple-mented by the state were resistible, and that they could resist them in



a number of ways, violent and non-violent. Those who would form the PIRA, on the other hand, perceived the changes in question – and, more importantly, their symbolism in terms of future changes – as irresistible, and adopted a stance of violence towards the state. A closer examination of the trajectory of this split can help to shed light on this.

Clearly, changes to the social, economic and religious traditions of the polity were potentially radical for most groups within it; here, however, I shall examine how they affected Republican paramilitary groups. In general, this period saw the advent of radical changes that directly affected and sometimes targeted Catholics, whether with the genuine intention of improving their lot or more strategic attempts to gain their ‘acquiescence’ (O’Dochartaigh, 2005, p. 10), but all of which altered their basic modes of world-building. This approach had several unintended consequences. By highlighting economic inequalities between Catholics and Protestants (Ruane and Todd, 1996), the centre piece of Republican socialist ideology, it brought these concerns into the mainstream and the public eye, legitimized demands for them and thus made them a standard by which reforms would be judged by many Republicans. As a result, many of these reforms were criticized not sim-ply as insufficient or conservative, as the NICRA claimed. Republican socialists framed them as a symptom of British economic domination, or even as the ‘peaceful penetration’ of Ireland through British capitalism (Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007, p. 14), which threatened not only to entrench Unionist power but also to destroy traditional lifestyles such as those of rural dwellers and farmers (Harris, 1972; Patterson, 2006). Thus, it was framed by these individuals and their audiences in terms of what I have described as entropic radical threat, or threat embedded in the very logic of transformative processes. In this sense, both the NICRA and the OIRA can, in very different ways, be viewed as movements to contest the norms of the ‘Cold’ peace-building project, transferred to Northern Ireland in the form of O’Neillism.

In addition, the rise of Paisleyism made tangible and visible the threat of political and religion-based opposition to the IRA. The restructuring and fragmentation of the IRA was, in many ways, a direct response to the liberalizing tenets of O’Neillism and the project of state-building which they represented. A prevalent fear within the IRA was that the opportunity for Republicans to achieve a united Ireland would not only pass, but would be prevented in future by the entrenchment of ever more powerful and intrusive state that would bolster unionist power either explicitly or indirectly, through liberal reforms (Patterson, 1989). In other words, it was believed that the adoption of these reforms would



alter the forms of world-building used by the movement, denuding them of their power to disrupt. This raised entropic radical threat in the form of the perceived irreversibility of these processes, and relative radical threat in that it promised to entrench unionist power. Thus, the IRA returned to (one extreme interpretation of) its radical sources to adapt to this challenge. Its fragmentation, Patterson claims, derived from an ‘attempt to maintain the IRA’s primacy while transforming its most fun-damental functions’ (Patterson, 1984, p. 93). These changes, imposed by the Army Council and therefore beyond the control of most rank and file volunteers, were thus not only radical, but also effectively irre-sistible for many members.

Indeed, irresistible radical change threatened the IRA both from without and from within. With regards to the former, broad socio-economic, religious and ideological change were irresistible for many groups. For instance, the planned (and unplanned) forms of social and economic restructuring that took place were driven not only by deliberate calculation, but also by the influence of much broader and uncontrollable international trends and, quite often, the unintended consequences of policy reform. Similarly, religious and ideological change came about largely through transnational movements and unplanned reforms, many of which constituted attempts to contest modernization and, ultimately, liberalization. Thus, a deep under-standing of the sources, depth and potential effects of these changes was difficult for any group (including policymakers) to achieve. In the face of these changes, the IRA developed a strong, but narrowly focused, method for increasing cognizance of these changes among its own members and supporters: politicization. Adopting a socialist lens, the leadership became highly attuned to those issues and changes which seemed to affirm the criticisms raised by socialism, although it is doubt-ful whether younger recruits were influenced strongly by sophisticated ideological analysis (Alonso, 2006). This selective and intense form of cognizance underpinned a very strong, negative evaluation of the changes taking place. However, the capacity of the IRA to resist these changes was low. As a relatively small, underground, newly re-formed and precariously fragmented organization, the capacity of the IRA to take on large and powerful state structures was low. Thus, even the OIRA would have to, in its own ideological terms, engage in forms of conflictual resistance that were likely to be greeted with violence on the part of the state (Patterson, 1989; English, 2003).

This perception raised the stakes for ‘physical force’ Republicans, who believed that government must be coerced into radical change through



acts of direct violence. In this sense, they already perceived the government to be almost completely irresistible, and thus found violent resistance to be the only reasonable response. Yet they faced internal changes that were also made effectively irresistible to them. For the most part, IRA members were highly alert to the reforms tak-ing place in the organization; the overt attempts to politicize the IRA’s activities and membership ensured this. Moreover, those who made a negative evaluation of the change were quite definite and often overt in expressing this evaluation. Yet the disciplinarian structure of the IRA made it almost impossible effectively to resist the changes in question; attempts to oppose or change the Republican socialist turn within the organization were met with disciplinary measures, ostracism and the formation of personal vendettas (Prince, 2007); I shall return to this point in Chapter 8. These tensions came to a head at the Special Army Convention in December 1969, where the issues of abstention from parliamentary politics and the IRA’s response to escalating violence were heatedly debated. Those who disagreed with Goulding’s leader-ship were faced with two means of resistance: they could leave the IRA or join the newly formed PIRA, which was dedicated to violent forms of resistance to the state (Patterson, 1989, pp. 95–6; Alonso, 2006, p. 82).

Thus, massive changes in the social, economic and moral/religious structures of Northern Ireland created direct, indirect, relative and entropic radical threats for nationalists and Republicans. The former responded with resistance in the form of social mobilizations (see below), which were ultimately met with coercive, and thus irresistible, responses from the state, while the latter engaged in resistance which was treated similarly. The resulting fragmentation of the IRA generated its own internal dynamics of resistance, which led to the irresistible decision of one faction to engage in acts of violence against the state. This, in turn, fed into the cycle of violence between Republican and Loyalist paramili-taries, and between them and the state, discussed above. In this sense, the irresistibility of changes both within and outside the IRA directly provoked violence enacted through Provisional Republicanism.

Radical violence and the state: Socio-ethical change and social movements

The ‘Cold’ peace-building project was resisted in a variety of cases, largely through the normative, ethical and practical changes that were taking place in the medium of collective action in countries such as France and Germany (see Prince, 2007). In Northern Ireland, the currents of social, economic and political change that shaped this period were contested



by various forms of collective action. Many of the social movements, protests and episodes of rioting and disorder recorded at this time, I shall argue, were means of resisting the unique local effects of international or even global trends which created indirect radical threats. Yet it was the localized response of the state to these protests (and indeed to their application to local conditions) that created a dynamic of irresistibility.

The best-known example of these attempts at contestation is almost certainly the NICRMs discussed above, composed of a range of groups that adapted methods of collective protest used in North America and Europe to deal with issues such as housing and electoral reform. Although the housing committees discussed above contributed to the movement, the NICRA and People’s Democracy (PD) were the most prominent. The former, formed in the 1960s, was largely active in (London)Derry. The latter was formed in 1968, after the blockage of the NICRA’s 5 October 1968 march in (London)Derry, and had a significant presence in Belfast.

The NICRA was not, strictly speaking, a mass movement, but rather a series of initiatives undertaken by a small, self-selected leadership (Purdie, 1990) who were able to generate and consolidate protest around a range of issues. These groups ‘posed a novel challenge to the regime, both substantively and in tactics’ (Rose, 1972, p. 156) by using large-scale protests, sit-ins and ‘everyday disturbances’ (Widgery, 1972, p. 14) to agitate for change. They also innovated by using to their advantage the imagery of confrontations between ‘non-violent’ protestors and the security forces sent to supervise them. This tactic was used to substantial effect in the NICRA marches of October 1968 and the ‘Bloody Sunday’ incident of 1972, both of which were televised internationally and thus highlighted the movement’s stated aims (Prince, 2007). Thus, these forms of action were ‘new’ in that they were adapted from other sources (in the case of the NICRA, theories of non-violent resistance derived from Gandhi and Martin Luther King were frequently invoked) to the contingencies of Northern Ireland. Moreover, although the NICRA was ostensibly non-sectarian, it constituted a move to transcend existing forms of Republicanism by providing a new forum and set of demands through which the demands of this constituency could be pursued (English, 2003; Patterson, 2006). Indeed, it was framed by its propo-nents as an alternative (or perhaps supplementary) way of contesting the radical changes taking place, including the social, economic and cultural changes discussed above. Thus, as Prince argues, it was ‘differ-ences over reform, rather than its absence, that brought politics into the streets at the end of the 1960s’ (Prince, 2007, p. 47). In other words,



these movements were not simply expressions of blind opposition to change itself, but rather contestations of specific processes of change.

It would be misleading, however, to conflate the appearance of new forms of public activity with the NICRM; public protest was becoming a constitutive activity for a number of groups not normally associated with it. This included the middle-class individuals who took leadership roles within the NICRA and Protestant workers, who began to take part in protests, including a 1971 march by employees of a Belfast shipyard, the formation of the Loyalist Association of Workers (LAW) in 1972 and a major strike of the Ulster Workers’ Council in 1974 (Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007), all of which reacted to government controls placed upon the collective activities of Protestants. Moreover, the dis-sident Protestants who followed leaders such as Paisley, Vanguard leader William Craig and organizations such as the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) became involved in what are often known as ‘counter-protests’: organized ambushes of NICRM marches and other collective activities led by prominent Catholics. Two such events occurred in Armagh in 1968, and at the infamous Burntollet ambush in which local Loyalists violently attacked a PD march from Belfast to (London)Derry that had been harried from its start by Paisleyites (Taylor, 2000).

The term ‘counter-protest’, used to describe these events, is perhaps a misnomer in that it suggests that these events were purely reactive. In fact, these groups were, in effect, protesting the liberal and modern-izing norms of O’Neillism, which they identified with the NICRMs. In this sense, they resisted the acts of resistance on the part of Catholics, which they believed these forms enabled and even condoned, and were thus an attempt indirectly to resist these changes from an oppos-ing perspective. Moreover, some of the collective action undertaken by Protestants was aimed directly at the state. The scheduling of an unusual ‘initiation’ march of the Derry Apprentice Boys’ to coincide with a civil rights march in 1968 exemplifies the use of this kind of activity (Cameron, 1969). Indeed, marches and other public ritual, which were considered a central tradition of Irish Protestant culture (Jarman, 1997), were often staged in defiance of government bans upon them. In this manner, Protestants, unionists and Loyalists used collective action of this kind as symbolic assertions of their cultural robustness and dominance against the direct and entropic eradication that they were experiencing. In so doing, they also appropriated rep-ertoires of collective action from abroad, in this case, from collective action among right-wing groups which was taking place in Continental Europe (Prince, 2007, p. 33).



Another form of collective activity that increased at this time was inter-communal rioting and acts of collective destruction, particularly in response to the expulsion or movement of groups from mixed areas of Belfast and (London)Derry. It is important to make a distinction here between violence and the conflictual acts used to engage in riots. Riots are generally thought to be acts of ‘violent conflict’, since they usually involve physical harm or destruction. In such cases, the individuals harmed experience violence. However, as a phenomenon, riots are only violent if they cannot be resisted – that is, blocked, controlled, neutralized or managed by the groups they affect. Violence, I have argued, is not definable in terms of certain forms of activity, such as destructive acts, but rather to the extent to which these acts can be resisted. Thus, as a practice, rioting tests and often transgresses the boundary between con-flictual forms of resistance and the use of violence by creating conditions in which the latter may be ruptured (see Chapter 9).

Throughout 1969, riots took place across Northern Ireland, particu-larly in the ‘interface’ areas of these two cities. They often occurred in conjunction with episodes of collective protest or display; for instance, the Apprentice Boys’ march in (London)Derry sparked massive rioting, which resulted in extensive damage (Scarman, 1972). These riots lead to repercussions from the government such as a curfew on the Falls Road in Belfast in July 1970, intended to halt rioting, and, on the part of rioters, the erection of barricades and the creation of ‘no-go’ zones from which security forces and non-residents were blocked. In (London)Derry, the Bogside region attempted to ‘secede’ by creating a barricaded area known as ‘Free Derry’ from 1969–72 (O’Dochartaigh, 2005). It should also be noted that other forms of civic and public activity, such as non-sectarian movements against nuclear warfare and community advice groups were also active during the late 1960s and early 1970s, although the latter remained divided along sectarian lines (Nagle, 2008; Nelson, 1984).

It is important to stress again my thesis that the emergence of these forms of collective action was a direct response to the processes of wide-spread change initiated in the late 1960s by O’Neill’s government and more generally by globalizing political and economic trends of the post-1945 period. These forms of collective action were, in essence, attempts to contest or reshape – that is, to resist – changes that had specific implica-tions in the conflicted context to which they were applied. For instance, with regards to the issue of housing, O’Neill’s response was simply to build, renovate and reconstruct housing as widely as possible – a policy which might have made sense in the context of rebuilding after total



war in Europe. But it was not a total war between states, resulting in massive infrastructural damage, that had created housing problems in Northern Ireland, but rather long-standing patterns of discrimination. Thus, the way in which housing was built and allocated had very differ-ent implications here. It meant, for instance, that although new houses were being built (a key demand of the Campaign for Social Justice and the later NICRA), they were often being allocated to those who were perceived already to have disproportionate access to such amenities (Protestants) (Prince, 2007). Likewise, O’Neill’s massive expansion of the civil sector and social services may have appeared to address many of the overall values of the NICRA and its supporters. Yet simply mod-ernizing these services did not necessarily mean that employment of the two major groups within them would be equal – or acceptable to either group. In a society shaped by entrenched dynamics of inequality, a programme of widespread development was likely to be distributed in ways that only accentuated divisions, inequalities and the relative power of each group. In a similar sense, many hardline unionists and Loyalists perceived the liberalizing tendencies within O’Neillism as a boost to the NICRMs and, by extension, the power of nationalists or Republicans. When these groups and movements took to the streets to protest against O’Neillism, it was not simply O’Neill’s unionist party that they were railing against – it was the unsuitability of the norms of the liberal peace project to the problems they identified as crucial. By attempting to transplant within Northern Ireland a peace project designed for a very different kind of violence, O’Neill had exacerbated some of the problems that underpinned the local conflict. It was this problem, and the norms of state-building that created it, which these groups were attempting to contest.

Their ‘mistake’ – or, more accurately, their deliberate intent – was to contest them through forms of action which, due to the logic of the proc-esses by which the polity was being rapidly transformed, were likely to be identified as acts of radical violence against the state (see Chapter 4). These actions were designed to interrupt the processes of state-building that seemed to be accelerating and consolidating at the time, often with-out the intervention of major swathes of the population. In resisting radical change by disruptive means, however, these groups were met with an increasingly irresistible response. When his project was contested, O’Neill invoked the language of communal strife and historic division, expli-citly contrasting his modernizing paradigm with what he viewed to be uncivilized and anachronistic feuding, and thus he drew upon the radical sources of the traditionally beleaguered Unionist/Protest-dominated state



(O’Neill, 1972). According to the report commissioned to investigate the use of violence in these disturbances, it was the work of ‘radicals’ who intended ‘not to secure peace by way of reform and within the bounds of the constitution, but to subvert and destroy the constitutional structure of the state’ (Cameron, 1969). From O’Neill’s perspective, they were ‘self-inflicted wounds’ (O’Neill, 1969, p. 116) that called in question the ‘very existence’ of the state, in contrast to ‘normal politics’, which simply con-tested its means (O’Neill, 1969, pp. 114, 116). In response, he stated that good governance consisted in the ability of the state to ‘kee[p] its head’ rather than ‘surrendering’ to disruption or adopting a rigid position of resistance to it (O’Neill, 1969, p. 63).

Once again, this phenomenon of change could be perceived as a radical – and often direct – threat to many groups. Here, I shall focus on the state itself (Loyalist groups aside), including the British army and indeed the British state. As collective protest increased in its frequency and force, it was no longer perceived as a resistible irritation, but, increas-ingly, as an irresistible threat to the state and its mode of world-building. Initially, O’Neill opted for resistance simply by blocking the changes pro-posed by protestors. For instance, in a speech to the Ards Young Unionist Association in January 1969, he claimed that the mark of good government was the ability to withstand ‘clamour in the streets’ without resorting to overtly repressive measures (O’Neill, 1969, p. 63). Indeed, the NICRM was viewed by many government officials as an attempt to undermine state structures (Cameron, 1969) or to place extra-parliamentary pressure upon them, and some viewed it as a front for the Republican goal of destroy-ing the state (Patterson, 2006). The events of 1968, according to the O’Neillite publisher Sayers, ‘wasn’t exactly a revolution, although to the world it must have looked very like one. But it was the most shattering week, and the most earth-shaking politically, that Northern Ireland has known’ (Gailey, 1995, p. 158). Indeed, the coercive response of the state suggests that the events in question were perceived as a radical threat to it. Thus, these forms of collective action threatened to destroy the sources of the state’s authority and persistence: its legitimacy, support and effectiveness in maintaining order. Loyalist forms of collective pro-test created an unexpected radical threat by undermining the traditional sources of support for the state and, in the case of Loyalists, attempts to destroy the ideological and practical sources of its political programme. Moreover, the manner in which groups effectively reclaimed territory from the state, either through uncontrollable marches and protests or the literal capture of no-go areas such as ‘Free Derry’, suggested that the control and deference upon which the state relied was swiftly eroding. As such,



these new forms of activity epitomized radical change: they altered, and in some cases destroyed, the sources upon which the state drew to constitute and entrench itself, and delegitimized the major activities, both parliamentary and administrative, through which it did so. At the same time, confrontational forms of collective action exacerbated the sectarian tensions that formed the greatest single threat to the Northern Ireland state and would precipitate its demise in 1972. Collective protest was at once a warning of the radical threats to the state that would come in the future and, when juxtaposed to the modernizing processes through which O’Neill’s government engaged in world-building, a real threat against the processes designed to preclude disruption and subver-sion of this kind.

It is no surprise that the threats raised against the state by collective action were likely to have been perceived as radical; they were designed to be, and their effectiveness depended upon this. In the preceding decades, threats to the state had been made by relatively small, isolated groups in a less organized manner, and were thus managed more or less effectively through normal techniques of law and order. The forms of collective action described above presented a new and much more power-ful challenge. In this context, action was perceived by policymakers as an attack on the radical sources of the newly reforming state. Widespread inability among policymakers to predict the nature of protest, or precisely where and when it would occur again made it inscrutable and thus doubly threatening.

Crucially, pressurized by the impending implosion of his party, O’Neill reverted to a series of repressive measures intended to prevent or at least minimize the appearance of any of these forms of activity. This was evident in a willingness to ban marches and the eventual deployment of the army to monitor and control episodes of protest. The adoption of repressive and often coercive approaches by the state exem-plifies the irresistibility of collective action; given little opportunity to intervene in the nature of the changes being imposed from ‘outside’, it engaged in coercive forms of resistance. The degree of coerciveness increased in proportion to the intensity of protest and its perceived poten-tial to undermine the state. For instance, after making some concessions after the NICRA march in 1969 and facing heavy repercussions from all sections of the population, the government changed gears and opted to ‘weather’ or not respond to the numerous PD marches that took place in Belfast in 1969–70 (O’Dochartaigh, 2005). Furthermore, correctly or incorrectly, public officials began to associate collective action much more closely with paramilitarism, and even to conflate the two – many



of those interned for suspected paramilitary involvement in 1971 were involved in various forms of collective action. In any case, the state per-ceived the radical changes embodied by collective action as unacceptably irresistible, and responded with its irresistible measures, including violent confrontations with protesters, the most famous of which is Bloody Sunday in 1972. This act of violence directly fuelled the cycles of violence that were already emerging among Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries, engaging the state directly in this cycle of violence which was to last for 30 years.

Conclusions

So far, I have shown how a number of the changes that occurred through the extension of the ‘Cold’ peace-building project to Northern Ireland were perceived as radical and, eventually, irresistible by three major pro-tagonists of the modern Troubles. The responses of these actors – whether intensifying their threatworks or responding with violence – reflect the extent to which these changes were experienced as radical, even if they were never fully realized. Each of these major actors experienced shocks or damage to the threatworks upon which they relied to maintain their worlds and, ultimately, to coexist non-violently.

In several cases in which they were also perceived as irresistible, violent attitudes, orientations and activities were adopted. The relationship was more than just correlative; the forms of resistance that each group adopted responded directly to the perceived source of the radical violence, or those who sought to benefit from it – even if this source was not in fact the correct one. For instance, the perception that the state was buckling to Catholic demands raised a radical threat to hardline union-ists and Loyalists; thus, different forms of violence were used against both when the threat appeared irresistible. A parallel exchange of indi-rect threats occurred among Republicans and the IRA in particular. As a result, what began as indirect radical violence was often realized in very direct physical or structural violence.

This sheds new light on mainstream assumptions about the emer-gence of violence, as discussed in Chapter 3. The Troubles, from this point of view, did not emerge purely from accumulating tension sur-rounding socio-economic conditions or increasing tensions between groups, but rather from the breaching of threatworks by forms of radical violence. As a result, exchanges of violence – or a dynamic of reciprocal irresistibility – emerged between groups that had long been coping with radical threats embodied in the others. The violence of Loyalist



paramilitary groups was an irresistible attempt to change the state and to physically and symbolically eradicate the IRA; the violence of the IRA was an attempt to similarly eradicate the Northern Ireland state and to weaken Loyalism and unionism; and the state’s coercive response not only to paramilitarism but also to collective activity made it irresistible to the rapidly (re)forming paramilitary organizations, even if they were not its direct targets at this point. This, in turn, increased their proclivity towards violence.

The increase of violence also occurred as a result of the irresistibility of indirect and relative radical threats; for instance, Loyalist defence associations emerged not in response to the IRA but to broader changes in the state indirectly related to Catholics; likewise, the IRA re-emerged and split in response to changes not only in government, but also those related to the influx of global capitalism; and the series of reforms that helped to precipitate conflict between these groups were in themselves a response to powerful and uncontrollable changes.

Re-thinking in this manner the cycles of violence that precipitated the Troubles highlights several key points. Importantly, it was not long-standing conflict (or solely the ‘conditions’ of conflict) which sparked off these cycles of violence but rather, from this perspective, complex dynamics of radical violence which breached or destroyed established ways of conflicting and, ultimately, resisting violence – whether tradi-tional statism, the formation of defense organizations or movements promoting the needs and grievances of particular groups. Indeed, in many cases, violence emerged where there was perceptible damage to threatworks, as in the case of Unionist political power or traditions such as marches, or the repression of new forms of conflictual world-building, as in the case of collective action on the part of nationalists, that led to the exchange of violence. Moreover, and crucially, it was not simply the endogenous (see McGrattan, 2010) and direct relationships between these three groups that led to the exchange of violence. The influence of external, impersonal forces of radical change and increased indirect threats among these groups also helped to engender the cycles of violence that would dominate the next four decades.


73

4Radical Peace?: The PEACE Programmes and Transformative Peace-Building Strategies after 1994

There is a marked tendency to refer to Northern Ireland’s ‘peace process’. This term is contestable for several reasons. First, as I shall argue in the following chapters, the assumption that the processes used to create and implement peace interventions are inherently peaceful – or rather, non-violent – is questionable. Secondly, there is rarely a single peace process; the formal agreements and negotiations that lead to constitution-based peace agreements are in fact frameworks upon which a range of other processes are interlaced. It is these processes – in this case, of democra-tization, governance, development and securitization – through which peace interventions are ‘delivered’ and, in some cases, in which peace is believed to consist.

After the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994 (see Chapters 7 and 8), a new peace intervention and set of peace-building strategies were introduced in Northern Ireland. These focused on transformative processes of democ-ratization, governance, development and security that were intended to alter the conditions and dynamics of ongoing conflict. Decades of the Troubles were a period not only of violence, but also of intensive, strategic policymaking designed to halt it. Throughout these years, various tactics were experimented with, from the hard-handed policies surrounding the internment of individuals suspected of violent activity in the 1970s (see Chapter 6) to the period of arbitration, mediation and ‘conflict management’ that led to the formulation and ratification of the GF/BA. These approaches were accompanied, however, by a much more entrenched logic, which became the dominant mode of peace-building after the signing of the GF/BA. This was the logic of peace-as-polity-building, or the use of (trans)formative processes as a comprehensive, and ultimately hegemonic, form of world-building. In an important sense, the ‘new’ conflict transformation initiatives introduced from 1994 onwards



were a continuation of the broader European peace project which began in the 1950s, and whose basic principles were expanded, amplified and promoted in different forms (see Chapter 5).

It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the most emblematic elements of this intervention was promoted by the European Union, whose very formation and expansion embodied these principles. The European Union’s Programmes for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland (PEACE I, II and III, 1994–2011) are assumed to be unique, unprecedented interventions designed for the specific context of the Troubles and, in particular, as a response to the IRA ceasefire in 1994. The PEACE programmes remain overshadowed by the tenets of the GF/BA, most likely because they have been delivered through the relatively banal and technocratic medium of policymaking, rather than publicized debate (indeed, there was extensive public ‘input’ and consultations, but very little normative debate, about the tenets of the PEACE programmes). Yet it was through these processes, and a range of auxiliary local, regional and (inter)national policies, that the actual goals of the GF/BA were to be realized. Although they tend to be treated as a neutral medium for delivering peace, their logic, ethics and principles promoted a specific normative project based on transformative models of democracy, governance, development and securitization. As I will illustrate below, they were in many ways an attempt to complete or expand the peace intervention begun in the immediate post-WWII period, threads of which had run through policymaking throughout the ‘Troubles’ in the form of ‘community relations’, ‘community development’ and ‘civil society’ approaches.

Crucially, by reforming the social, political, economic and cultural sphere and promoting new, pervasive forms of world-building, this set of interventions sought to transform the threatworks that had been used to control conflict before and during the height of the Troubles. As the latter half of this book will demonstrate, the transformation of threatworks in this manner may generate significant threats and/or cycles of radical violence. When experienced as radical threats, these phenomena are often responded to with conflictual forms of world-building or low-level violence. These phenomena, however, are most often divorced from the peace process and bracketed off as crime, ‘anti-social behaviour’, or the result of an incomplete transformation, and thus stripped of their potential status as indicators of normative dissent or, indeed, irresistible dynamics (Mitchell, 2009a). Some, on the other hand, circulate unno-ticed until they produce cycles of visible physical or material violence that threatens the ‘peace process’ or perceptions of it. This chapter


Radical Peace? 75

assesses the ethos of transformation that underpins the post-1994 peace intervention in Northern Ireland, highlighting its project of radical change and the threatworks it seeks to alter or remove.

The PEACE Programmes

The PEACE Programmes were designed to create the conditions in which the tenets of the GF/BA could take hold. They aligned with, and were complemented by, local or regional policies (Office of the First Minister and Deputy Minister, 2005; Department of Social Develop-ment, 2004; Northern Ireland Office, 1998) and acted as a replacement for the broader programme of European Structural Funds which had recently been phased out of the region (European Union, 2001b). They initiated a range of processes which were intended to transform the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of the region from the roots up. In many aspects, they were not dissimilar to the set of reforms promoted by O’Neill. Indeed, they focused on several key logics of transformation, each with its own corresponding set of processes: democratization (largely through ethical change), govern-ance, development and the overall securitization of the region and of these processes.

Democratization and ethical transformation

One of the most important goals of the PEACE programmes was to transform what was perceived as a quagmire of entrenched ethnic hatred and hostilities into a participative, inclusive democratic system. Specifically, these programme sought to re-develop the mindsets, values, goals and social structures of the region in order to engender ongoing support for the constitutional peace process (Harvey, 2003; McCall and O’Dowd, 2008). This would involve ethical and attitudinal change on a large scale, often through the sublimation of conflictual modes of world-building.

This approach rejuvenated one of the core reform strategies of the O’Neill period: the use of participative modes of democracy to engender large-scale ethical change, which in turn was expected to support a series of radical processes of reform. In the case of the PEACE programmes, how-ever, the logic of democratization as a project of ethical transformation was widened or intensified in several senses. First, the idea of ‘self-help’ was expanded to include the entire range of projects that were to be initi-ated by local individuals, groups and communities and funded under the programme. The promotion of such activities was intended to cultivate a



populist, ‘bottom-up’ ethos and ‘culture of enterprise’ (European Union, 1998, pp. 30, 62), and to encourage an atmosphere of mutual respect and prosperity (European Commission, 1994, pp. 2–3). PEACE also exhorted people to take ‘ownership’ of the norms and institutions solidified in the GF/BA by adopting its ethics in their daily lives through participation in funded projects, or simply the use of public services (European Union, 2008, p. 25). Moreover, this approach sought to inculcate ‘widespread attitudinal change’ (Hamber and Kelly, 2004) by encouraging interde-pendence and the treatment of others as equals (Hamber and Kelly, 2004, pp. 4–5; OFMDFM, 2005, p. 11), producing a culture of tolerance, under-standing and acceptance of diversity (OFMDFM, 2005, p. 5, 34; European Union, 2008, pp. 18, 49).

This approach to conflictual forms of world-building drew upon a long history in the region. Since at least the early 1970s, an influential discourse had developed within policy circles with regards to two key concepts: ‘community development’ and ‘community relations’. The ‘community relations’ approach was based on the long-standing assumption that conflict in the region resulted from the incompat-ible and divisive identities of two main ‘national’ groups. Thus, it was thought that organized contact between members of these groups would ‘stabiliz[e] society by encouraging people to seek solutions to their prob-lems through institutional channels … and to identify themselves with others in the society in search of common goals of peace, prosperity, justice and happiness’ (Hayes, 1972, pp. 13, 15). By the 1990s, the goal of these policies was to create opportunities for ‘cross-community’ projects that would promote ‘greater mutual understanding and respect of the different cultures and traditions’ (Central Community Relations Unit, 1993, p. 2). Closely related policies of community development pre-sumed that the best way to transform poor relations between the two communities was to build up a ‘moderate’ sphere of civil society, which was thought to provide a ‘more effective channeling of expressions and grievances’ than inter-communal violence (Community Development Review Group, 1991, p. 2). The ‘internal’ development of each community was to help transform and secure its self-perception – a process later referred to as ‘confidence-building’ (European Union, 1998), which was in turn expected to reduce the sense of threat experienced by each group. Moreover, in combination, these policies were intended to link the ‘two communities’ more closely to the government and engage them directly in the provision of services, a goal that appears to have emerged from policy reform in the UK (Wolfendon Committee, 1978; Community Relations Commission, 1974).


Radical Peace? 77

By the mid-1990s, in the lead-up to the negotiations that produced the GF/BA, these approaches had developed into what is now commonly referred to as the ‘civil society approach to peace-building’ (Dixon, 1997; Byrne, 2001). This approach is intended to generate public support for the constitutional peace process, to provide inputs into it during its formulation and implementation, and, most importantly perhaps, to bring about ‘significant attitudinal and cultural change … [or] changes in how people relate to, and their attitudes towards, one another’, thus underwriting its normative goals (Hamber and Kelly, 2004, pp. 4–5). The PEACE programmes embodied this approach by seeking: ‘to reinforce progress towards a peaceful and stable society and to promote reconcilia-tion’ (European Union, 1998, p. 30) through projects that promoted and combined the principles of community development and community relations. In most cases, this meant the targeted funding and develop-ment of NGOs, ‘social enterprises’, partnerships between government and voluntary organizations (Bruton and Williamson, 2005; European Union, 2008). These organizations were formed in order to provide services and encourage the participation of a range of ‘target’ groups that were perceived to be victimized, excluded or otherwise aggrieved as a result of violent conflict (European Union, 1998, 2008), thus enfolding them within the processes of peace-building.

As the PEACE programmes progressed and their parameters were redefined (largely due to funding constraints), this approach crystallized around the notion of ‘reconciliation’, which is viewed as both a corrective to the effects of conflict and a means for preventing its recurrence through ethical and behavioural means. The model of reconciliation developed for and adopted by the framers of the PEACE programmes emphasizes several dimensions: the development of more integrated personal relationships (Hamber and Kelly, 2004), particularly through cross-community col-laboration between members of different groups (European Union, 1998, 2008); the integration or inclusion of excluded, deprived or belligerent groups, and the broader European ideal of the integration and equaliza-tion of regions (European Union, 1997). PEACE III (the final installment of the programme) placed an explicit premium on projects that directly address the goal of reconciliation – that is, projects which adopt cross-community integration as an explicit goal (European Union, 2008, p. 25). Although treated as an outcome in itself (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997, p.2), reconciliation is also considered necessary to removing conflictual relationships and thus, it is assumed, preventing violence.

To this end, the PEACE programmes and other policies designed to bolster and deliver the GF/BA identified particular conditions, patterns



of social organization and ‘target groups’ to be transformed. For the most part, they identified ‘division’, ‘sectarianism’ and ‘mistrust’ as the predominant source of discord between the ‘two major communities’ (European Commission, 1994; European Union, 1998, 2008; OFMDFM, 2005), as well as differing accounts of history and relative status, and a relationship of contested territoriality (European Union, 2008; McCall and O’Dowd, 2008; Hamber and Kelly, 2004). Certain demographic groups in particular – for instance, women, children and ex-combatants – were treated as underlying causes of the conflict, whether because they were directly involved in violence or because they were affected by con-ditions which are thought to create conflict (see Chapter 6), and were actively ‘targeted’ for transformation (European Union, 1998; Coopers and Lybrand, 1997). These ethical changes were viewed as the necessary basis for a democratic polity and the institutions that underpinned it – in this case, the constitutional frame work provided by the GF/BA.

Indeed, each of the governmental and service-based initiatives promoted by PEACE (see below) were expected to embody ‘micro-processes’ that supported democratic interactions. These included: dialogue, discussion and debate (Harvey, 2003); education to encourage peaceful interactions (OFMDFM, 2005); formalized or structured dialogue between representa tives of civil society and governing bodies (European Union, 1998), including the establishment of formal consultative mechanisms (Department for Social Development, 2004) through which the ‘voluntary sector can ‘comment on … challenge and … seek to influence Government policies’ (Northern Ireland Office, 1998, p. 13); structured communications interaction between members of the ‘two’ main communities (European Union, 1998, 2008); and ‘active citizen-ship’, which can range from organizing a funded project to availing of the services provided by one (Northern Ireland Office, 1998). Indeed, the ability of organizations to demonstrate their commitment to such processes was an explicit criterion for funding and evaluation of the PEACE I and II programmes (European Union, 1998; Harvey, 2003; Coopers and Lybrand, 1997).

Moreover, PEACE and similar programmes began to rely increasingly on consultation (European Union, 2008, p. 31; Harvey, 2003, p. 111; NICVA, 2004), which was framed as a means for generating democratic inputs into policymaking processes, but more often functioned as a channel through which these organizations simply transmitted information (see below). Indeed, much of the outreach undertaken by officers of PEACE and related programmes involved creating a positive image for them.In the PEACE Programme, the European Commission unintentionally


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paraphrased O’Neill by underscoring the need to ‘demonstrate to the ordinary people that there is a real benefit to be gained from continuing this process’ (European Commission, 1994, p.8). The need to display the benefits of the programme by promoting an ‘outward-looking’ and more European perspective was also considered crucial (European Union, 1998, p. 135).

Governance

Similar to the reforms promoted by O’Neill, much of the democratic and ethical change promoted by the PEACE programmes was expected to take place through public participation in policy processes and, more often, the consumption of services. Indeed, PEACE was an attempt to enhance, deepen and transform modes of governance (McCall and O’Dowd, 2008, p. 32) by creating new delivery models intended to address the problem of segregation and support the implementation and preservation of the GF/BA (European Union, 2008, p. iii). A priority of the PEACE pro-grammes and auxiliary policies, therefore, was to redesign governmental institutions so that they not only aligned with new trends in ‘govern-ance’ within the UK, Europe and elsewhere (see Chapter 5), but so that they maximized the participation of the target groups mentioned above. Under the PEACE Programmes, this involved the development and integration of a civil or voluntary ‘sector’ that could interface effectively with governing bodies and deliver many of their essential services as a means of including or inducting large swathes of people into the proc-esses of peace-building. This strategy included experimentation with a range of new organizational models, including intermediate fund-ing bodies and ‘umbrella groups’ such as the Special European Union Programmes Body (SEUPB), the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (CFNI) and the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Activity (NICVA) (Bruton and Williamson, 2005); organizations concerned with economic development and training (SEUPB, 1997); and the hundreds of projects, groups and organizations funded under the programmes’ objectives (SEUPB, 2008). It also emphasized the principle of ‘partner-ship’ between ‘non-governmental’ and statutory bodies (European Commission, 1999; Mitchell, 2009a), another idea that emerged in a nascent form in the O’Neill period. Throughout its three installments, the programme experimented with various models of partnership: the initial ‘district partnerships’, which created direct links between local government and the EU, evolved into ‘local social partnerships’ involving members of local government and community groups (Harvey, 2003; European Commission, 1999). Despite the variety of organizational



types developed through the programme, funded organizations were expected to adopt the basic operating structure, principles and ethos of formally constituted NGOs (Mitchell, 2009b). That is, they were to be more or less formally structured, to embody principles of good gov-ernance such as accountability and professional management, and to contribute actively to policymaking and implementation by providing measurable outputs in social or economic growth and the delivery of services (European Union, 1998, 2008; Coopers and Lybrand, 1997).

Due to the diversity of organizations and organizational types it promoted, the programme relied upon a strong ethos of coordina-tion, rationalization and, crucially, integration in order to achieve its goals. First, the goals and mechanisms of the PEACE programme needed to be embedded and coordinated with a range of local and EU pro-grammes (Department of Social Development, 2004; OFMDFM, 2005; European Union, 2001). It was necessary to ensure the complementarity of operational standards, mechanisms and protocols from the level of the European Commission all the way down to the funded projects, which was a frequent cause of confusion and frustration (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997; European Commission, 1999). In addition, the pro-gramme’s strongly emphasized cross-border element (European Union, 1998, 2008; Hayward, 2007) demanded coordination between local, regional and national governments, the UK, the Republic of Ireland and EU institutions. This underpinned the identified need to develop cohe-sive regional strategy with an overall strategic purpose within broader Europe (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997, p. xxii; European Union, 1999, p. 38; European Union, 2008). Like O’Neillism before it, this involved addressing the problem of Northern Ireland’s ‘peripherality’ by firmly ensconcing it within the continuum of EU governance (European Union, n.d., p. 4).

Development

PEACE and other programmes designed to deliver the GF/BA were prem-ised on a logic of development as peace-building. This approach relies on several assumptions about the nature of conflict and its relationship to violence. Social and economic deprivation and/or exclusion, whether perceived to be a cause or a result of violence, was assumed to be a key target for transformation (European Commission, 1998, pp. 7, 4). In all three PEACE operational documents, development and peace are considered co-dependent; recently, there have been suggestions that the withdrawal of PEACE money might lead to destructive consequences, including a loss of trust or disaffection with the peace process (European


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Commission, 1994, p. 3; NICVA, 2004; Byrne, 2001, p. 419), even though the link between economic development and reconciliation has been the most difficult criterion to quantify or assess (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997). As such, the development of social and economic structures is viewed as a direct attempt to alter the perceived causes of conflictual relationships among or within groups, and thus to eliminate these relationships. Furthermore, the goal of engaging the entire polity in the processes of peace-building is often framed in terms of economic benefit. The language used to discuss the goals of these programmes is telling: there is much discussion of a ‘peace dividend’, or the perceived benefits, as well as the personal and communal incentives, of engaging with the processes of peace-building (Byrne and Irvin, 2001). This approach tends to relate peace closely to economic prosperity or material well-being, and peace-building to the incentivization of particular patterns of behaviour.

As such, the PEACE programmes revolved largely around the provision, distribution and management of funds, which, in turn, were intended to incentivize the development of the economy, the ‘voluntary sector’ and the various organizational types discussed above (European Union, 1998, p. 157). Indeed, they set specific goals and targets for levels of development which each funded project was expected to help meet and maintain. To ensure that these were reached, the second and third versions of the PEACE programme relied heavily on rationalistic justifications such as commissioned research and SWOT analyses (European Union, 2008, p. 22); inde-pendent monitoring and assessment, usually undertaken by accounting professionals (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997); the development of spe-cific criteria for granting funds; and the formulation of specific target groups, who would receive priority for funding (European Union, 1998, 2008).

Similar to O’Neill’s team of policymakers, the framers of the PEACE Programme envisaged Northern Ireland as a regional economy that needed to ‘catch up’ with the rest of Europe and maximize its existing resources (European Union, 1997). PEACE accentuated the idea that development should be self-sustaining once EU funding was phased out (European Commission, 1999; European Union, 2000, 2008) and focused on the sustainable exploitation of natural, economic and par-ticularly human or ‘living’ resources (European Union, 2001b), ‘social capital’ and ‘ social infrastructure’ (Harvey, 2003, p. 26; Department for Social Development, 2004, p. 3). Indeed, the PEACE Programmes were used to extend the provision of developmental funds from the EU since Northern Ireland had lost its ‘Objective 1’ status and the funding that



accompanied this. The PEACE programmes emphasized the fact that Northern Ireland, like most ‘objective one’ regions, suffered from long-term unemployment and deprivation (European Union, 2008, p. 22), but that unlike most other regions of Europe, these conditions were both a cause and an effect of conflict (and therefore, it was assumed, violence).

In addition, the processes used to deliver the GF/BA promoted the ‘reintegration’ into the formal economy of those people who were perceived to be alienated through violence. They therefore sought to cultivate new ‘skills and capacities’ among target groups. These extended not only to technical and vocational training, but also to the enrich-ment of ‘social skills’ and ‘life skills’ – presumably (although these are rarely explicitly defined) the forms of non-conflictual socialization discussed above (European Union, 1998, p. 91). Crucially, the develop-ment of these skills was intended not only to ‘empower’ workers in their local economies (European Commission, 1998, p. 17; SEUPB, 1997), but to ensure that they were ‘adaptable’ to the demands of a common European market (European Union, n.d., p. 11). This involved changing the emphasis of economic development from unskilled labour towards a new set of ‘modern’ industries: service, tourism, communications and information technology (European Union, 1998, 2007). In addition to the tasks of economic restructuring it shared with its predecessor, PEACE took on the task of diverting workers away from jobs in the ‘security sector’, which it hoped was not to continue as a growth industry in the future (European Union, n.d., p. 6). Development was also measured in terms of an increase in ‘social capital’, particularly as it related to the ‘voluntary sector’. The organizational structures, NGOs and other enti-ties discussed in the previous section were designed directly to increase the ‘social capital’ and ‘cultural capital’ (NICVA, 2004; OFMDFM, 2005; European Union, 1998) available not only to citizens, but also to statutory actors and those responsible for delivering the GF/BA.

Conflict transformation as securitization

The latter part of this book focuses on one of the most important elements of securitization in the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’ which used the strategies discussed above to transform combatants and particularly paramilitary organization. This is the closest approximation within the Northern Ireland ‘peace processes’ to the strategies of demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) employed by the UN and other organizations in contexts of conflict around the world (see Muggah, 2005). To avoid repetition, therefore, I shall not delve too deeply into the logic of securitzation here. However, it is worth mentioning that


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the GF/BA and the ‘formal’ or constitutional arrangements it produced involved several other processes of securitization. These included the reform of the former Royal Ulster Constabulary into the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which entailed changes in its ethnic compo-sition, uniform and a range of other elements, and the eventual transfer of the responsibility for policing and justice to Stormont in the early spring of 2010. Moreover, the phased withdrawal of British Army troops from the region was negotiated as part of the ‘peace process’, although there is still a strong MI5 presence within Northern Ireland, including a large (and recently attacked) base in County Down. In 2007, under the recommendations of the Patten Report (the document on which the reform of the PSNI was based), MI5 assumed responsibility for national security issues in the region (MI5, 2010), and is believed to devote 15 per cent of its budget and 10 per cent of its staff to the threat of ‘dis-sident Republicans’ and Islamist groups allegedly operating in Northern Ireland (McDonald, 2009, and see Chapter 8).

However, aside from these formal securitization processes, the logics discussed above combined to form a project of human security that was intended to transform the immediate effects of conflict and, at the same time, prevent its occurrence by altering its perceived roots, the friction between ‘two’ major ethnic identities, weak or non-participative forms of governance, and underdevelopment or socio-economic inequalities. As the PEACE programmes suggest, addressing these issues was perceived as the only way to create a ‘sustainable’ model of peace (European Commission, 1994; European Union, 1998, 2008) and prevent future cycles of violence. Thus, self-sustaining processes of the kind discussed above were to act as a permanent prophylactic against the resurgence of ‘violent conflict’ by removing the conditions or manifestations of con-flict. However, as Chapters 6, 7 and 8 will argue, it may have achieved the opposite by engendering its own cycles of radical violence.

The irresistibility of PEACE

So far, I have argued that PEACE and the range of other policy initiatives used to deliver the GF/BA targeted, altered and often sought to eliminate the worlds or modes of world-building associated with conflict, as a means of preventing violence and increasing human security. The project pro-moted by them was indeed a radical one, in the second sense of the term: its goal was to bring about large-scale, substantive, normative change in the polity by altering its basic conditions or roots. This radical project was realized in the alteration of social, governmental, economic and cultural



institutions, as well as the personal and collective activities of citizens, and thus formed an encompassing and pervasive process that was embedded in most dimensions of everyday life. This process was ‘radicalized’ – that is, targeted at the roots of the polity – as it was centralized and localized into ‘grassroots’ or community initiatives to form a continuum extending from individual behavioural or attitudinal change to the work of NGOs and extending to the level of European Union policymaking.

In the last chapter, I reconstructed some of the key dynamics of the early phases of the Troubles to demonstrate how radical threat cre-ated by similar large-scale changes helped to create cycles of violence among the key antagonists. Since the existence of the Troubles, and the mainstream narratives explaining it, have been widely accepted, it is relatively easy to identify the groups who were affected by these dynamics. The latter sections of this book will argue that the formal end of the Troubles did not end cycles of violence between or within these (and other) groups in Northern Ireland. However, there exists an imperative deriving from international actors, politicians, funders, local elites and many members of the general public to maintain that ‘the’ conflict (that is, the Troubles) is over and that the peace process was a success. Yet violence is still a very real part of life for many living in Northern Ireland, and not just those affected by or afraid of the overt physical violence of ‘dissident Republicans’ (Mitchell et al., 2010). Much of the violence that takes place remains hidden until it is manifested as physi-cal violence and, as I have argued elsewhere, attempts to resist, control or contain violence through conflictual forms of world-building tend to be bracketed off as ‘crime’ or disorder, and met with coercive punish-ment (Mitchell, 2009b).

As such, it is not as straightforward a task to identify the groups involved in current cycles of violence; I shall explore and uncover several of these in the following chapters. It is, however, possible to analyze some of the dynamics of irresistibility which are embodied by the initiatives in question. The next chapter will examine in more depth the logics of these processes of transformation and the dynamics of irresistibility embedded within these. Here, however, I wish to highlight four key factors which limit the resistibility of seemingly voluntary, inclusive and democratic ‘peace processes’ discussed above.

‘Immanent’ or insider input

First, the processes of transformation define – and constrain – the groups which are afforded any ability to alter or engage with processes of change. These strategies cultivate the participation of the groups


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that they define as significant. Usually, ‘target groups’ are those that are believed either to be particularly affected by violent conflict, those who are thought to be key actors in conflict, or those who are perceived to be particularly important or effective in realizing peace-oriented policies. Simply by segmenting the population in this manner, policy-makers create an (often inconsistent) cognitive framework that deter-mines whose input and involvement is necessary in decision-making processes. This goes a long way in defining the parameters of dissent and whose actions are acknowledged in this sphere. In most cases, only those groups or individuals who engage with, or are already ensconced within, peace interventions have an opportunity to engage in critique. As such, participation in some of the constitutive processes associated with peace-building (such as the delivery of services, meetings between organizations, agencies or NGOs, and consultative meetings designed to solicit inputs from ‘stakeholders’) is one of the only ways in which criticism can be made. It is difficult for those who disagree with these processes to be heard because opposition to specific peace processes may be viewed as opposition to peace itself, and framed as the behaviour of spoilers. In this manner, the peace intervention employs economic power, control over the means of peace (including the monopoly of legitimized violence), political influence and moral narratives as a means for proscribing criticism and the discourses in which it may arise.

The reliance on ‘insider’ input or ‘immanent’ criticism was central to the PEACE programmes. The various programmes of development aimed at social inclusion, including economic development and civil society initiatives, identify specific groups as ‘targets’ for mobilization, or, in the language of policymakers, as ‘stakeholders’, ‘beneficiaries’, or even ‘clients’. Likewise, channels for participation and ownership tended to be exclusive or open largely to those with a vested interest in participating formally in the PEACE programmes. Consultations were made available to a select group – primarily to participants and ‘stake-holders’ in the programme and the ‘umbrella groups’ representing mul-tiple projects or organizations (NICVA, 2004) – at strategic points in the programme’s implementation. This trend automatically circumscribed the groups who are able to provide input into the system through the channels available. Moreover, the forms participation could take were restricted by the criteria of the programmes. Participants could submit written evaluations of the PEACE programmes from the perspective of their organizations and/or attend meetings in which representatives of various organizations could discuss challenges and problems with the programmes. This model of consultation circumscribed the discourse



in a very specific way. Since the problems and questions were focused on the experience of PEACE, it limited input to those who were already involved or had expressed an interest in the programme – that is, those who had a stake in supporting its core tenets, whether strategically or not. For instance, former Provisional IRA (PIRA) prisoners have been vocal about the fact that they are happy to participate in the PEACE Programmes while promoting goals that diverge significantly from the maintenance and stabilization of the current constitutional status (Coiste na–Iarchimi, 2007, 2010). It should be noted that, due to the diminish-ing funds available as the PEACE programmes progressed, the group of organizations funded narrowed. Since these organizations tended to be those that had proven their efficiency, accountability and other criteria of the Programmes in the past, they also tended to represent groups that had the most deeply vested interests in the Programmes.

Functional or constructive criticism

Secondly, the very participation of these groups in the policies in question or the consultations, meetings or audits organized to solicit ‘input’ repro-duce the logics and norms of the latter – whether or not this involvement is framed as instrumental (see below). This means that those who would criticize a peace programme must engage with it quite literally on its own terms – for instance, by adopting and using the language of peace-build-ing (such as terms related to ‘funding’, ‘uptake’, ‘efficiency’ and so on) or through acceptable forms of activity such as consultations, parliamen-tary politics, formal complaints or NGO-based lobbying. As a result, the criticisms raised come primarily from actors who have vested interests in maintaining the processes in question, or at least are accustomed to and more or less adept at navigating their parameters. Moreover, as consulta-tions tend to focus primarily on improving policies or programmes based on the input of those engaged in them, these tools effectively presume normative support for the policies in question and restrict criticism to the ‘constructive’ goal of making a programme more efficient/accessible/effective, and leaving the question of its norms, direction and effects (intended or unintended) relatively untouched.

In the case of the PEACE programmes and the local or regional policies that complemented them, the criticism gained through mechanisms designed to improve participation and ‘ownership’ was predominantly functional-constructive, and presumed basic support for the normative framework and goals of the peace processes in question. Where consul-tations were used, they were oriented towards finding out how and/or where funding was best placed, or how the process of implementation


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could be made more efficient or effective. The consultations that were integral to the formation of each tranche of the PEACE programmes were related almost entirely to the experience of organizations vis-à-vis PEACE, and thus provided input only on their functional aspects, and input was ultimately expected to help entrench and consolidate public support. Moreover, the forms of contestation made available by the PEACE pro-grammes were almost solely functional or procedural in nature. This is reflected in the way in which the PEACE programme has been evaluated, through a variety of reports (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997; Harvey, 2003), consultations and academic assessments (O’Dowd and McCall, 2008). These evaluations and assessments provide a comprehensive and incisive account of the strengths and flaws of the programme, and criticize its shortcomings against its own stated priorities. Yet they constrain their analysis and focus on data related solely to improving the Programmes, not questioning their basic norms.

Participation as legitimation and ‘degrees of agreement’

Moreover, the goal of participation and its use as a criterion of success is driven by a circular logic. Peace interventions tend to presume and demand participation. In some cases, they may even make it mandatory, either by implementing peace-building initiatives through the physical environment, essential services or other sites which cannot be escaped or abstained from without suffering significant harm; or by framing non-participation as evidence of opposition to peace (see below). However, the degree and kind of participation is then used as a major indicator of local support for a particular intervention (see European Union, 2008). Even when participation is not constrained by the factors mentioned above, it may involve important nuances: for instances, some actors may support only certain aspects of the peace process, but participate in it as a means of surviving and furthering their own (possibly different) aims. Others might agree only with some of the norms associated with the peace intervention, but, as peace agreements are presented as ‘package deals’, there is little room to articulate this. Finally, the depoliticization of non-participation or abstention renders moot the use of participa-tion as an indication of normative support. In short, non-participation tends to be treated by policymakers as the evidence of an incomplete peace process (see Mitchell, 2009a) – that is, they assume that every-one would participate, if only they could. By disowning the potentially normative statements made by non-participation, this approach renders the use of participation as a measure of normative support relatively meaningless.



Since the programmes in question were delivered through the implementation of essential services, such as those relating to socio-economic development and the restoration of the physical environment, these peace processes create a sort of low-intensity ransom situation, however inadvertently. Simply put, since those engaged in the imple-mentation process become the primary providers of many essential services (in the absence of a fully competent state and civil service), citizens are forced either to participate in these programmes or their products, or to suffer physically, socially and economically. This makes it possible to offer criticism of the specific manner in which services are provided, but not to the basic framework which determines how implementation takes place or who is charged with achieving it. Most importantly, perhaps, the emergence and participation in the produc-tion and consumption of policy on the part of NGOs, projects and their leaders, and the ‘clients’ whom they served is one of the most important ways in which the EU evaluated the PEACE programmes. The latter criterion made it necessary for project or NGO leaders to keep detailed tabs on the numbers of clients (usually broken down by demographic group) who passed through their doors or received services or advice from them. ‘Uptake’ of the PEACE Programmes and the number of projects implemented was also deemed to be an important factor in its evaluation (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997). In this sense, participation in the formal elements of the PEACE Programme were interpreted as signs of its acceptance – not only by those NGO or project leaders with a vested interest in the programme, but also by the various demographic groups they were deemed to represent or work on behalf of.

Furthermore, while participation in these various peace initiatives may have been high in both cases, two factors need to be taken into account when assessing this as a marker of normative approval. First, this participation was highly selective. As discussed above, many groups were excluded from the PEACE programmes on the basis of their unsuit-ability for receiving funding, which many groups believe was due to their associations with violence or non-compliance to mainstream (that is PIRA/Sinn Fein, DUP or UDP) political organization. Thus, by excluding organizations that may have raised objections to the normative goals of the Programmes, the latter effectively guaranteed participation largely from those normatively supportive of their aims. Secondly, the PEACE programmes delivered an ultimatum: one could either take part actively within them, or abstain from them. Moreover, since this set of processes was tied directly to the stability of the ‘formal’ peace agreement (the GF/BA), and, by association, to ‘peace itself’, raising objections to these


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initiatives may have been perceived as branding oneself as a dissident, spoiler or radical and thus facing exclusion or even punishment (see Chapter 8). As such, in order to gain admittance to the peace process and, by extension, the polity it constructed, many individuals and organiza-tions faced little choice but to participate or simply abstain. In some cases, as a group of young people from Belfast recently expressed, non-participation in formal politics and/or policy-making may be a means for expressing dissatisfaction or frustration with an alienating system (Group Interview, 2010). Abstinence from these programmes, however, is framed by policy-makers not as a form of objection or contestation, but simply as the residue of a not-yet-complete peace process; and there is currently no methodology or strategy for studying the normative dimension of non-participation (see Mitchell, 2009a; McDermott and McAvoy, 2010).

The obscurity of norms

A number of authors, notably David Chandler (1999, 2006), have explored the extent to which peace processes may depoliticize aspects of conflict or their own normative frameworks by regulating the former or taking the latter as a given. This is compounded by the unwillingness of peace-building actors to provide a normative context, argument or expla-nation (not simply a working definition) for normative terms that they do use – ‘transformation’, for instance, or ‘reconciliation’. Contemporary peace interventions are complex, comprise multiple actors working at various levels and with a range of goals and priorities, so that it is dif-ficult not only to identify distinct actors, but to gain a sense of their normative frameworks. In addition, international actors in particular claim to promote ‘universal values’ such as ‘inclusion’ or reconciliation (see European Union, 1998, 2008) while leaving these deliberately vague so that their concrete meanings are only made clear once they are imple-mented. Furthermore, the vast majority of peace-building initiatives are constituted by – or at least delivered through – highly technical or admin-istrative language, such as that related to the administration of funding, the ‘outcomes’ or ‘added value’ of projects, or the impact on economic growth or stability of a particular initiative. As such, they tend to be cloaked in language and techniques of implementation (for instance, service provision or the development of advocacy-oriented NGOs) that are perceived by citizens as part of the background of everyday life and, even though they may advocate for specific changes, not directly related to the basic norms of the polity and its (re)construction. All of these factors make it difficult to identify the specific and distinct normative frameworks of each actor, let alone to compare or contest them.



Indeed, the PEACE programmes were dominated by legal-technical, NGO-oriented and administrative language and delivered largely through service provision and formal advocacy surrounding these services, thus distancing these processes from their normative implications. The fact that these initiatives relate to the relatively dry or ‘sterile’ realm of administration should not be underestimated; this excludes large swathes of the population who are unaware of or disengaged by such specialized and technocratic matters. Moreover, this incredibly com-plex set of peace processes and actors implementing them has obscured the normative frameworks of peace interventions in both cases. The norms of the PEACE programmes were obscured, vaguely defined and not opened to significant public debate. This was largely because the PEACE programmes explicitly aligned themselves with the norms set out in the GF/BA – although they did not specify the exact manner in which their processes would embody these norms but simply took it as a given that, for instance, the development of cross-communal NGOs would promote the goal of ‘reconciliation’ and respect between the two major communities. Indeed, only in the consultations leading up to the final installment of the PEACE programmes was there a concerted effort to provide a definition for reconciliation, a task which two commu-nity-relations consultants were hired to complete (Hamber and Kelly, 2004). As mentioned, the PEACE programmes were so closely tied to the GF/BA that there was almost no recognition of their distinct and separate (although similar) normative agenda. Instead, it tended simply to be assumed that support for these agreements (or perhaps simply for the cessation of violence under their terms) equated with support for the auxiliary programmes that would be used to deliver their goals. So, although the tenets of the PEACE programme were highlighted in the long document which citizens were asked to consider in voting for the GF/BA, they were presented merely as a mechanism for delivering the more controversial norms, rather than as a set of ethical practices that required attention in themselves. Thus, citizens were asked to carefully consider whether they wanted peace, but not nearly so much whether they wanted PEACE. All of these factors made it difficult to identify – let alone critique or compare – the distinctive (but perhaps very similar – for instance, one actor might prioritize constitutional forms of democracy, and another, participative modes) normative frameworks promoted by the multiple actors involved in each peace intervention.

These factors suggest that even processes designed to promote inclusion, participation and other democratic norms do not necessarily allow for the kind of contestation or indeed resistance that is necessary


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to pluralization, or the coexistence of plural forms of world-building. In situations where pluralization or, as the next chapter will explore, other concepts such as risk, fragmentation or underdevelopment are viewed as roots of violence, they tend to be precluded and removed. This means that the dynamics of irresistibility discussed in the previ-ous chapter are not only likely to have been reproduced, but perhaps also magnified or expanded by the comprehensive reach of these programmes.

Conclusions

In order to ‘deliver’ the model of peace promised by the GF/BA, local, national and international peace-building actors promoted a set of processes aimed at transforming Northern Ireland from the ‘roots up’. These included processes of democratization, governance, develop-ment and securitization that amplified and expanded the goals of the ‘Cold’ peace-building strategies promoted by O’Neill decades earlier. In employing these strategies, PEACE and other policies targeted the perceived roots of conflict, which it identified in such phenomena as divisive politics, identities and modes of social organization, the frag-mentation or non-integration of governance, under-development and socio-economic disharmony. In attempting to transform each of these dimensions of everyday life, this programme of reforms was ‘radical’ in both senses of the term I have discussed so far: it sought to bring about large-scale, significant changes in the polity by targeting the perceived ‘roots’ of conflict, which were generally perceived to lie in conflictual conditions or forms of world-building. Although they were designed to promote inclusion, openness and voluntary participation, the very frameworks on which these programmes were based raise significant issues with regards to resistibility. It would seem likely, then, that the dynamics of radical violence embedded in O’Neill’s reforms have been reproduced here, although in very different ways, but what evidence is there to support this? In the following chapters, I will explore several important cycles of violence that have emerged through the processes of securitization, which encompass and are constituted by processes of democratization, governance and development. Before doing so, how-ever, I shall analyze the potential for radical violence that lies in the very logic of transformative peace interventions.


92

Transformative peace interventions seek to halt violence and remove its roots by applying a powerful logic: the transformative process. The term ‘peace process’ is not merely rhetorical; peace interventions are imple-mented through a complex set of processes which structure everyday life by enforcing a set of ethics which channel human activity. Contemporary processes are increasingly transformative. That is, the ethics they promote do not simply direct human activity towards productivity, but rather towards a specific kind of reproduction: the ceaseless transformation of the self and the world one inhabits. Constant transformation, realized through the practices of governance, democratization, development and securitization, provides a powerful form of control and a dominant mode of world-building.

The logic of transformative processes bears an important relationship to conflict and to violence. Crucially, the logic of process is designed to preclude or sublimate disruptions of the kind raised by conflictual forms of world-building. As I shall argue below, the ‘roots’ or conditions of conflict discussed in the Chapter 2 are reframed in various ways by the strategies of transformation: as ‘the political’ (or simply conflict) by strategies of democratization; as ‘complexity’ or ‘risk’ by strategies of governance; as ‘underdevelopment’, ‘fragmentation’ or a lack of ‘social capital’ by strategies of development; and as ‘disharmony’, ‘division’ or disorder by strategies of securitization. As the previous two chapters demonstrated, the logics of democratization, governance, development and securitization intertwine to target and transform these perceived roots of violence.

In attempting to transform these conditions, the strategies in question may create strong dynamics of irresistibility. Indeed, as Arendt argues, one of the most defining characteristics of the logic of process is its tendency

5Irresistible Transformations: Radical Violence and the Peace Process


Irresistible Transformations 93

towards irresistibility. From this perspective, the logic, ontology and ethics of process drives large-scale change which is radical in its ambi-tions for reform, and which may be experienced as radical threat by many of the multiple worlds they transform. Moreover, due to their processual logics, these dynamics of change admit little or no resistance. Thus, even though these processes are framed as gentle, gradual ways of bringing about large-scale change, even in comparison to their modern predecessors, they may be premised on radical violence. This chapter will explore the major strategies which underpin transformative peace interventions – democratization, governance, development and securitization – and their underlying processual logics. In so doing, it will explore their potential to promote, however unintentionally, subtle currents of radical violence, which may unfold not only in sudden, traumatic events, but also in the violence of process.

The idea of transformation

Transformation is a powerful ideal. It evokes images of total and complete change, and even emancipation. In most cases, it is used to connote beneficial and positive changes, or the transcendence of unde-sirable or even intolerable conditions, whether deprivation, subjugation or, from the perspective of conflict transformation, ‘violent conflict’. Yet, just as desire can be used to perpetuate the social machines that constrain and control human life (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004), or the goals of freedom and self-improvement or expression can be leveraged as a means for governance (Rose, 1999), transformation can become a powerful tool for control, and a hegemonic, potentially destructive, mode of world-building.

The logics, strategies and practices of transformation are used to dis-cipline disruptions, the acts or events in which new worlds or elements of worlds are either created or altered. These acts disrupt the constant, productive motion of processes and thus create instabilities within them. The processes in question are those which, as we shall see, create and sustain the patterns of production, consumption and regulation which have helped to constitute the modern world. Indeed, critics of modernity, including Arendt (1965), Lefebvre (2008) and Marcuse (1964) have all decried the tendency of modernizing processes, promoted largely by capitalist development and the development of bureaucratic forms of government, to reduce human beings to mere components of productive machinery – Arendt’s animal laborans or Marcuse’s ‘one-dimensional man’. Transformative processes, I shall argue, take this logic



a step further, as highlighted by Deleuze and Guattari’s (2008) concept of ‘machines’. These authors claim that society is dominated by social, economic and regulatory systems which manipulate human affect or desire in order to discipline human life and ensure that it fuels the machines of production, consumption and regulation. Indeed, even attempts to create breaks or ‘schizzes’ within the functions of these intangible but powerful machines, they argue, simply provides fuel and material to sustain them. The idea of machines highlights an important shift in the logic of productive processes: they are increasingly perceived to be reflexive. That is, each human being ensconced in a productive process is simultaneously the subject and object of production, or part of the machine and the material it works upon. This trend is increasing in what Hardt and Negri (2000, 2004) call the age of ‘Empire’, in which the productive processes in question rely more and more upon ‘affec-tive’ (see Mitchell, 2011) or ‘immaterial’ labour, such as the production and consumption of information, feelings or experiences and even education or training. Mainstream models of peace are closely associ-ated with bio-political norms of well-being, and the concept of ‘positive peace’ is also an evocative image of desire – for harmony, prosperity and well-being, for instance. All of these processes compel the individuals engaged in them constantly to transform themselves; they, and the conditions of peace they seek to create, are the product of their own productive efforts. In so doing, the transformative processes embedded in every aspect of collective life not only integrate plural worlds, but they prevent them from expanding or contracting in such a way that disruptions might occur.

This point is crucial: transformative processes are used to control the element of disruption, the sudden appearance of novelty or ‘the politi-cal’ (Mouffe, 2000; Honig, 1993). As Arendt (1965) argues, it is only human action which can disrupt the processes of modernity, precisely by creating new worlds or altering existing worlds. Conversely, these attempts to alter an existing world or create new worldly objects are necessarily disruptive (whereas the everyday efforts used to preserve and protect existing worlds may not be). In previous chapters, I mentioned several concepts of disruptive, innovative action which human beings use to make or change worlds: Lefebvre’s ideas of ‘play’ and ‘festival’, which upend order for a brief moment in order to enable critiques of it; de Certeau’s ‘tactics’, which ‘poach’ on the strategies of powerful actors; and Heller’s notion of the moral development and transcendence which take place as each individual appropriates a unique world. Each of these ideas involves a disruption, breach or attempt to transcend



the patterns, activities and structures that regulate existing worlds. Likewise, the ‘political’ in post-Cold War democratic theory refers to normative actions that contest, and may even undermine, political structures as a means of articulating plural groups and demanding their recognition (see below). Indeed, this is what transformative processes seek to transform.

Transformative peace interventions

Mainstream peace interventions, particularly those that promote an agenda of transformation, attempt to discipline disruption in order to promote the smooth, stable unfolding of the transformative processes associated with peaceful polities. Peace interventions are, in essence, intensive projects of state-building (see Chandler, 2006 and Caplan, 2004): a specific logic of world-building based on the formation of stable, functioning governmental institutions and the socio-economic conditions that sustain them. As such, peace interventions are often implemented through the strategies of polity building, of which I shall discuss here: democratization (of plurality); governance and admin-istration (of risk), development (of the bio-political/affective) and securitization (of order). These strategies embody the rationalizing, integrative and legalistic ethos of productive processes. Moreover, they act as a transformative medium in which attempts at plural world-making are immediately transformed.

Democratization (of plurality)

Since the Cold War, one of the primary challenges of democratic theory has, in fact, involved the political and its role in a stable, self-sustaining, democratic polity. The end of the Cold War broke the rigid dichotomy that had dominated politics for decades, and brought to light the various forms of new political thought and praxis that had flourished beneath this dichotomy. These included a range of post-Marxisms, post-structuralisms, (anti)capitalisms and Critical Theories (see Tormey and Townshend, 2006); various forms of social and liberal democracy, the reinvention of the concept of ‘civil society’, cosmopolitanism and participative approaches to governance (see Giddens, 1991; Held, 1995; Young, 2000; Kaldor, 2003), pluralism (Connolly, 1991), agonism (Mouffe, 2000), and ‘new’ forms or manifestations of nationalism (Kaldor, 2001). The desire of multiple actors, groups and institutions to act upon these ideas raised an important question: (how) could the structures of liberal democracy (the victor of the Cold War show-down) sustain itself vis-à-vis



the challenges brought about by these ideas, and the actors promoting them? In short, the end of the Cold War was a period of intensive and diverse attempts at world-building, each of which threatened to disrupt the model of liberal–democratic capitalism that dominated the geo-political structures of the Western world.

For actors concerned with maintaining the dominant world-building project surrounding liberalism, democracy and capitalism, the chal-lenge was to survive the threats raised by the episodes of world-building that could disrupt their functions while accommodating a certain degree of plurality, as the tenets of liberalism and democracy demand at least toleration of formal pluralism and diversity. As theories of partici-pative democracy that promoted rational integration, many influenced by the work of Jurgen Habermas, attained a dominant position, several prominent thinkers rose to the defence of ‘the political’, pluralism, difference and even conflict in democratic politics (Mouffe 2000; Connolly, 1995; Honig, 1993). They claimed that the exclusion of these elements not only compromises the inclusiveness and representative-ness of democracy, but that it might also leave dangerous ‘remainders’ or excluded others that could rupture the workings of democracy (see Chapter 7). As Honig claims, ‘the displacement of politics with [the rationalizing logics of] law or administration engenders remainders that could disempower and perhaps even undermine democratic insti-tutions and citizens’ (Honig, 1993, p. 14). In demanding that all of the elements of the polity find a common medium (Connolly, 1995), democratic theorists who promoted an image of rational universalism excluded the very elements that could ultimately destabilize them. Moreover, the theory of ‘agonism’ promoted by Mouffe, Connolly and others suggested that conflict between plural groups was a necessary and beneficial aspect of democracy. As such, these authors called for a recognition of the inherent value of pluralism and, crucially, pluraliza-tion, or the capacity to engage in plural forms of world-making, and the potentially destabilizing effects of excluding these factors from the democratic polity.

Yet, despite the influence gained by these theories, a serious problem remained: could (or should) these demands for the admittance of the political in public life be squared with the rationalizing, universal, legalistic and process-based logics of governance and democracy that were rapidly ascending to a position of dominance (see Honig, 1993)? Theorists working from a variety of perspectives attempted to resolve this issue. In her work on the subject, Chantal Mouffe attempted to resolve the seeming tension between the free expression of plurality



or difference, and the institutions of formal, parliamentary democracy (see Mouffe, 2000). This would involve ‘multiplying the institutions, the discourses, the forms of life that foster identification with demo-cratic values’ (Mouffe, 2000, p. 11). She ultimately advocated multiply-ing the sites of political engagement, so long as they all conformed to the basic rules of formal democracy and were expressed in non-violent ways, and within a common institutional medium. Other authors called for the inclusion of plural groups in integrative processes, which would allow them to express their plurality and create a pluralistic basis for democracy (Young, 2000; Barber, 1984). However, the upshot of such arguments was that the very processes which integrated these groups (whether communicative, participative or interactive) ulti-mately served to simplify the complexity of worlds they presented and to combine them into a single, overarching notion of the common good. Communitarian and multi-culturalist scholars advocated forms of democracy that would affirm the rights of groups and recognize their distinctions within the formal structures of constitutions and parlia-ments (Taylor, 1994; Kymlicka, 1995). This approach, however, accom-modated only the constitutive elements of pluralism – for instance, discrete identities or demands for group rights – and not the dynamic, fluid element of world building. Indeed, by reifying cultural groups, it may have served to place a moratorium on the world-building activi-ties of certain groups, or at least to formalize them significantly.

In short, almost all of the theories that sought to reconcile the need for the political with the norms of a rational, legally grounded, consensus-based, universalist and integrative model of democracy ended up either advocating the sublimation, integration or institutionalization of acts of plural world-making. In other words, these approaches tended to collapse into a call for the preservation of markers or manifestations of plurality, but not for pluralization (see Connolly, 1991) or plural forms of world-building; rather, these markers of plurality were to be embedded within, and sustained through, relatively homogeneous forms of world-building such as rational discourse and policy debates. In the former case, these were either to be integrated within democratic processes and thus harnessed as fuel to propel them in their production of a universal, representative polity. In the latter case, they were to arbitrarily halt the world-making process by framing plural worlds in terms of legally actionable concepts such as identities or collective rights. This preserved some of the content of world-making, but ultimately stripped the acts of world-making of their disruptive quality. As William Connolly comments, ‘pluralism … is often presented as an achievement to be protected, while the eruption of



new drives to pluralization are often represented as perils to this achieve-ment’ (Connolly, 1995, p. xiv).

Crucially, the logics through which acts of plural world-making were to be embedded within the democratic system – for instance, through their sublimation, integration or institutionalization – were essentially proc-esses of transformation. For instance, in the agonistic approach promoted by Mouffe, conflict between distinct groups (as opposed to rational discourse) is expected to lead to the transcendence of contentious issues and the formation of shared norms, or, ultimately, a conflictual consensus. Thus, by expressing themselves in the institutional (usually parliamentary) processes described by Mouffe, plural groups are expected to undergo a (self-) transformation that will alter some of their basic goals and tenets. Similarly, the model promoted by Iris Marion Young insists that complexity and plurality should be expressed at the level of society but, as plural perspectives, opinions and identities confront one another in the communicative processes of democratic participation, they will combine and simplify into shared norms (Young, 2000). In both exam-ples, the act of expressing plurality is almost immediately converted into a transformation of plurality by the medium in which it takes place: the integrative processes of democracy. Indeed, the price of pre-serving markers of plurality in such a context is the transformation – and ultimately the erasure – of the multiple forms of world-building required to sustain and adapt multiple worlds in the long term.

This dynamic is the basis of the contemporary ideal of transformation. Plurality, complexity and risk are placed within ethical systems that create and sustain constant processes of transformation. Thus, plural-ism can be expressed and (partially) realized, but the dominant – and dominating – form of world-building is that of integrative, rationalizing processes, which underpin each of the logics explored below. In such a setting, even the most exotic expression of difference is to be imme-diately transformed and thus integrated within the realms governed by transformative processes: social, economic, political and, increasingly, psychological, physical and affective life. In their immediate and constant transformation, these attempts at plural world-making become, as Deleuze and Guattari warn, fuel for the ‘machines’ of transformative power (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004).

Governance

Governance – and often ‘good governance’ – is one of the central tenets of mainstream peace interventions (see Paris, 2004 and Jeong, 2005). The implementation of stable, functioning and self-sustaining systems



of administration and public service provision is expected to underpin the stability of the polity while providing extensive means for control-ling, surveilling and evaluating the population (see Dean, 1999 and Rose, 1999). In fact, the stability of administrative systems is often considered to be a precondition for the more popular goal of creating parliamentary and electoral structures (see Paris, 2004). Increasingly, the establishment of stability has become associated less with the creation of rigid institutions, and more with the implementation of standards, practices and processes that can preserve and maintain control, often by engaging the objects of governance in the processes that constrain and regulate them. This assemblage of governmental strategies is known as governance.

The term ‘governance’ (also known, in more specific contexts, as ‘third way’ governance (Etzioni, 1993; Blair, 1998) or ‘modernization’ (Newman, 2001) describes the vast and expanding range of tech-niques, institutions and complexes used to maintain political order, formulate and deliver policy, and to provide the services that sustain the liberal–democratic polity (Rhodes, 1997). In fact, it appears to be an appropriation of Foucault’s (1991) idea of ‘governmentality’, one which turns this critique on its head by claiming that the use of extensive networks to channel power and discipline individuals is in fact liberating, or at least beneficial to democracy. The contem-porary paradigm of governance arose in part from a long trajectory of public-sector reform which took place primarily in North America and Europe (Aucoin, 1994). This shift began in the 1980s with the appropriation of the logic of market-based economics as an ethos for public management, or ‘New Public Management’ (Pollitt, 2003). However, in the 1990s, with the election of more socially democratic governments in North America and Europe, this market-based ethic was replaced or merged with a new model, one driven by images of ‘civil society’, ‘community’ and ‘participation’ (Newman, 2001; Perri6 et al., 2002; Etzioni, 1993; Giddens, 1998). Society was no longer to be treated as a mere object to be regulated by governing bodies, but rather as an agent (or provider) of governance itself. Moreover, the participative, diffuse, network-based strategies of governance were to transform complexity into representative, ‘democratic’ policy decisions. To conceptualize this, writers on governance evoked sys-tems theory, which emphasizes the self-generation, adaptation and maintenance of complex social systems (Kickert, 1993; Rhodes, 1997), as well as theories of ‘social capital’, which frame civil society as a repository of social energy which must be cultivated and released in



order to fuel the processes of democratic governance (Giddens, 1998; Etzioni, 1993).

Under the rubric of governance, public administration and the public sector were to become mediums for the transformation of plurality and complexity into stable, sustainable policymaking processes.

For the framers of governance, the primary sources of threat are the risk and instability that are believed to arise from social complex-ity and the constant proliferation of individual human beings and their contingent interactions (Luhmann, 1995, p. 1). Complexity, from this perspective, emerges through the countless, diverse and rapidly changing patterns of social interaction that are the hallmarks of contemporary society (Kooiman, 2003; Hood, 2000). In particular, the contention that contemporary society is composed primarily of individuals rather than solidary groups (see Taylor, 2007) creates the impression that society is almost incalculably fragmented, chaotic and unpredictable. Indeed, it is not only the plural worlds that threaten the logics of governance, but also the complex dynamics in which these worlds are created, sustained and changed. To simplify these numerous, often incomparable or incommensurable worlds, propo-nents of governance promote an image of – and through legislation and policy, literally produce – demographic groups which are framed as multiple but ultimately coherent in terms of their structure and dynamics (see Rose, 1999). Moreover, to simplify and make man-ageable the plural ways in which persons may embody, express and transcend their own subjectivity and agency, theories of governance present human beings as interacting ‘units’ which are multiple and discrete but ultimately behave and interact in a range of recognizable ways. For instance, they may be framed as citizens (Newman, 2001) or ‘institutional individuals’ (Giddens, 1998, p. 36), consumers/clients (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000; Minogue, 1998) or agents of democratic participation (Newman, 2001; Perri6 et al., 2002). These images are used in an ironic way to explain the dynamics of pluralization – that is, without recognizing its essential pluralism. Complexity is perceived as the incidence of randomness and unpredictability that arises from the relatively predictable or at least measurable and classifiable actions of units or demographic groups. In each of the roles mentioned above, individuals or groups may confront and interact with other individuals and, through these interactions, create new instabilities within the existing systems of order, contributing to the disorganization or ‘contrived randomness’ (Hood, 2000, p. 65) of institutions (Perri6 et al., 2002; Pierre, 2000). Moreover, the expansion and proliferation



of civil society is thought to generate diverse norms, interests, values, attitudes, identities, grievances, demands and goals (Kooiman, 2003; Bang, 2003; Perri6 et al., 2002). These conditions are perceived to be destabilizing not only because they promote rapid social change and the opportunities for conflict, but also because they compromise the onto-political security of the polity (Connolly, 1991) and, by extension, the ‘ontological certainty’ people possess with regards to the institu-tions they inhabit (Giddens, 1991, pp. 36–7). Indeed, under such conditions, life may appear acutely unpredictable, uncontrollable and even incomprehensible (Gamble, 2000). In this sense, complexity mounts a radical threat to the contemporary public sector and those who rely upon it.

To address this problem, governance was designed to create a range of ‘institutionally structured risk environments’ (Giddens, 1991, p. 111) capable of constraining, controlling and harnessing risk and thus mak-ing it more tolerable (Dean, 1999; Rose, 1999). Thus, proponents of governance seek to simplify, rationalize and convert risk by convert-ing expressions of complexity, difference and plurality into ‘inputs’ within rational processes of policymaking and delivery (Pierre, 2000; Bang, 2003; Kooiman, 2003). In this manner, the discourses, interac-tions, legal formulations and implementation strategies of governance are framed as transformative mediums in which diverse inputs can be simplified, combined, integrated and thus divested of their element of unpredictability and instability. At the same time, these ‘inputs’ provide the material upon which policymaking processes thrive and sustain themselves, quite literally through the constant, gradual reform which takes place as public services are produced and con-sumed. At the level of ‘society’, these processes are intended to take place through the implementation of policies; simply by consuming services, individuals provide inputs into them, whether formal com-ments or complaints, or simply the demographic and statistical data that is collected each time a service is used. Thus, individuals provide complex inputs into these processes even when they have no inten-tion of doing so. In this sense, governance promotes a model of passive or unconscious democracy, in which simply ‘being processed’ may be counted as a form of participation (see Chapter 4). Through the analysis of statistics and indicators, as well as formalized consultations with ‘user-groups’, ‘clients’ or ‘stakeholders’, policymakers integrate these inputs into broader norms or themes, using these to gradually adjust and transform the services and institutions in question. At a broader institutional level, this process of simplification and integration



is applied to institutions themselves as various components of the state, bureaucracy, non-state and supra-state institutions (including civil society and the economy) are ‘joined up’. This is accomplished by integrating complexity at the institution level – the diverse sets of ethics institutional ethics, norm, practices and structures – and stand-ardizing these into more simplified forms (Bogdanor, 2005; Rhodes, 1997). These strategies for transforming complexity are designed to create ‘emergent harmonies’ within the policymaking process and, by incorporating a more ‘holistic’ set of inputs (Perri6 et al., 2002), to produce consensus (Peters, 2001), new solidarities, identities or demographic groups (Bang, 2003), trust dynamics of reciprocity (Perri6 et al., 2002) and the streamlining modernization and democratization of institutions (Rhodes, 1997; Newman, 2001).

Crucially, these transformations are to take place through the medium of processes – whether of participation, communication, consumption, the provison of services or the collection and analysis of data. Indeed, Christopher Pollitt, a leading theorist in the field, describes governance as ‘a predominantly processual view of the world’ (Pollitt, 2003, p. 327). Although institutions remain important in this model, it is largely because they embody, support and sustain these processes, and act as a medium in which they can be realized – that is, as repositories of processes and con-centrated biomass (in the bodies of actual workers and physical structures) (Dean, 1999) upon which processes can ‘work’. Henrik Bang describes governance as a vast, continual process of political communication (Bang, 2003, p. 241), which may encompass other processes such as negotiation among actors, persuasive communication and the use of rationalistic or strategic rhetoric (Newman, 2001; Hood, 2000), or the dialogical produc-tion of consensus (Newman, 2001; Kooiman, 2003; Bang, 2003), not to mention the processes of consumption and participation. Governance, then, is a logic based on transformation by means of processes. In a con-text of governance, plurality is replaced by differentiated, but ultimately homogeneous, logics. Plurality is replaced by differentiated complexity, conflict tends to be perceived and combated as risk, and plural forms of world-building are targeted for transformation into recognizable processes such as dialogue, exchange and rational interaction.

Development

The logics of governance are intended to neutralize the threat raised by plural forms of worldmaking by absorbing the small ruptures they create within the vast systems and networks of governance and thus ‘recuper-ating’ (Lefebvre, 2005, pp. 104–5) these disruptions. Yet transformative



processes are not only a means for disciplining multiple worlds and forms of world-building, they also entail a powerful developmental impulse, which involves a dynamic of simultaneous (re)production and integration.

Here, I shall focus on two intertwined logics of development that drive mainstream peace interventions and promote its ethos of trans-formation: bio-political development through economic growth and socio-ethical development through ‘civil society’, including personal education, training and skill development. Economic development is one of the centrepieces of contemporary peace interventions. As mentioned in the previous chapter, conditions of poverty, unemploy-ment and inequality among conflicting groups are perceived as key factors in ‘structural violence’ (Galtung, 1996; Ramsbotham et al., 2005), which is in turn believed to prompt ‘violent conflict’. On a much larger scale, the economic instability and inequality of states has traditionally been considered one of the major causes of war, and their amelioration has featured prominently throughout centuries of Western peace agreements (Ikenberry, 2001). It is no surprise, then, that many of the strategies deployed by mainstream peace-building actors attempt to eradicate this perceived ‘root’ cause of conflict by aggressively promoting economic development. A number of tactics of economic development are used, including the provision of aid, grants and advise to promote the founding of small businesses or social enter-prises (Bridge et al., 2008), schemes to privatize or modernize existing enterprises (see Pugh, 2005), and strategies to improve external or cross-border trade (see McCall and O’Dowd, 2008). Moreover, peace-building often involves extensive attempts to develop the physical and built environment, both as a means for rebuilding damaged structures and for providing a source of economic growth. In Belfast, for instance, the (re)development of the city centre, the waterfront area alongside the Lagan river and various impoverished neighbourhoods has been promoted by governmental and private developers alike as a means for restoring the economy (Kelly and Mitchell, 2011; Murtagh and Shirlow, 2008). In addition to providing an influx of money, employ-ment opportunities and helping to restore ‘normal’ patterns of pro-duction and consumption, these strategies also have biopolitical and ethnical dimensions. As Mark Duffield (2007) argues, the economics of development is not merely concerned with reducing poverty or reduc-ing inequalities between existing groups, but also with controlling the means of the (re)production of life. In other words, those who provide aid as a means of social and economic development decide who should



survive and who should not, however indirectly, and thus exert some control over the demographics of the conflicted polity. Moreover, as the documentation for the PEACE programmes suggests, economic growth and the promise of ‘prosperity’ is expected to increase oppor-tunities for non-conflictual interactions between members of various groups (see European Union, 1998). The spaces of production and consumption – workplaces, shops, places of leisure and even private homes – are framed as neutral spaces, not only because they can be regulated to insure formal equality, but also because the demand for the products and services they offer is thought to trump resistance to mixing with members of another group. In other words, by adopting the specific world-building tactics of productive and consumptive processes, individuals are expected to learn or cultivate the ‘peaceful’, neutral or cosmopolitan practices that are associated with peace, and thus to transform themselves and their existing worlds.

The development of civil society, the vast realm of non-governmen-tal organizations (NGOs), community groups and other ‘not-for-profit’ providers of community-based services and advocacy (see Mitchell, 2009a) is another crucial logic used to transform perceived attitudes, patterns of interaction or beliefs that are considered root causes of conflict. The rationale behind the development of civil society is very similar to that of economic development; indeed, the influence of concepts such as ‘social entrepreneurship’ and ‘social capital’ have contributed to the fusion of logics of social and economic develop-ment into an over-arching trend toward socio-economic development (see Duffield, 2001, Paris, 2004, Richmond, 2005). Here, however, the product of these processes is not economic growth or changes in the quality of life, but rather alterations in ethics, interactions and social structures.

For the most part, the logic promoted through civil society is that of democratic participation. The predominant ideal of civil society is a democratizing one. That is, the value of civil society lies in its instrumental, and apparently salubrious, effects upon the functions of liberal–democratic institutions (Putnam, 2000; Warren, 2001). This is not because the model of civil society promoted by policymakers today derives in large part from the formally organized movements for democ-racy that emerged in (now) post-Communist countries and actively promoted democratization (Baker, 2003; Kaldor, 2001). In brief, the development of civil society includes the provision of funding, advice and other support for a range of organizations that provide opportu-nities for socialization as well as the provision of community-based



services and advocacy; in recent years, the latter two functions have largely eclipsed the former in Northern Ireland due to the development priorities of major funding bodies (see Mitchell, 2009a). It is worth men-tioning that another, closely related logic of development – personal development through education and skills training – is also a function of these organizations and priority of their funders. Skills training acts as an ethical and technical basis for both of the logics of development discussed here; it provides technical preparation for employment, an it is also thought to encourage socialization and other ethical preparations for positive interactions in the workplace or public spaces (see European Union, 2008; Keating and Knight, 2005).

By initiating and sustaining these developmental processes, civil society is expected to act as an initial filter for complexity and plurality, and thus a source of inputs into the processes of governance mentioned above. Through identifying, engaging and representing various aspects of social and demographic complexity, NGOs, community groups and other components of civil society form these phenomena into intelli-gible units, groups and identities. As such, in forming, promoting and sustaining themselves, they perform an initial integration and simplifi-cation of the vast complexity of human life (Cohen and Arato, 1994). At the same time, these processes are expected to engender specific behav-iours, ethics and norms throughout the population. For instance, Nancy Rosenblum (1998) believes that involvement in civil society helps to congeal the ‘personal’ (ideas, beliefs and feelings) into opinions, moral outlooks and systems of values, while Robert Putnam (2000) and Mark Warren (2001) argue that it cultivates more specific values such as civic responsibility and a tendency towards participation.

To understand the processes through which civil society transforms plurality, it is useful to look more closely at the idea of social capital. According to proponents of this concept, social capital is the accumu-lated total of social bonds, ties, connections and structures available to a community at a given time, which help people more efficiently to locate and capitalize upon opportunities or benefits (Putnam, 2000; Lin, 2001). The ‘energy’ of civil society can be released when people engage with these structures by, say, socializing with friends or providing help to neighbours in need (Etzioni, 1993; Putnam, 2000). According to these authors, social capital is created and sustained by a number of micro-processes: communication, interaction, participation and the broader notion of association or coordinated – but not necessarily directed or pre-determined – collective activity (Warren, 2001; Putnam, 2000; Rosenblum, 1998; Walzer, 2003; Almond and Verba, 1989; Cohen and Arato, 1994).



The participation of individuals in these organizations and networks is expected to integrate society at the local level, while integrating it into the broader structures of governance and, simultaneously, transforming these structures by providing them with a source of constant ‘inputs’ based on individual preferences, needs, demographics and so on. This model of civil society, therefore, epitomizes the contemporary idea of ‘radical’ change I described in Chapter 2: the attempt gradually to alter the entire polity by manipulating or simply activating its ‘roots’. The products of the transformative processes that constitute civil society are thought to include a polity integrated from the level of individuals to that of the state or suprastate (see Cohen and Arato, 1994; Baker, 2003), as well as common goods, such as relations of increasing trust and reciprocity among citizens, the enrichment of social and cultural life, the strengthening of democratic values and the inclusion of mar-ginalized groups (Giddens, 1998; Etzioni, 1993; Cohen and Arato, 1994; Putnam, 2000; Baker, 2003). As such, through engaging with civil society people are thought to transform their basic plurality and complexity into identifiable, representable needs, grievances and identities which are then transformed (that is, integrated and simplified) by, and help to transform, policymaking processes. At the same time, by engaging consistently with these processes, individuals actively or passively (see Rosenblum, 1998) cultivate norms, ethics and beliefs that are compatible with the processes of democracy as the transformation of plurality.

Securitization and the transformation of conflict

In the previous chapter, I explained how the basic theory of conflict transformation seeks to remove ‘violent conflict’ by identifying its ‘roots’ and altering these through the application of transformative processes – more specifically, those discussed above. In addition, in Chapter 4, I discussed the way in which PEACE and other programme frame securitization in terms of ‘human security’ (see Duffield, 2007): that is, in terms of the stabilization of processes of development, democracy, governance and harmonious interactions. I shall now briefly examine the role of transformative processes in this strategy. The paradigm of conflict transformation combines and intensifies the logics discussed above for a specific purpose: the transformation of conflict as it occurs and the gradual removal of manifestations of disharmony, divi-sion and disorder. To remove these phenomena, it promotes an ethical project of toleration, harmonious interaction and integration. In so doing, it quite literally channels conflictual forms of world-building into the transformative processes of the strategies of democracy, governance



and development discussed above (Mitchell, 2009b). This works in two ways. First, by channeling conflict in this manner, the latter is expected to be manifested in ways that are less threatening to the security of human beings and/or institutions. At the same time, the processes of transformation are expected to work at the ‘roots’ of conflict – the con-ditions described above – to ensure that the conflicts that do arise are transformed at their very inception and quite literally embedded within these processes.

In literally changing the form of conflict, or the medium(s) in which it is expressed and exercised, conflict transformation promotes the twin logics of development and governance-through-integration. These form the normative basis for a particular version of ‘positive peace’ based on the development of the economy, civil society and stable govern-ing bodies – not to mention positive, tolerant and nurturing relations between conflicting groups (Galtung, 1996; Lederach, 2005; Fischer, 2004b). These institutions and the dynamics they engender are only expected to alter the relationships between citizens, but also to pro-mote moral development or empowerment, creating a sphere ‘in which individuals are enabled to develop and use to the full their capacities for creativity, service, and enjoyment’ (Curle, 1971, p. 19). Importantly, these processes of socio-economic, moral and ethical development are thought to exert a powerful integrative force that is capable of draw-ing conflicting identities, values and normative frameworks together into a ‘common moral purpose’ (Adler, 1998, pp. 171–2) or a form of ‘ethical universalism’ (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, 1999, pp. 329–3). One of the most important manifestations of this is the notion of reconciliation, a central tenet of the PEACE programme, which involves the creation of new, shared identities or common frameworks for expressing separate identities (European Union, 2008; Hamber and Kelly, 2004).

The processes which this model comprises are those of transformative versions of democracy, governance and development. These processes include: professional mediation by third parties between conflicting groups (Mitchell and Banks, 1996; Bush and Folger, 1994); dialogue or public discussions (Lederach, 2005; Saunders, 2001); interaction between conflicting parties (Kriesberg, 1998; European Union, 2008); and formal development and peace-building projects undertaken by external or inter-national bodies (Doyle and Sambaris, 2006; Richmond, 2008; Boulding, 2000). Thus, these processes combine the communicative and participa-tive elements of the processes discussed above. Moreover, special emphasis is placed on education and learning, in particular among youth, which is



expected to propel individual attitudinal change and disseminate skills related to peaceful change and mediation (UNESCO, 1996; European Union, 2008). In short, conflict transformation seeks to bring about security, both military and ‘human’ (see Duffield, 2007) through imple-menting the transformative processes of governance, development and democratization. Indeed, this concept of security – and, indeed, peace – is conflated with the smooth and sustainable functioning of these processes, which is assumed to be necessary to the prevention of renewed conflict.

Violence and the peace process

The word ‘process’ is used in policy discourses to connote fluidity and dynamism, in contrast to the perceived rigidity of traditional state-building and institutions. It is also meant to evoke the idea of gradual, incremental progress or growth, which is often juxtaposed with the sudden, destructive change associated with violence. Yet this form of process may be equally violent (although in a very different sense) in that it promotes forms of radical change that may be experienced as irresistible, and which erase, recuperate and preclude one of the most important means of resistance: conflict.

So far, in exploring transformative processes, I have focused largely on the meaning of the term ‘transformation’ and the specific kinds of proc-esses encompassed by the forms of world-building it promotes. However, the element of process is equally (if not more) significant in terms of criti-quing transformative peace interventions and their effects on the polities they seek to transform. The over-arching logic of process through which transformation is promoted has a strong tendency towards irresistibility and, as discussed above, these processes target, integrate, cultivate and otherwise control most of the forms of everyday activity through which groups create and sustain their plural worlds. Indeed, they process these plural worlds in order to produce a singular, integrated (and integrative) world, thus erasing plural forms of world-building by encompassing them within the dominant logic of transformative processes. When such processes are irresistible, therefore, they may be a subtle but powerful form of radical violence.

What, exactly, is meant by the term process? Drawing upon the theories of process discussed below, processes are, at their most basic, assumed to be: (a) dynamic (b) sequential or experienced temporally (c) logical, or expressive of a coherent rationality d) continuous (that is, not encompassed in a single event) (e) productive and/or constitutive of something, even if only of themselves (f) consumptive – that is, requiring



materials to work upon or convert, and consuming or destroying at least some of these materials as they unfold. In short, I shall define process as the application of a logic, by means of a system or ‘machine’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2007) to a set of circumstances or materials with a view to altering its form or constituent elements and thus releasing energy or potential to fuel its (self) sustenance. The ‘product’ of such processes, as we shall see, need not be discrete or distinct from the process itself, par-ticularly in the case of postmodern transformative processes. This is clear in the cases of governance, ‘transformative’ models of democracy and development discussed above, where a self-sustaining process – of, say, democratic discourse or development – is its own primary product.

Modern processes have been the subject of some of the most impor-tant critical works in modern political theory. Perhaps the most seminal account is found in Marx’s broad oeuvre, particularly in his descriptions of the manner in which capitalist forms of economic organization accumulate, exploit and convert capital into commodifiable products, a principle on which Arendt (1998) bases her critique of process (see below). From this perspective, modern processes take the human con-dition as raw material. They form and shape behaviour and practice in such a way that human beings are processed and in turn process the material and social conditions in which they live. In this sense, they are productive of themselves, and of a world constituted by interlocking systems of processes (Luhmann, 1995) and the discrete commodities they produce. This description, I shall argue, designates as formative proc-esses: they harness the human impulse to form social entities or create objects and ideas, diverting it towards the production of modern social and economic life.

Arendt brings these logics of process to the foreground of her analysis of the Human Condition (1998) and, in so doing, exposes several of the ontological, phenomenological and ethical problems they create for human life. In this monograph, Arendt claims that modernization has elevated process to the status of ontology: ‘in the place of the concept of Being we now find the concept of Process’ (Arendt, 1998, p. 296). The notion of process, she claims, was appropriated from the physical sciences (particularly biology) and transposed onto theories of history, economics, social change, politics, and, ultimately, the entire realm of human affairs. In this ontological shift, ‘natural’ processes (those not constructed by human beings), and especially the ‘life process’ that governs reproduction and basic survival, have become the main models by which human beings structure and experience their lives – and thus a dominant, if not yet exclusive, form of world-building.



The dominance of this model of process within human affairs, Arendt claims, has degraded the realm of politics and action, turning them into mere social processes (she uses the term pejoratively) concerned with little more than the relentless generation and satisfaction of basic needs. In her influential book On Revolution (1965), Arendt illustrates how the privileging of the life process can degrade human action by comparing the French and American revolutions. The latter, she argues, constituted true action because ‘the acts and deeds which liberation demanded … threw [revolutionaries] into public business, where, inten-tionally or more often unexpectedly, they began to constitute the space of appearances where freedom can unfold its charms and become a visible, tangible reality’ (Arendt, 1965, p. 33) Meanwhile, the former was concerned primarily with the liberation of grievances and was thus ‘biological and not historical’ (Arendt, 1965, p. 59). That is, instead of emerging from action and a radical new beginning, this revolution was driven by ‘the life process which permeates our bodies and keeps them in a constant state of a change whose movements are automatic, independent of our own activities and irresistible … freedom had to be surrendered to necessity, to the urgency of the life process itself’ (Arendt, 1965, p. 60). Arendt’s comparative analysis of these two revo-lutions (whether or not entirely fair) illustrates her concern that the human preoccupation with biological (re)production, consumption and survival has begun to supersede and destroy the human capacity to ‘begin’ or create new worlds.

According to Arendt, living in, through and among processes changes how we perceive and interact with the world. Specifically, it encourages us to think and act as though the realm of the human were ephemeral, abstract(ed) and immaterial – as opposed to a ‘world’ or a concrete realm composed of permanent, substantial objects which process consumes and may ultimately destroy (Parekh, 1981). This account jibes with the concerns of thinkers such as Raoul Vanegeim (1983), who argued that the modern age of consumption has enabled survival on an unknown scale, but by depleting the quality of human life. Arendt’s work is also a forerunner of the ‘biopolitical’ perspective developed by Foucault (1991) and later post-Marxists (Hardt and Negri, 2000, 2004). More specifically, the processes that dominate modern life threaten to turn human beings into what she calls animal laborans, or a being whose life is dominated entirely by ‘labour’(Arendt, 1998, pp. 147–8). For Arendt, there are three main types of human activity: labour, which involves the mere produc-tion and consumption of the things necessary to sustain human life and which is entirely ephemeral; work, in which real, permanent objects are



created, and action, which I have described in previous chapters as the human capacity to appear in the human world or public sphere and experience its plurality. Arendt makes clear, if slightly rigid, distinctions between these three activities: action has the capacity to create new worlds, while work can only be used to gain mastery over the existing (usually natural) world, but both create permanent, tangible spaces in which human beings can gather and interact. Labour, although essential to sustaining human life, is concerned entirely with the production and consumption of biological life and the elements that sustain it, and is not only ephemeral in itself, but also consumes or destroys the elements of the world created by action and work. According to Arendt, ‘it is indeed the mark of all labouring that it leaves nothing behind, that the result of its effort is almost as quickly consumed as the effort is spent’ (1998, p. 87). Although Arendt presents these forms of activity as a hierarchy, with action at the top and labour at the bottom, I would like to modify this view. Rather, these are three forms of world-building, all of which, in various degrees of combination, allow human beings to create and sustain the multiple worlds they live in. Arendt’s concern with the rise of the process-based logic of labour as a dominant form of activity is, from this perspective, a concern that one form of world-building may eclipse or even erase the others, thus diminishing the quality of the human experience.

Indeed, Arendt argues that the logic of process is framed not only as ontology, but also as a norm or ideal which monopolizes meaning and renders insignificant anything that does not fit within its logic, or cannot be encompassed by it (Arendt, 2006). De Certeau raises a similar point: he claims that the tactics used to challenge and subvert governmental strate-gies are ‘illegible’ to the latter (de Certeau, 1984, p. 93). However, as the logic of modern process is driven by instrumental rationality (see Taylor, 2007), it is used to make (or produce) meaning of the material it proc-esses. In other words, from an Arendtian perspective, ‘if things themselves lack meaning, they can be rendered meaningful by being swallowed up in the movement of something larger than any one of them’ (Hansen, 1993, p. 23). By this logic, all forms of rational or recognized human activity are encompassed within the ontology of productive processes. As I shall argue shortly, conflict (and indeed other forms of plural world-building) is framed this way by the transformative, process-based logic of mainstream peace interventions.

Moreover, the logic of process (or Arendtian ‘labour’) is one which promotes dynamics of irresistibility, in several senses. Since, in Arendt’s view, social and economic processes are modelled on biological ones,



they are thought to be self-sustaining, circular and perpetual – much like the ‘autopoetic’ models of process that influenced governance, or indeed Foucault’s circuitous vision of governmentality (Luhmann, 1995; Foucault, 1991). Indeed, these processes sustain themselves by creating dynamics of constant, gradual, adaptive change which ‘seem doomed to an infinite progress without ever reaching any inherent telos or approach-ing any preordained idea’ (Arendt, 1998, p. 307). This means, that the modern ideal of process has no ‘end’, in both senses of the term.

Indeed, most concerning to Arendt is her belief that the self-sustaining logic, inertial force and momentum of processes makes their effects not only difficult to predict, but also irresistible, or virtually impregnable to human action. This is because the life of animal laborans is merged with the processes of labour and, denuded of her capacity for action, she is increasingly powerless to intervene in the processes that shape his or her life.

This is in part because the ascendence of process not only homogenizes human agency, but also displaces it from human action and relocates it in impersonal, mechanistic forces. In other words, processes become detached from the human beings who engage in them and attain power and momentum of their own. Arendt refers to this dynamic as ‘auto-mation’ (Arendt, 1998, p. 10), which alienates human beings from the forces that control them. In such conditions, the most human beings can hope for is to interrupt process or shunt it in a different direction. Yet even this may appear futile, as all attempts to disrupt process are ultimately reabsorbed by the latter (Arendt, 1965), or set off similar processes.

Arendt’s critique provides insight into the nature of modern or formative processes. However, after her death in 1975, and even during her lifetime, a shift was taking place within the interpretation and experience of pro-ductive processes. Simply put, this was a shift from formative processes to transformative processes – that is, processes which do not simply use materials (or human activity) instrumentally to produce a product, but in which the unfolding of the process transforms its subject(/object). In other words, transformative processes are reflexive processes, in which constant transformation is embedded within the processes, which increasingly form the structures of daily life.

One of the most powerful critiques of the changes in process came from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (and their followers), whose Capitalism and Schizophrenia (2008) provided a new account of the role of process in the daily lives of individuals, one which significantly expanded upon and exposed the ambiguities of the concerns about



process raised by Arendt. Most importantly, perhaps, their line of critique highlights the ambiguity of post-modern or transformative process; it is no longer viewed simply as an external logic imposed on human life. Rather, Deleuze and Guattari draw attention to the manner in which different processual logics (for instance, those governing social interactions or psychological states) operate to ‘code’, systematize, constrain or control the various activities and events of human life. According to these authors, human beings no longer ‘live in nature but in a process of production’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 2). The entire polity, from the individual (or molecule) to broad social (or ‘molar’) structures, they claimed, is constituted by productive machines that constantly (re)organize the physical, biological and affective elements of life. These processes reflexively alter the basic ‘material’ on which they work – whether the human psyche or libido, or pre-modern social struc-tures – using the subject himself or herself to produce both the desire to consume and the goods (or even feelings) which are consumed (Deleuze and Guattari, 2006). This comprehensive process of the ‘production of desire’, they argued, drives not only capitalism but all of the logics that govern the bodies, minds and institutions of human beings in the con-temporary (Western) world.

At the same time, the processes described by Deleuze and Guattari are parasitic upon, or instrumentalize, the processes of becoming that constitute human life. In other words, the very processes required for human beings to live and realize their various desires and impulses are both vulnerable and resistant to the processual machines that are ‘inscribed’ upon them; that is, just as processes drive and sometimes constitute the ‘machines’ that constrain human beings, they may also work against, evade or even interrupt them. Moreover, as in Arendt’s analysis, disruptive acts cannot halt a process, but only rupture it and, in some cases, this rupture and the recuperation that follows feeds the process in question (Arendt, 1969; Deleuze and Guattari, 2007). Indeed, processes generate ‘schizzes’ or impulses towards ‘anti-production’ (Deleuze and Guattai, 2007, pp. 37, 322). These, in turn, prompt the creation of new machines or provide fuel for the processes of production. This raises an important point: human beings may have considerable agency vis-à-vis processes, as they are the source of the energy that fuels these processes and, especially in the case of biopolitical and affective processes, their bodies are the means or ‘capital’ upon which these processes depend (Arendt, 1998, p. 70). Yet agency within processes is determined by the specific logic and momentum of the process in question.



This brief discussion illustrates how the modern processes described and critiqued by Arendt have morphed into the pervasive, reflexive processes analyzed by Deleuze and Guattari. Both provide insight into what I have called the ‘transformative process’: a modern process which produces and disciplines its own subject/object by transforming the existing world and the irruptions of pluralization. This, in turn, is the mode of world-building promoted by transformative peace interventions as a means for removing conflict.

The irresistibility of process

All of these factors combine to form a dynamic which Arendt calls ‘irresistibility’– that is, the inability of human beings to intervene in the processes that dominate their lives. This is due to the sense of inef-fectiveness human beings feel vis-à-vis the vast processes of production, consumption and biological life with which they are confronted. It is also a function of their alienation of these processes from their lives. Moreover, as these processes have become an ontology, it has become more difficult to imagine a life not dominated by processes, and thus to locate a critical position outside of them. Moreover, I shall argue, since action by definition disrupts processes, it also disrupts the stable, con-tinuous functioning of the processes that have become conflated with peaceful life. Thus, even if action were possible, it may be considered to be undesirable, conflictual or even violent due to the powerful affective appeal of mainstream models of peace (see above).

Transformative processes, however are also irresistible in another sense: they perceive action or the irruption of novelty and plurality into the public realm as a potential source of threat. More specifically, since action and plural world-building emerge from outside the realm of activity intelligible to these processes, they are framed as acts of violence vis-à-vis process. In turn, the response of these processes is to encompass, neutralize and, ultimately, transform disruptive acts.

According to Arendt, the only antidote against the complete domi-nance of process is human action. Human beings can ‘act into’ processes, disrupting them or changing their course. Slavoj Zizek’s work on radical politics sheds a brighter light on this dimension. For Zizek, the only way to undertake a radical act is to take action from outside the hegemonic (onto)logical frameworks that construct and maintain a specific state of affairs. To describe this kind of action, Zizek draws on the Lacanian notion of the Real – a form of reality that exists outside the hegemonic structures of the predominant system and the practices through which people engage



with these (see Butler et al., 2000; Zizek, 2008). In other words, radical acts of this kind can be said to emerge from a sort of ‘void’, or a space of non-existence, that holds all the ‘latent’ or potential being (Badiou, 2007; Lefebvre, 2008). By acting from outside – and extruding into – the exist-ing framework, actors may ‘suture’ reality – that is, create a ‘short circuit’ between different operations (Butler et al., 2000) – in order to bring a new state of affairs into being. Crucially, such attempts may involve what I have called radical violence against oneself, or the elimination of those elements deemed most crucial to one’s own existence, as a last-ditch attempt to intervene in an irresistible force. In other words, in conditions where agency is compromised such that it appears impossible to intervene in the conditions that shape one’s life, violence against the self or the forces in question may be the only option. That is, either self-eradication or attempts to engage in ‘anti-process’ (see Mitchell, 2010) are likely to arise. In this manner, the radical violence inherent to transformative processes may generate the cycles of violence that threaten them.

Conclusions

Strategies of transformation seek to bring about radical change by harnessing, redirecting and processing the dynamics of pluralization or the forms of world-building from which these emerge. I have argued that mainstream peace interventions are constituted by transformative processes, exercised through the logics of democratization, governance, development and securitization. Each of these logics frames and targets conflictual forms of world-building differently: as conflictual politics; as complexity or risk; as underdevelopment or the lack of ‘social capital’; or as disharmony, division and disorder. The logic of these processes, I have claimed, engenders a dynamic of irresistibility for those transformed. As such, the logic of process may create irresistible radical threats, first because it targets and alters what may be radical sources, and secondly because the logics in which it is realized (those of process) tend towards irresistibility. In the context of mainstream peace interventions, peace is elided with the smooth functioning of processes and action is perceived as anti-process – and, ultimately, violence, or an indication thereof.

As the next chapters will argue, this strategy for peace interven-tions relies on a logic of ‘long division’ in which conflicting groups are slowly but surely processed, or ‘transformed in’ to the processes of peace-building. In this setting, attempts to engage in forms of world-building – including conflictual ones – which disrupt the processes of peace-building form the ‘dangerous remainders’ of peace processes, and



tend to be treated as acts of senseless, irrational or purely opportunistic violence. In turn, they may be responded to with other forms of irre-sistible acts, whether military, legal or coercive, which may, in turn, set off a subtle but powerful cycle of violence between and among the various actors involved. Because it is not always physical or material in nature, this cycle of violence tends to be ignored – until it reaches the point of physical or material violence. From this point of view, the acts of violence that emerge during or after peace interventions (see Sriram, 2008; Paris, 2004) are not necessarily spontaneous acts of violence on the part of criminals or warlords, but perhaps the visible manifestations of a much deeper pattern of radical violence created in part by the logic and dynamics of transformative peace interventions.


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6From Prison Protest to Peace Process: The Trans-Formation of the ‘Ex-Combatant’

Transformative peace interventions, I have argued, create dynamics of irresistible radical threat by altering dynamics of pluralization and threatworks upon which groups rely to resist, shape and constrain (the threat of) violence. In Chapters 2 and 3, I argued that these dynamics can affect the relationships between groups such that dynamics of radical – and ultimately, physical or material – violence are likely to arise. Now, I shall examine how the transformative processes of securitization (driven by the logics of democratization, governance and development discussed earlier) create cycles of violence among and within a specific set of ‘target groups’: the ex-combatant. This chapter will explore how the category of the ‘ex-combant’ in Northern Ireland was created through transformative policies.

One of the groups most actively targeted by transformative peace interventions is that composed of the individuals and groups who are believed to be directly responsible for violence. Indeed the image of the ‘ex-combatant’ – particularly those who have been convicted of physically or materially violent acts, or have served prison time – acts as the visible manifestation of the threat of violence. As such, the transformation of these individuals and groups is considered a priority if a ‘return’ to violence is to be avoided (see Muggah, 2005). These men and women are not necessarily, as my analysis above has argued, the source of violence, but they are the objects in which it was embodied and enacted. Moreover, those convicted and/or imprisoned for violent acts form an ethico-legal category; thus, they can be identified, targeted and administered. This also means, as I shall discuss below, that they may identify themselves as ex-combatants, or reveal their affiliation with paramilitary organizations, because they have already been punished for their acts, unlike many ex-combatants that were never caught.



As such, the wide range of actors – whether paramilitary members or leaders, former prisoners, or the friends, family and community of these individuals – who are associated with violence are ‘transformed in’ to the processes of peace-building on the basis of this association. That is, they are targeted for transformation not due to their paramilitary affiliation or time in prison per se, but by virtue of the fact that they represent the protean threat of a return to violence (Knight and Ozerdem, 2004) – whether or not they ever directly engaged in it. Their transformation, therefore, is perceived as particularly crucial to the long-term stability of any peace intervention.

The transformation of these individuals and groups has several facets. First, by engaging with the processes of peace-building, the individuals and organizations in question are expected to expunge their violent ten-dencies, as well as any attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that may dispose them towards hostility vis a vis another group. In this sense, the targeted transformation of ‘ex-combatants’ works directly to eradicate perceived roots of violence. Secondly, the public, visible transformation of these actors is expected symbolically to affirm the processes of peace-building and the possibility of transformation, and thus to act as an ethical and behavioural model for groups, organizations or whole communities, including other target groups. Thirdly, by inculcating (or, depending on one’s perspective, empowering) these individuals and groups with the modes of world-building promoted by the processes of peace-building – as well as the language, repertoire and acumen required to engage with these processes – this approach converts the actors in question into ‘transformers’. That is, they become the simultaneous subject/object of transformation, tasked with transforming themselves – and others. As I shall discuss below, the transformed/transforming ex-combatant is expected to take a significant role in expanding the reach of these processes, to include whole paramilitary organizations and even whole communities in which major paramilitary activity has taken place. This is the basis of the strategy of ‘reintegration’ (see Shirlow et al., 2005) which underpins much of the policy directed towards this category – not to mention the broader programmes of DDR (disarmament, demobiliza-tion, reintegration) promoted by large-scale peace-building actors such as the United Nations with regards to ex-combatants (see Muggah, 2005; Sriram, 2008).

The category of the ex-combatant in contemporary Northern Ireland, I shall argue, was trans-formed during the 1990s. That is, it was literally constructed through the transformation of individuals prior to and after their release from prison under the GF/BA, and then, as the processes


From Prison Protest to Peace Process 119

of peace-building progressed, the transformation of their paramilitary organizations and communities. The next chapter will provide more insight into the logic of this transformative process, which, by induct-ing certain individuals and groups within the logics of transformative world-building relied on a dynamic of strategic exclusion, negation and even eradication. This chapter, however, will trace the trans-formation of the category of the ex-combatant through the processes of trans-formative peace-building, starting with the prison protest. The prison protest involved (at least) two distinct forms of world-building based on resistance to and appropriation of the logics of the prison regime by Loyalist and Republican prisoners. However, it was the Republican prison protest which, due to its larger numbers, higher international profile and more sustained pattern of collective resistance, became a strong influence on the programmes designed to transform ex-prisoners and, ultimately, the wider category of ex-combatants. This is in large part because Republican prisoners adopted an ethos that would align with (and perhaps influence) the strategies of conflict transformation and transformative peace-building that emerged in the 1990s. Their mode of conflict, within and without prison, explicitly embraced the idea of transformative politics and the gradual but total alteration of the polity. Although different in tactics and ideology from the processes of peace-building in which it would eventually become ensconced, this ethos was reflected in, and perhaps even appropriated by, the policies that would become integral to non-constitutional aspects of peace-building, including the development of civil society and strategies of conflict transformation.

This had ambiguous implications for both Republicans and Loyalists. For the latter, it meant that their narrative of the prison experience and indeed of paramilitary activity took a backseat to those of Republicans and, as the next chapter will explore, that it created a relative radi-cal threat in that adopting the world-building processes in question involved a greater radical loss for Loyalists. Yet even for Republicans, the adoption of the imagery and strategy of transformation has been greeted with mixed opinions; as some PIRA members note, it has effec-tively ‘mainstreamed’ their radical aspirations and ensconced them in bureaucratic procedures that ultimately limit or retard the pace of change. In any case, the construction of the ex-combatant category, and the various strategies and policies intended to ‘reintegrate’ these groups and individuals within a peaceful society, drew upon the con-version of forms of world-building that took place in Northern Ireland’s prisons between the 1970s and 2000. This chapter will examine how the ex-combatant identity has been trans-formed in and out of the prison.



This and the following chapter draw on primary interviews conducted between 2007 and 2010 with members of the following paramilitary groups: PIRA, OIRA, INLA/IRSP, UDA, UVF/RHC, and a range of organi-zations representing them.

The trans-formation of the ‘ex-combatant’

The identity of the ex-combatant in Northern Ireland was trans-formed in the mid-1990s, beginning during the negotiation of the GF/BA, and intensifying as politically motivated prisoners were released in large numbers under its terms. By trans-formed, I mean to say that its formu-lation in policy documents, regulations, negotiations and the political discourses surrounding them was already an attempt to alter the nature of the individuals and groups it referred to. Thus, simply framing and operationalizing this category involved the transformation of existing worlds. In other words, naming a person or group as an ex-combatant was a first step in distancing that person from a ‘violent’ or ‘paramilitary’ identity, and thus transforming her. This is largely because those who are acknowledged as ex-combatants are those who are publicly involved in the processes of peace-building, sometimes as activists or community workers, but even more often as the recipients of services. Indeed, the term ‘ex-combatant’ is misleading, as it refers only to those individuals who have taken part in violent activities and been caught, and most often imprisoned, on account of this. As former UDA Brigadier Jackie McDonald claims, ex-combatants can avail of these services and take an active part within them, ‘if they’ve been to prison and done their time, but there’s thousands of people out there who were never caught. They can’t talk to anyone, so they have to keep it to themselves’ (McDonald and Alan, 2010). In other words, one can only appear as an ex-combat-ant within the processes of peace-building (and indeed the institutions of the new polity) if one has already been inducted into the system, either by virtue of entering the prison system or becoming involved in activities undertaken by paramilitary groups actively engaged in the processes of peace-building. Most, if not all, ex-combatants who have attained posi-tions of power or influence within the new polity have adopted a positive orientation, if not an active role in, promoting transformative processes such as the GF/BA, power-sharing arrangements or PEACE-funded activities. As such, inclusion in the category of ex-combatants implies participation in services intended to transform, and most often ‘re-integrate’, individuals who have engaged in violent acts into the com-munity, and often, as I shall discuss shortly, to harness their experience



of violent activity – and sometimes violent structures (see Chapters 7 and 8) instrumentally, as a means for deterring violent behaviour. In this sense, those included within this category are expected, simultaneously, to be both the subjects and objects of transformation.

I use the term ‘ex-combatant’ to describe those who were engaged in acts of violence during the Troubles, rather than ‘ex-prisoner’ or ‘ex-paramilitary’, other terms used to describe the individuals targeted most intensely by policies of ‘re-integration’. This term is contestable for a number of reasons. For instance, many individuals affiliated with the PIRA resist its use, since not all members of the Provisional Republican movement, Sinn Fein, the PIRA or even PIRA ex-prisoners, were involved in direct combat (Culbert, 2007; Sheehan et al., 2010). The converse is also true: not all ex-combatants, as mentioned above, served time in prison, nor were they necessarily affiliated publicly, or even by their family and friends, as members of a paramilitary organization (Bird, 2010). Moreover, simply because some of these individuals have engaged actively with the processes of peace-building does not mean that they are ‘ex-paramilitaries’ – on the contrary, as I shall explore in more detail below, the structure of paramilitary organizations were inte-gral to the strategies of integration used by proponents of peace-building. Why use this term, then?

Simply put, it is the status of the combatant – that is, the ‘violent’ individual or organization – that the processes in question seek to transform. There is nothing inherently ‘un-peaceful’ about having been in prison, or belonging to a paramilitary organization; rather, it is what these individuals were imprisoned for, or what the paramilitary organizations have done, that is the object and impetus of transforming them. Insofar as the policies in question seek to re-integrate, develop and socialize these individuals, it is a means to eradicate their perceived violent ‘tendencies’, and to prevent violence from recurring. This is the root of the range of services and initiatives designed to change ‘sectarian’ attitudes through ‘cross-community’ contact with members of other paramilitary groups; to develop skills that will help to inte-grate ex-combatants within the economy and thus distract them from paramilitary activities; psychological treatment designed to address the trauma of conflict and change attitudes which might promote hostil-ity towards the ‘other’; and re-cast paramilitary leaders as role models promoting non-violence among young people. In its own way, each of these initiatives is intended to target and alter the perceived roots of violence within paramilitary organizations and the individuals who compose them. Thus, those who have served time in prison or have



been involved in paramilitary organizations are targeted by transforma-tive strategies qua combatant (or qua their tendency towards, or support for, violent activity) rather than as ex-prisoners or paramilitary mem-bers per se. Rather, the latter two categories provide categories that are relatively easily to identify, target and regulate; as such, they provide a visible and disciplinable manifestation of the protean but deeply threat-ening image of the ‘violent person’ (see Feldman, 1991).

Rightly or wrongly, the processes and policies that target these individu-als or groups assume that, regardless of their participation in direct acts of violence, they possess violent or dangerous tendencies or harbour support for violent activities. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons why they are prized as public proponents of the processes of peace-building: since they are perceived to be the main sources of violence, their conversion into agents of peace-building is expected to be particularly symbolic and persuasive to the rest of the polity. This is the crux of the concept of ‘re-integration’ (see Shirlow et al., 2005), which guides much of the policy related to ex-combatants: it assumes that their experience of, or role in, violent activity sets these individuals and groups apart from the rest of (peaceful) society. In undertaking or supporting violent acts, participat-ing in covert, non-state paramilitary groups, and, in particular, spending time isolated from (one kind of) society in prison, these individuals have removed themselves from the polity. The renunciation – often public and through the narration of difficult, personal experiences – of violence is the price of their ‘re-integration’. In other words, transformation is the price of inclusion within the polity. Not surprisingly, members of both predominant paramilitary groupings resent use of the term ‘re-integration’ – Republicans because it assumes that they were acting against the will of their community or that their movement was alien-ated from it (Sheehan et al., 2010) and Loyalists because they perceived themselves to be acting in defence of, and thus as part of, the laws and institutions of the polity and not outside of them (McDonald, 2010). Nonetheless, in formulating the category of the ex-combatant, policies of peace-building simultaneously formed this category and transformed the individuals within it. Now, I shall briefly examine the strategies through which the ex-combatant was trans-formed by the post-1994 processes of peace-building.

Trans-forming the ex-combatant

From the early 1970s until the mid-1980s, the prisons of Northern Ireland were shaken by successive waves of protest (see McKeown,



2001). During this period, food and clothing strikes, escapes, violent confrontations, as well as the infamous ‘dirty strike’/no wash protest and hunger strikes of Republican prisoners were used to subvert and undermine the prison regime and, by extension, the state. Decades later, many of the prisoners who took part in these protests register their grievances at formalized consultations and promote their interests through community work and service provision, a result of their trans-formation under PEACE and the broader processes of polity-building it supports. Prisoners, as the visible, identifiable embodiment of the captured combatant, were primary targets for trans-formation as ex-combatants. While imprisoned, these individuals were the subjects of direct attempts to reconstruct the ‘violent actor’ through formative processes that shaped his or her physical surroundings and activities, the social structures and space (s)he inhabited, and his or her role in the polity. After their release, these individuals were subjected to more subtle, but perhaps equally powerful, strategies of transformation that targeted aspects of their personal, social, ethical, behavioural and psychological lives, with the aim of eradicating violent tendencies. To appreciate this, it is useful to begin with the prison movement which started in the 1970s. It was from this movement, I shall argue, that a separate category of the ‘ex-combatant’ (distinct from, but related to paramilitary organizations) began to emerge. Since this group could be identified, regulated and, ultimately, negotiated with, it was appropri-ated by policymakers as a model for ‘violent’ individuals and groups, and the basis of policies directed towards them. This narrative begins in 1971, after the implementation of internment under Brian Faulkner’s government. Under this policy, persons suspected of paramilitary activity or associations could be detained without trial in Northern Ireland’s prisons, with little recourse to legal appeal. In a sense, this policy was the first step in creating and defining an ex-combatant category, as it circumscribed specific behaviours and affiliations as roots of violence, and sought to eradicate these through coercive means.

The Republican prison protest

The Republican prison protest began and ended with an extreme form of protest: the hunger strike. The first of these, the hunger strike under-taken by the prisoner Billy McKee in 1972, was successful in securing ‘special category status’ for paramilitary prisoners, which distinguished them from ordinary criminals and entitled them, among other things, to wear their own clothes and organize themselves along paramilitary



lines. This made it possible for prisoners to engage in the kind of collective action I shall describe shortly. At this time, however, new legislation was further entrenching the powers attained under internment. The institution of juryless Diplock courts, through which thousands of internees were efficiently processed created a system which some Republicans likened to a ‘Castlereagh [detention centre]/Diplock/H-Blocks [prison] conveyer belt’ (Coiste na-Iarchimi, 2006). Moreover, in 1974, a new Prevention of Terrorism Act was pushed through Parliament following an IRA bombing campaign. This act defined terrorism as the use of violence for political ends or for putting the public or any part of it in a state of fear (Von Tangen Page, 1998) and thus significantly widened the criteria by which individuals could be detained.

In 1976, the special status won in 1972 was revoked, and prisoners were ‘criminalized’ and transferred to the infamous H-Blocks of the Maze prison, where they were separated into cells and issued with uniforms. Rejecting this new identity and status, large numbers of Republican prisoners began a ‘blanket strike’, in which they rejected their prison uniforms and instead wore only prison blankets (O’Malley, 1990). During the five years of this protest, Republican prisoners also engaged in non-cooperation and the antagonization of prison guards, and subtler forms of subversion, such as the delivery of Irish language and history ‘courses’ by educated prisoners and the political indoctrination of prisoners by Officers Commanding (OCs), prominent individuals who acted as leaders within the movement (McEvoy, 2001; Feldman 1991). It was through such informal means that many Republican prisoners engaged in the processes of ‘politicization’, or ideological training. A number of initiatives developed by the leadership of each ‘wing’ or command structure were designed to promote politicization, through discussion, the singing of traditional songs and storytelling, or the reading of literature such as the work of social theorist Paolo Freire (McKeown, 2001, p. 26). It also included more informal activities such as the scrawling of political slogans on walls and the passing of mes-sages to prisoners in other cells by shouting them through pipes in the walls. PIRA-affiliated individuals tend to perceive the period of intense politicization that took place during the prison process as integral to the shift towards parliamentary politics undertaken by the PIRA in the 1980s, and the significant involvement of PIRA members in commu-nity work in the 1990s (McKeown, 2007; Culbert, 2007; Sheehan et al., 2010). However, it has been suggested that politicization and the use of a quasi-Marxist ideology was traditionally used to create solidarity and discipline within the IRA, and even to justify violent acts, long before



the prison protest (see Alonso, 2006); thus, politicization should not be viewed as an inherently ‘peaceful’ tradition with PIRA history, or as a direct cause of the shift towards ‘political’ tactics under Sinn Fein.

Throughout the period of the protest, Republican prisoners used various modes of world-building – many conflictual – to contest and disrupt the prison regime. Their modes of world-building were adapted according to shifts in policy, events or changes within the prison regime and ‘was shaped by how they interpreted their circumstances and political needs at any given moment’ (McKeown, 2001, p. xiv). For instance, through-out the protest, and particularly during its early years, they maintained the rigid militaristic structures used by paramilitary organizations (McKeown, 2001). Membership was strictly regulated and exclusionary; upon entering the prison, one had to be ‘claimed’ by a particular group and initiated into its structure (although few prisoners were refused), and breaking rank or cooperating with prison officials could result in expulsion and ostracism (Shirlow et al., 2005). By maintaining these structures, each wing gained a relatively high degree of autonomy and even engaged in their own internal forms of ‘policing’ or disciplinary control (McEvoy, 2001), and thus engaged in a defensive form of world-building.

The adaptation and maintenance of these structures allowed prisoners to build threatworks to insulate their emerging world against the control and resistance of prison officers. Prisoners also engaged in forms of activity that directly disrupted or threatened the prison regime, includ-ing frequent riots, strikes and (attempted or successful) escapes. One of the first of these episodes was the food protest of 1974, in the Maze prison, in which both Republican and Loyalist prisoners draped their sheets over the walls of their compounds and threw their food at prison staff in order to demand better laundry facilities and food provision (Crawford, 1999, p. 40). Between 1976 and 1982, prisoners undertook a number of similar strikes, including a ‘no-work strike’, and the forma-tion of collectives to distribute the contents of food parcels (McKeown, 2001). It was another improvisation – the personal refusal of the first prisoner admitted under the new ‘criminalization policy’ to wear a prison uniform – that prompted the much more prolonged ‘blanket strike’ of 1976. During the same period, female prisoners in the Armagh and Maghaberry prisons also took part in a number of acts of solidarity with their male counterparts, including protests, physical confrontation with prison staff and smaller-scale strikes (McCafferty, 1981; Corcoran, 2006). Another important form of conflictual world-building within the prison regime was rioting. The most famous of the riots that took



place throughout the prison protest was the burning of the huts within the compounds at the Long Kesh/Maze prison in 1974 (Crawford, 1999) and the later riots to demand the re-segregation of Loyalist and Republican prisoners, who were integrated in the 1980s. A number of escapes took place throughout the period, including those from the Crumlin Road prison in 1971, the Maidstone Prison Ship in 1972 and the Maze prison in 1973 (McEvoy, 2001, pp. 51–4).

In 1978 the leadership within the prison changed, and the new leaders identified the existing forms of protest as ineffective, opting to escalate them (English, 2003, p. 190). This reflects the perception that resistance was becoming increasingly difficult, and the leadership took a controversial decision to engage in a form of self-violence (see Zizek, 2008) by escalating the prison protest. This escalation included the ‘no-wash’ protest, in which prisoners refused to bathe. When this provoked a predictably negative reaction from prison guards, it escalated into the ‘dirty protest’, in which prisoners covered their cells and hallways with fecal matter and urine (McEvoy, 2001; McKeown, 2001). In October of 1980, seven Republican prisoners went on hunger strike. The timing of the strike was planned so that their deaths would peak at Christmas time, a tactic meant to evoke the greatest possible symbolism and popular impact and to cast the prison regime and state in the worst possible light (O’Malley, 1990). This strike was called off by the leading OC Brendan Hughes when it was thought to represent an unacceptable degree of risk, and when some of the demands made by the prisoners were met by prison officials and the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) (English, 2003, p. 196). However, a number of prisoners remained unsatisfied with this compromise, and in 1981, Bobby Sands initiated the second hunger strike, in which he and nine other prisoners died of starvation.

Through this movement and its various tactics, Republican prison-ers established a unique world, including entrenched threatworks, by appropriating and subverting the logics and constraints of the prison regime, and by engaging in distinctive forms of collective, conflictual world-building. Prisoners were able to appropriate and adapt these struc-tures, despite significant initial misgivings from the movement ‘outside’ (the IRA and, increasingly, Sinn Fein) (McKeown, 2001, p. 33). This set of world-building practices created a dynamic of mutual threat with those of the prison regime, and the various structures, tactics and strategies described allowed Republican prisoners to build a threatwork within prison. In some cases, protestors and prison officials remained in a (relatively) resistible dynamic in which the threatworks of protesting prisoners coexisted (if not comfortably) with the strictures of the prison



system. However, on the many occasions in which the world-building activities of these prisoners were thought to rupture the threatworks of the prison regime – for instance, the rules it employed to maintain order – they were greeted with coercive or violent responses which in turn damaged the threatworks of the protesting prisoners. This, in turn, prompted cycles of violence between the prison regime and protesting prisoners (see McKeown, 2001; McEvoy, 2001). Due to the attention, sympathy and influence they generated worldwide as a result of these cycles of violence, particularly during the Hunger Strikes, Republican pris-oners appeared to force policymakers into a position of negotiation. This, in turn, led to their conceptualization as a specific set of actors within the processes of peace-building, and as a feasible target for transformation.

Plural ‘worlds’ within the prison regime: Loyalist and Republican modes of protest

Due to the much larger number of Republicans imprisoned, and due to differences in ideology, strategy and relationship to the prison regime, the Republican prison protest has become a dominant narrative. Indeed, as I shall discuss below, it was the modes of world-building and the specific collective structures generated by protesting Republican pris-oners that became the model for policies targeting ‘ex-prisoners’ and, ultimately ‘ex-combatants’. However (at least) two distinctive forms of world-building emerged within the prison protest, not to mention the distinct experiences of individuals who were ensconced in sub-branches of the major paramilitary formations (for instance, the OIRA and INLA, or the RHC). Loyalist prisoners engaged in a more intermittent, yet sig-nificant, trajectory of protest. In many cases, they adopted similar tactics to Republicans, but shaped them according to the tenets of their own paramilitary organizations. For instance, Loyalists were also permitted to organize themselves into military structures during the early period of imprisonment, but with subtle differences. Whereas the PIRA leadership was determined largely by the leadership outside the prison and governed by internal voting, the UVF group did not hold elections and gave Officers Commanding (OCs) full control of appointments, and the UDA structure was more flexible, allowing all of its officers to be elected except for the second in command (Crawford, 1999, pp. 30–1). In addi-tion, whereas PIRA and UVF structures required membership within the paramilitary organizations outside in order to induct members within the prison, the UDA did not (Crawford, 1999). Furthermore, Loyalist prisoners held their own blanket protest in 1978, initiated a brief



hunger strike in the 1980s, and engaged in high-profile roof-top protests in 1981 (see Campbell et al., 1994). In addition, Loyalist prisoners often cooperated with Republicans in protesting against issues such as Special Category Status, conditions for living and working within prison and the forced integration of Republican and Loyalists prisons, apart from the consultations among prison leaders that fed into the GF/BA (see Crawford, 1999; Shirlow and McEvoy, 2008). They also took part in the ‘Camp Council’, which included both Republican and Loyalist prison leaders and was concerned with providing input into the peace process, and were even believed to have negotiated on behalf of Republican prisoners when the latter burned their Nissen huts in protest against the prison regime (Crawford, 1999). Furthermore, Loyalist organizations such as the Orange Cross and the Loyalist Prisoners’ Welfare Association were formed as early as the 1960s to support and visit inmates, just as Republican organizations did (Green, 1998; Shirlow et al., 2005).

Although these structures were similar, they held a different signifi-cance for Loyalist prisoners. For Republicans, they served as assertions of authority against the prison system and the legal and state structures it represented, and as an attempt to control, at least in part, the territory of the prison. In this sense, they used autonomous organization as a means for carrying on a struggle against the state. For Loyalist prisoners, however, the formation of these structures was a means of maintaining discipline and commitment to their mission of defending the state struc-tures. Thus, as Colin Crawford comments, ‘the organisational structures in themselves … served as a daily reminder of why the men were in prison, as volunteers of their chosen group, fighting for their cause’ (Crawford, 1999, p. 32) – not as a literal and physical affront to the state. The structures they maintained acted as threatworks to protect their para-military structures against the dominance of IRA prisoners, by whom they were outnumbered and against the loss of world (that is, of their paramilitary discipline and solidarity) that might occur by virtue of the restrictions laid down by the prison regime. It was in the instances where this world was breached by policy decisions or, in certain cases, the activities of Republican prisoners, that they engaged in violent confron-tations. The riots surrounding the attempt to integrate Republican and Loyalist prisoners exemplify this (see Green, 1998).

Thus, Loyalists engaged in active world-building during their time in prison, although of a very different nature from that of Republican prisoners. It tends to be assumed that the Loyalist prison protest was overshadowed by its Republican counterpart because there was little in the way of organization or strategy, which experts in the field tend to



attribute to the lack of history of solidaristic collective action within their communities, a phenomenon which is more closely associated with Republicanism (see Shirlow et al., 2005; O’Cobtaigh, 2007). On a broader scale, many Loyalists feel that policymakers have assumed, often inaccurately, that the capacity or support for community organization (particularly in terms of civil society) is inherently lesser among Loyalist communities compared to Republican areas, which they attribute instead to fewer opportunities and less resources in the former (Gallagher, 2010; Hutchinson, 2010). Indeed, prominent commenta-tors on the prison protest have suggested that the relative inattention to the Loyalist prison protest is due to a lack of solidarity or support endemic to Loyalist communities and organizations:

While Loyalists believed that their actions were politically motivated they were less inclined to join what many regarded as ‘Republican-type’ prison protests. On certain occasions in the late 1970s and 1980s when Loyalists did engage in protests demanding segregation, such actions were represented by Unionists as giving succour to Republicanism and other anti-state discourses. This animosity toward political struggle prevented a sustained, systematic and resistant approach toward prison-based regimes … [the Loyalist blanket strike ended due to a] lack of collaboration from other Loyalist groups and a wider Unionist community who ‘offered little support for the protestors’.

(Shirlow et al., 2005, p. 26)

I want to argue that the dominance of the Republican prison protest in narratives of the period is not due to the fact that Loyalist collec-tive action in prison was insignificant, or that Loyalist prisoners lacked mobilization skills or a tendency towards solidarity-based action. Indeed, aside from the major paramilitary groups themselves (in particular, the UDA), the history of working-class Unionist communities from which these groups emerged included several episodes of collective action such as strikes and protests, the formation of the informal defense organi-zations discussed in Chapter 5, the traditions of the Orange Order, and distinctive modes of social, cultural and ethical organization (see Patterson and Kaufmann, 2007; Mitchell, 2006). The Loyalist presence within the prison regime involved its own forms of world-making and the construction of unique threatworks. These were perhaps less overt, visible or confrontational than those employed by Republicans, not necessarily because collective action was anathema to Loyalists and



their communities, but more likely due to two main factors. One was the fact that, due to their smaller numbers, the modes of world-building engaged in by Loyalist prisoners were on a smaller scale, and tended to be more self-contained. Another factor was that the experience of living within the prison regime constituted less of a radical threat to Loyalist paramilitary actors than it did to Republicans. Whereas, for the latter, living under the intense surveillance and control of the state and police was a profound radical threat, for Loyalists, it tended to be viewed as ‘a mode of suffering, something to be endured for the greater good of Unionism’ (Shirlow et al., 2005). In other words, Loyalist prisoners viewed their imprisonment as part of their struggle for the state, or law and order more generally, and thus were not radically threatened per se by submitting to its rules. The instances in which they engaged in overt resistance and occasional violence were those (as mentioned above) in which changes in the prison regime, policy towards prisoners or their relationship to Republican prisoners threatened their ability to preserve their paramilitary structures and ethos. On some occasions, collabora-tion with Republican prisoners raised such a threat. In the late 1970s, for instance, most Loyalist prisoners joined the blanket protest, which resisted the attempt to break down paramilitary solidarity by forcing all prisoners to wear identical prison clothing. However, when their partici-pation in this strike appeared to make them as indistinguishable from Republican prisoners as uniforms might have done, pressure from the outside prompted one Loyalist leader to remove his unit from the strike, and the rest followed soon (Green, 1998). This suggests that Loyalist prisoners, too, were engaged in world-building and the construction of threatworks which were occasionally ruptured by changes in the prison regime or external pressures.

Nonetheless, it was the Republican mode of world-building within the prison regime which had the most profound impact upon the construction of the ex-prisoner, and later the broader ex-combatant category, within the processes of peace-building. More specifically, the transformation of former prisoners was designed to channel and control the ‘Republican-type’ (see Shirlow et al., 2005) protests discussed above, which had become the over-arching model of the prison protest(s). As I shall argue below, the ethos of the Republican prison protest promoted transforma-tive modes of action, and thus was more easily harnessed into the logics of transformation that began to emerge in the 1990s. By extension, it was the distinctly transformative modes of world-making that aligned most closely with the peace interventions of the 1990s, and the world created by Republican prisoners that set the prototype for the ex-prisoner and



later the ex-combatant ‘target’ group. This is not to suggest that these policies deliberately intended to privilege Republicans qua Republicans, nor to exclude Loyalists as such. Rather, it suggests that the mode of world-building promoted by policies of reintegration more closely imi-tated or even appropriated Republican forms of world-building and thus (perhaps inadvertently) reproduced their world (see McGrattan, 2010) within the processes designed to transform ex-combatants.

From negotiation to transformation

Confronted with a prison regime which consistently suppressed acts of protest and non-cooperation, Republican prisoners experienced (and, in part, created) conditions of extreme irresistibility. The deaths of the hunger strikers, and particularly Sands, epitomize extreme responses to irresistibility: rather than just acting violently against the regime, they also began to enact symbolic violence against themselves. As Zizek (2008) suggests, violence against oneself arises out of a desire to bring about radical change in conditions that will not admit it; by destroying what is most valuable to oneself, one may leave one’s enemy empty-handed, and without an object. Indeed, the PIRA seems to have used this strategy on several occasions; McDonald claims that the IRA did exactly this to the UDA by announcing their decommissioning process. According to McDonald, this ‘was like getting into a boxing ring with no one else there, so you’re fighting the referee’ (McDonald, 2010). Indeed, the Hunger Strikes were particularly powerful in this regard. As mentioned above, they garnered attention world-wide and became a point of embarrassment for Thatcher’s government and local officials, particularly when Bobby Sands died as a sitting Member of Parliament in Westminster (see O’Malley, 1990).

In response, authorities and governing institutions adopted a new strategy for dealing with protesting prisoners: negotiation and, in certain cases, collaboration on certain decisions regarding prison condi-tions and policies (O’Malley, 1990). Prisoners viewed this as an important capitulation; hunger-striker Laurence McKeown claims that ‘the NIO had finally conceded after many years of conflict that the prison could only be run with our cooperation’ (McKeown, 2001, p. 199). Indeed, this marked the beginning of a more consultative relationship between prison officials, representatives of statutory bodies and OCs, who were expected to negotiate on behalf of their wings and then use their well-established command structures to enforce the outcomes. It was through this technique that the end of the 1981 hunger strike was brokered, and



through which the new category that would become ‘ex-prisoners’ made its entrée into the processes of policy formation.

At this time, there was a marked shift within the prison regime towards transformative policies. The NIO, the department responsible for the administration of prisons, began to describe itself as a ‘progressive regime’ that aimed to ‘develop skills and interests which will be of help when [prisoners] return to society’ (Northern Ireland Office, 1981, pp. 1, 7) and to foster ‘self-help’ schemes for prisoners. In addition, the prison regime began to encourage the beginnings of transformative processes in the form of dialogue and negotiation between leaders of the prisoners’ movement and state officials (McKeown, 2001; O’Malley, 1990). Later, prisoners were involved as key stakeholders in the formulation of the GF/BA which includes a special section (10), guaranteeing them a long-term place in policymaking and recognizing their distinct needs. This was further confirmed in 2007 by the St Andrews Agreement, which includes a provision regarding the reintegration and employment rights of prisoners (Northern Ireland Office, 2007).

As the re-integration of prisoners into a ‘post-conflict’ society became a mainstream concern, this trend became integral to the broader project of transformation that was rapidly developing, including the nascent EU PEACE programme. As a ‘target group’ under the PEACE programme, former prisoners were actively encouraged to avail of funding and pro-fessional support to transform their activities into those of formalized NGOs (Shirlow et al., 2005). This funding was intended to develop, expand and professionalize the work of existing, ad hoc prisoners’ support groups such as Progressive Release of Political Prisoners (PROPP), which was formed in the early 1990s by a social worker who worked at the Quaker Family Centre at the Maze Prison (Shirlow et al., 2005). From their inception, the NGOs that developed and expanded under the PEACE programme were created through processes of research, needs assessment, feasibility evaluation and strategic planning – all of which were necessary to prove their suitability for funding and integration in the transformation process (Roberts, 2007). The transmission of ‘best practices’ through inter-group networking was central to this; many new groups were formed by using the goals, organizational structures and relationships with funding bodies or governmental representatives of existing groups as a ‘blueprint’ to make their integration more efficient (Culbert, 2007; Halligan, 2007; Ritchie, 2007). The rationale for using these models and the processes they promote is, in large part, in order to ensure their long-term sustainability (Coiste na-Iarchimi, 1999). In other words, they are not treated as a temporary, transitional measure,



but rather as a permanent organizational feature and replacement for the forms of activity they are designed to transform.

These groups emphasized a specific range of goals and activities: creat-ing employment opportunities for former prisoners, providing them with standardized skills and training, engaging them in ‘dialogue’ with other former prisoners and organizations, offering emotional support and counseling for these individuals and their families, providing advice regarding benefits and statutory services available and initiating projects to discourage youth violence (Shirlow et al., 2005). In order to carry out these new roles, organizations began to centralize, adopt formal committee structures, engage in expansion and take part in compre-hensive consultation and direct lobbying of statutory bodies. Perhaps the most illustrative example of this trend is the formation of Coiste na-Iarchimi, the ‘umbrella’ organization for ‘mainstream’ Republican former prisoners groups. Coiste’s work focuses on coordinating the activities of local organizations across the island of Ireland, lobbying government and statutory bodies regarding the issues of former prisoners, and addressing the effects of criminalization, including legal and employment impedi-ments to this group. It is a highly structured organization with a central managing committee, to which all subsidiary groups must report and support financially (Coiste, 1999). Emulating this model, which was designed to be compatible with the criteria and aims of intermediary funding bodies (IFBs), dozens of former prisoners’ groups developed, and most of those created by PIRA former prisoners became affiliated with Coiste. Similarly, EPIC, an organization representing UVF and RHC ex-prisoners became an umbrella group for the various groups repre-senting the needs of these individuals and groups.

The activities of these groups became increasingly focused on the provision of services for former prisoners and their families, employ-ment training, counseling, the facilitation of ‘cross-community’ dia-logue, advice regarding benefits and statutory services and efforts to mainstream the needs of former prisoners (Shirlow and McEvoy, 2008). Advocacy and lobbying became the second major focus of these organi-zations, which engaged in targeted communications and networking, direct lobbying, negotiation and consultation with government bodies and funders, as well as similar organizations within Northern Ireland and abroad. The development of relationships (formal and informal) with key officials in funding bodies and statutory agencies also became a priority (Shirlow et al., 2005, p. 23), as did participation in consultation meetings in which policy changes affecting this group were discussed (Coiste na-Iarchimi, 1999, 2003a). The use of the PEACE programmes



discussed in Chapter 3 were crucial to this: they promoted a programme of formal democratic restructuring, governance and service provision and development-as-integration, which helped to support and drive the broader programme of the transformation of a new polity. The onto-phenomenological suppositions of this approach, and its overall logic, were applied to former prisoners largely through the creation of a separate demographic group and a set of institutions – NGOs, umbrella groups, networks, and so on (Mitchell, 2009b).

Through this process of transformation, the forms of world-building used to constitute plural worlds within the prison regime were altered to create the category and image of the ex-prisoner. Crucially, how-ever, this category began to expand as the processes of peace-building unfolded. As more of the prisoners released in 2000 were believed to be successfully reintegrated, organizations, service providers and even politicians who were previously dedicated to the needs of this group expanded their remit. In many cases, this involved moving towards the transformation of paramilitary organizations as a whole, rather than just former prisoners (Purvis, 2010). In 2007, the (then) director of EPIC commented that ‘all the prisoners were released in the year 2000 … and while there’s still on-going work with former prisoners, that side of our work has diminished quite a lot … since then [we would] be heavily involved in facilitating consultation processes within the UVF, in order … to help them to respond to the change in circumstances that now exist’ (Roberts, 2007). Likewise, organizations such as the Ulster Political Research Group have become involved primarily in advising paramilitary organizations as to how to engage most effectively in the processes of peace-building and facilitating their participation (Gallagher, 2010). In fact, many of the organizations that began by advocating and providing services for ex-prisoners, including Coiste and its member groups, ostensibly provide services for the entire Republican (and/or Loyalist) community, and engage with all of the target groups identified by key peace-building policies (O’Cobtaigh, 2007). This is a subtle but crucial shift: the initial induction of prisoners into the peace-building process, and the formation of groups to address their specific needs, targeted only those who had been imprisoned. The extension of these services by means of ex-prisoners’ organizations (and often deliv-ered by ex-prisoners) to paramilitary groups and whole communities where significant paramilitary activity took place reflects the attempt to eradicate the ‘combatant’ tendency, or support for combatants, within a much broader social and political context. Moreover, this shift in policy suggested that security (and securitization) was now associated with



transforming the violent tendencies from the entire polity, and not just the individuals who had become its most visible representatives.

Transformative processes and ex-combatants

The trans-formation of the category of the ‘former prisoner’ and, more generally, the ex-combatant involved substantial social, behavioural, ethical and psychological changes on the part of those ensconced in it. In this context, former prisoners were reframed as individuals with separate but ultimately identical needs, which the services provided by NGOs sought to provide to each individual ‘client’. The services they provided were directed towards developing former prisoners as individu-als: skills training enriched each person’s financial viability; therapy and counseling normalized individuals; and personalized assistance with applying for public benefits or availing of services helped to integrate and regulate each individual’s reintegration into society (Shirlow et al., 2005; Shirlow, 2008; Ritchie, 2007). Furthermore, leaders and active participants in the prison protest, whose distinct personalities and iden-tities had garnered them influence and status, were now encouraged to use these identities to promote the individualizing transformation of former prisoners in their new ‘leadership’ roles (Shirlow et al., 2005). By undertaking their own development as ‘managers’ or ‘leaders’ in a community project, they were to exemplify the transformative process and publicly encourage others to do the same.

These dynamics were instrumental to the creation of a broad network to which each former prisoner was instrumentally related. As the move-ment was transformed, the needs and grievances addressed by prison-ers’ NGOs were crystallized into formal, localized organizations which, through processes of communication and administration, were linked into a former prisoners’ ‘sector’. This involved the reconstruction of the movement as a demographic group with judiciable claims and interests that could be represented within the channels of the constitutional peace process and the institutions it produced. In turn, this made it pos-sible to integrate the group demographic firmly within the rights-based discourse of the GF/BA (see Northern Ireland Office, 1998, section 10); by constituting former prisoners as a distinct group with a significant stake in the peace process, this made it possible to assign legal rights to these persons as a group. In this sense, the individualization of each member of the movement as a former prisoner and the valorization of specific processes was used to constitute a relational network which made it possible to integrate former prisoners into the overall transfor-mation process.



Not surprisingly, this transformation changed the way in which the movement constituted itself. On the whole, the individuals in question substituted activities which focused on generating, creating or re-asserting the movement for a range of practices directed towards reproducing, legitimating, promoting and authenticating the new ‘sector’ and the processes that drove it. The adoption of rationalized processes of service delivery and advocacy, described in the chronology above, enabled this. Indeed, there was a concerted effort to adopt process as a primary logic rather than rejecting or disrupting it. Rather than constituting the group against or in opposition to governing institutions, participating groups began to focus on making its activities compatible with the processes of transformation, including the criteria of policymakers, legislators and, increasingly, funding bodies (McCorley, 2007). This line of argument does not suggest the passive submission of these individuals and organi-zations, nor necessarily coercive action on the part of statutory bodies. Instead, it involved the rationalization of decision-making processes on the part of prisoners’ groups such that they could respond to incentives in an optimal way and ensure that their needs, interests and grievances were clearly expressed in policymaking discourses (Ritchie, 2007).

In addition, the implementation of these transformative processes was expected to promote substantial ethical change, not only among ex-combatants, but within society as a whole. These centred around the (re)integration of ex-combatants into society, the economy and public life. The rationale, it seemed, was that if the most violent actors in the conflict (from a state-based definition of violence, which excludes its own actors and forces) could be integrated into processes of change, then could everyone else. Thus, the visible integration of prisoners became a priority for policymakers. For instance, demands for the rec-ognition of the prison protest were reframed in terms of concerns with the social and economic status and fair treatment of former prisoners, including their employment rights and their relative income (Shirlow et al., 2005, pp. 40, 59). At the same time, the development of a robust and sustainable ‘community sector’ and ‘social capital’ was intended to replace the need for organizations such as paramilitary groups and defence committees. Many prisoners, for instance, are involved in ‘restorative justice’ projects that seek to negotiate with young offenders who might otherwise (and may still) be subject to punishment by para-military groups (Maguire, 2007; Winstone, 2007). One of the key aims of prioritizing economic, social and community development is the normalization of social interactions between former prisoners and their communities on the one hand, and between the ‘two communities’ on



the other. On a broader scale, processes of reintegration are intended to normalize prisoners as ex-combatants – in other words, as the most extreme or ‘radical’ elements of the polity (Shirlow and McEvoy, 2008, p. 10) – and make them compatible with the peace process.

Conclusions

The strategies of integration and development promoted by peace-building processes trans-formed the worlds and forms of world-mak-ing used within prison in order to constitute a specific category: first, of the ex-prisoner, then, in much broader terms, the ‘ex-combatant’. By harnessing the transformative logic used (primarily by Republican actors) within the prison protest and channeling it through the logics of transformative governance, democratization, development and secu-ritization policy, policymakers were able to integrate this group directly within the processes of transformative peace-building. This approach was a powerful strategy of what I shall call ‘long division’ (see Chapter 8): by identifying a distinctive ‘outsider’ group that threatened the processes of peace-building and actively inducting it within these proc-esses, it sought to neutralize opposition and remove obstacles to trans-formative peace-building. Its gradual expansion to include paramilitary organizations and the communities in which they operate illustrates how the processes of transformation constantly attempt to encompass more of the actors and forces that oppose them and to isolate, alienate or negate those groups outside it (for instance, individuals and groups who were involved in combat but were never caught). This, I shall argue next, leads to a powerful dynamic of ‘long division’, in which certain individuals and groups are ‘transformed in’ to the processes of peace-building, and others become its potentially dangerous remainders.


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This is a process where people eventually come on board until you’re left with a tiny, tiny minority of people who are opposed to peace . . . it’s a process that’s unstoppable.

—Dawn Purvis MLA, Former Leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (2010)

Without a doubt, the trans-formation of the ‘ex-combatant’ category discussed in Chapter 6 resulted in substantial material, economic, politi-cal and social benefits for the individuals and groups included in this category. For instance, they have attained significant public visibility, influence and legitimacy, and more extensive services and funding have been earmarked for them. Moreover, the organizations discussed earlier attest to near unanimous support from their membership and communities for the various processes of peace-building, criticizing mostly methods of delivery, its limited scope and the degree to which it focuses on their needs (see Shirlow and McEvoy, 2008; Hutchinson, 2010). Yet simply because these groups benefited from, and provide nor-mative support for, the processes of peace-building does not mean that these processes are exempt from creating dynamics of radical threat or even eradication; indeed, the eventual elimination of paramilitary structures is an explicit goal of many policies. As mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3, participation does not suggest resistibility: it is perfectly logical to parti cipate in a dynamic one cannot resist as a means of surviving. As I shall argue here, participation in the processes of peace-building was perceived as necessary to the survival of paramilitary organizations, and was pursued by their mainstream leadership as a means of resisting eradication.

7Long Division: Ex-Combatants, Transformation and Radical Threat


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In order to become and remain ensconced within the new, dominant modes of world-building promoted by the ‘peace process’, these leaders were required to engage their organizations in transformative processes (particularly those relating to disarmament and compliance with the GF/BA) as units or wholes. In this manner, they became ensconced in a logic of what I shall call ‘long division’: the attempt to integrate large swathes of ‘outsider’ groups within the processes of peace-building by encourag-ing them to divide out dissenting individuals or groups within their own ranks. Transformative peace interventions promote this logic by encour-aging paramilitary groups to present themselves as unitary actors whose worlds and modes of world-building are consonant with the model of peace in question, or, most importantly, can be transformed into such a state. The logic of long division, I shall argue, creates remainders that are not merely excluded but, due to the exigency created by the radical threats experienced by paramilitary leaders, are often the subject of irre-sistible radical threats. These, in turn, may give rise to cycles of violence within and among paramilitary organizations and the communities in which they operate. In this sense, the radical violence engendered by transformative peace interventions may result in very visible cycles of violence – including, eventually, material and physical violence.

Relative radical threat: Inequalities of transformation

The processes through which the ‘ex-combatant’ category was trans-formed created dynamics of direct radical threat, including, as men-tioned above, the goal of altering or even removing paramilitary groups, which even those ex-combatants most engaged in the proc-esses of peace-building balked at (Templer, 2009). However, much of the radical threat it creates is due to the relative threats it engenders within and among groups, or the various forms of inequality it pro-motes. Firstly, engaging in the processes of transformation is more ‘radical’ for some groups than it is for others. That is, adopting the norms and forms of world-building promoted by the peace process is more natural for some groups, either because these forms of world-building are similar to (or perhaps even appropriated from) those which they already engage in, or because they are literally not perceived as radi-cal to the group, or necessary to its survival as such. Some groups are targeted as ‘transformers’ or inherently beneficial to the processes of peace-building, perhaps due to the similarity of their key norms, ethics or world-building practices to those associated with the peace proc-ess. Their ‘transformation in’ to the peace-building process, therefore,



constitutes their affirmation, strengthening, or perhaps power and/or influence within the various processes of peace-building.

Other groups, however, are targeted as ‘obstacles’ to peace, and there-fore must engage in the alteration (and perhaps eradication) of aspects of their own history, activities or identity, not only in order to be trans-formed but in order to become ‘transformers’, or dynamos of transforma-tive processes. For many ex-combatants, including former prisoners, becoming a ‘transformer’ was perceived as the best way to gain legitimacy and a ‘voice’ within the process of peace-building (see below). The PEACE programmes, for instance, identify a diverse range of groups for inclusion in its processes, ranging from ‘young people’ and ‘women’ to ‘former pris-oners and ex-combatants’. The first two categories tend to be associated with the logic of transformative peace-building. That is, they are believed to hold the potential to respond to, embody or even drive theses proc-esses, if they do not already do so. Women qua women and youth qua youth are often – and often with little substantiation – attributed with the potential to generate peace; they are defined in part by this potential, as is the attempt to expand their role in the polity. The same cannot be said of former prisoners qua former prisoners. That is, there is significant funding and institutional support for organizations that seek to trans-form former prisoners by altering their behaviour or discouraging young people from engaging in violence (see below), but much less support for, and even backlash against, protests against ‘political imprisonment’ or arrests per se, such as the recent protest events held by the protest party Eirigi (Mackel, 2010; Eirigi, 2010) or the relatives of RIRA prisoners (BBC, 2010h), which re-invoked images common to the prison protest.

Indeed, the targeting and mobilization of prisoners is not intended to promote and preserve (ex)prisoner or (ex)combatant worlds or modes of world-making, but rather to promote their trans-formative state, or their conversion into dynamos of transformative peace-building processes. The change in question is therefore potentially much more radical for the latter group, as it involves the (self) alteration or even eradication of worlds or modes of world-building. As such, the threat to the radical sources of each group is unequal. Moreover, it may generate inequalities in terms of agencies based on these radical elements: both groups are imbued with agency within the processes of peace-building only insofar as they promote the basic tenets and modes of world-making that drive the processes of peace-building. In a sense, one category is rewarded for engaging in its own modes of world-making, while another is only accepted into the processes of peace-building if it engages in selective self-eradicaton, or the destruction of elements of its own world(s). This


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process may become more complicated in cases where the categories overlap: for instance, in the case of female former prisoners or ex-combatants, who may be targeted doubly. In addition, this dynamic may operate not only among categories but also within them. For instance, both Republican and Loyalist ex-prisoners were targeted by the PEACE programmes and other initiatives as potential agents of transfor-mation (see European Union 1998, 2008; Shirlow et al., 2005). However, Republicans and Loyalists alike suggest that the image of transforma-tion, and the tactical skills, ethos and strategies used to engage with it, align directly with traditional Republican modes of action (in particular the prison protest – see below) and the Marxist or socialist ideological influences upon which they tend to draw (Culbert, 2007; Sheehan et al., 2010). In contrast, for many Loyalists or working-class union-ists, the ideals, practices and strategies of transformation contrasted with their existing modes of world-building to the extent that the idea of transformative peace-building is often perceived within these com-munities as ‘alien’ or even ‘a dirty word’ not because these individuals oppose peace or even the benefits promised by the mainstream model, but rather because the means of realizing it threaten them directly, or vis-à-vis Republican communities (Gallagher, 2010). This disjuncture between the experiences of transformation within each ‘target’ cat-egory suggests that the ethos and logic of transformation reproduce the worlds and forms of world-making of some groups more directly than they do of others, and may even pose a threat to the latter.

Secondly, the dynamics of exclusion created by the long division process generate and may even accentuate inequalities between and within ‘target’ groups as they unfold or expand. Even the first ‘round’ of inclusion within a peace process creates exclusion; in fact, exclu-sion is likely at its highest point in the early stages of the peace process, when only the key groups involved in the formulation of a peace agreement are actively ensconced – and empowered – within it. Even at this point, the groups that perceive themselves to be excluded, or perhaps less included, may experience a sense of unequal develop-ment and integration. For instance, as mentioned above, Loyalists felt that they were not targeted specifically or directly in the peace process, as Republicans were (Purvis, 2010; Gallagher, 2010). As the processes of peace-building have unfolded, they claim, Republicans have been able to consolidate more power, influence and facility in navigating the processes of peace-building – for instance, in terms of gaining and maintaining PEACE funding (Gallagher, 2010) – than Loyalists. This, they argue, has generated inequalities in terms of the ‘voice’ of Loyalists



within the peace process, but also socio-economic inequalities between deprived Loyalist and Republican areas (Bird, 2010). Similarly, members of non-Provisional Republican paramilitary organizations, including the OIRA and INLA, claim that they were not included to the same extent as PIRA/Sinn Fein members in key decisions regarding the processes of peace-building. As a result, some of them claim, they were discriminated against by a ‘clean hands’ principle: that is, their normative disagreement with the PIRA (which aligned itself early on with the GF/BA) or with aspects of the GF/BA caused policymakers, including PIRA members, to cast doubt upon their commitment to peace or the accountability of their practices (McKearney, 2007; Halligan, 2007), or to sideline them within multi-party discussions and consortiums (Curry et al., 2007; Mitchell et al., 2010). As a result, they claim, PIRA/Sinn Fein-affiliated individuals and groups were able to gain a much larger portion of PEACE funds, as well as influence on policymaking. This, as I shall argue below, was crucial in reproducing the dominance of PIRA/Sinn Fein members among Republican paramilitary groups and underpinning the dynamics of exclusion and negation that enabled this.

These two major dynamics of inequality generated by peace processes work within and among the ‘target’ groups involved in peace-building processes. As a result, they may generate entropic radical threats in the form of the loss of worlds or forms of world-building discussed above. They may also create relative radical threats by empowering some groups more than others, often based on aspects of their worlds or forms of world-building, and even empowering these groups to eradicate aspects of other groups (see below). In this sense, the dynamics of radical threat have shifted significantly: whereas during the Troubles, the radical threat between paramilitary groups and the state was often direct, it is now primarily indirect and, more specifically, relative and entropic. That is, the threats exchanged between the major groups are not primarily those of inter-paramilitary violence, but rather the creation of imbalances between worlds and modes of world-building, and the loss of (access to) specific radical sources due to the domination of transformative modes of world-building. These forms of radical threat may damage the threat-works used to constrain and prevent violence, as I shall illustrate below.

Radical threat and the transformation of Republican ex-combatants

When asked to discuss their experience of the changes that took place among former prisoners and ex-combatants since the late 1990s, many


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of the individuals I interviewed were positive regarding the material, social and economic benefits of the processes in which they engaged. However, many related a sense of loss with regards to the world they occupied not only in prison but also before engaging actively the peace process. This was not, on the whole, expressed as nostalgia for violent acts, but rather for the experience of being part of groups such as para-military organizations or wings involved in the prison protest – in short, for lost forms of world-building. For instance, it was widely remarked that the activity that took place in the prison was of a special quality; it encouraged solidarity, political development and social bonding that does not take place in ‘normal’ life, or in the professional environment of NGOs (Byers, 2007; O’Cobtaigh, 2007). Others noticed the impact of the change in forms of world-building, and commented that they missed the opportunity to take part in protest and oppositional or conflictual forms of activism, which were discouraged post-transformation. One manager of a former prisoners’ group described how involvement in the PEACE programme changed the nature of his activities and the perceived significance of them:

almost diluted them of … some of that progressive potential … the other thing I have to say, a negative effect, was that it lead to the professionalisation of our work that’s – rather than it being volun-teering, it would be ‘oh, that man’s applied to do that’ or ‘oh that woman’s applied to do that’ and then no one seemed to do anything. So it’s … disengaged people from the activist role that we would like them to do [sic].

(O’Cobtaigh, 2007)

Similarly, as Anthony MacIntyre suggested, the dominance of formal policymaking, an NGO-based activity, meant that ‘everything ha[d] to be hived off and put into committees, parliament, debating chambers’ (MacIntyre, 2007) instead of more informal, perhaps even conflictual, forms of interaction. Moreover, Tommy McKearney, leader of the non-aligned prisoners’ group EXPAC, commented on the rationalization that took place on the part of both statutory bodies and former prisoners’ groups in engaging in these processes, referring to their cooperation as a set of ‘deals’ or ‘bargains’ in a ‘political marketplace’ (McKearney, 2007). The adoption of professional, rationalized world-building practices, reg-ulated by the criteria and objectives of funding bodies, and constrained by the structure of the NGO, was often experienced as a form of loss vis-à-vis earlier forms of world-building used by the movement. MacIntyre



criticized ‘mainstream’ Republican organizations for promoting the ethos of rationalized policymaking to the exclusion of more ‘radical’ forms of action. He lamented that ‘the sad thing is that many of the people who are conforming, people who were former hunger strikers, are [now] the most conformist’ – or, most willing to compromise their earlier commitments (MacIntyre, 2007).

Moreover, many interviewees suggested that they were ‘let down’ increasingly as the processes of peace-building unfolded. Some Republicans aligned themselves with the ‘peace process’ in an instrumental man-ner, thus were not surprised when it failed to create the world that the Republican movement traditionally sought (Coiste, 2003b; McKearney, 2007; MacIntyre, 2007). Others, however, had relinquished or altered their worlds or forms of world-building in the expectation that they would be better able to attain them by engaging in transformative processes and were disappointed to find that the changes which took place were not as extensive as expected, or due to their unintended consequences (Culbert, 2007; Brady, 2007). For instance, despite engaging with policies of development and ‘re-integration’ (although they frequently contest the term), many former prisoners still face obstructions when applying for jobs, loans, insurance policies or when adopting children, preventing their full participation in the new polity (Halligan, 2007; O’Cobtaigh, 2007; Sheehan et al., 2010). In this sense, many of those who signed on to the GF/BA for strategic reasons rather than strong convictions regarding its norms and tenets experienced the loss of the world they were hoping to create. The idea of experiencing loss with regards to an imagined world or a projected future may seem abstract and even sentimental, but it had a profound effect on many Republicans. Fra Halligan, leader of the IRSP/INLA-affiliated group Teach Na Failte, comments on the sense of frustration this created:

some of [my clients] are in real bad states because [of] this legacy … when I was fifteen or sixteen, it was 1981 … the whole place was going … there was going to be a revolution and people were into it there was an expectation in the air, the reel was on, the TV was on, people were getting shot, something was happening – people actu-ally lived on their nerves. That was turned off, it was like a water tap being turned off. And it’s humdrum … you know, I think a professor said ten years ago, ‘if it stopped like that, you couldn’t build enough institutions in Ireland to hold the people with the mental aftermath of it, you know, people just collapse.

(Halligan, 2007)


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It was clear that many of the individuals interviewed felt that they had relinquished or compromised something of great personal and collec-tive value as a ‘trade-off’ for becoming ensconced in the processes of peace-building. One respondent remarked that he had to expend a great deal of effort in convincing his ‘clients’ that he was not ‘selling out’ the values of the (then still armed and operative) IRSP and INLA by engag-ing with the PEACE programme. He felt obliged to tell them that his statements may ‘soun[d] like the old Good Friday Agreement there, but [were] not’ (Halligan, 2007). Members of an OIRA-affiliated organiza-tion admitted that they had compromised significantly with regards to their goals and objectives, but that they had done so in order to secure better living conditions for their community (Curry et al., 2007). As a result, for some, ‘the dream of victory didn’t happen, and some people found it hard to accept’ (Curry et al., 2007). In this sense, one of the most important losses was that of expectation or belief in the feasibility of the peace process.

The concern with justifying these tradeoffs, or even distancing actions from mainstream policymaking discourses, suggest that what was compromised in the processes of transformation was valued deeply by at least some of the communities in which these groups operated, to the extent that they risked losing the support of the latter by ‘selling out’. This dynamic underpinned the attempt of many organizations to downplay the extent to which engaging with these processes consti-tuted a change in their modes of world-building. Several interviewees claimed that participation in PEACE was a reformulation of the more traditional strategy of ‘taking power through the state’ or ‘assaulting the state from within’ (O’Cobtaigh, 2007). One (then) employee of Coiste na-Iarchimi summed up this approach by stating that Republicans are ‘sincere in adopting [the language of the PEACE programme] not to recognize the mission of the state … [but] in order to recognize their own mission … They’re not using bombs and everything else, but nothing else has changed in terms of working to achieve a political agenda’ (Byers, 2007). Still others emphasized the need to ‘[prove] to people that you can discuss, debate and dialogue with one another and still maintain your alle-giance or your identity … there’s no sense of surrender or victory’ (Curry et al., 2007). This statement appears to be a straightforward endorsement of the ‘cross-community’ ethos promoted by many initiatives designed to transform ex-combatants. However, on second glance, it highlights the fact that the leaders of organizations are cognizant of the fear that many of their members or communities hold with regard to the potential loss of element such as identity, culture or paramilitary structures.



Some individuals I interviewed discussed these fears quite openly, often claiming that the processes in question were a form of ‘pacification’ designed to dilute the radical aspects of Republican movement or dis-courage people from engaging with them. One respondent compared it to American domestic security policy in the 1960s, arguing that ‘They actually did that to a lot of black people … they threw money at them and bought off a lot of them. You know, they almost created a sector for them to be fully employed in and then they didn’t join the Black Panthers’ (O’Cobtaigh, 2007). MacIntyre made the stronger claim that ‘[during the conflict] the British state decided it would crush Republicanism by excluding Republicans … during the 1990s, it took a different strategy and decided that it would defeat Republicanism by including Republicans’ (MacIntyre, 2007). This statement speaks to the fear of eradication voiced by many ‘disaffected’, ‘non-aligned’ or, in pejorative terms, ‘dissident’ former prisoners (see below). Members of An Eochair made a similar argument: that the revocation of money would be used as a form of control –’when they tame [us] down enough, they’ll pull away the money and say “there’s government agencies to look after things”‘ (Curry et al., 2007). Finally, Halligan described his initial impressions of the PEACE programme: ‘I thought: pacification … they’re giving us money to sit there and to try to tell us how great the peace proc-ess is’, thus subverting the goals and messages of the Republican Socialist movement (Halligan, 2007). All of these comments speak to the fear of eradication – that is, they reflect a fear that engagement in the processes of peace-building will eventually, through direct regulation or gradual diversion, cause important elements of the movement to fade away.

In response to this fear, many interviewees were eager to assert that they were actively preserving elements of the past worlds they had built and inhabited, including particular symbols, narratives and social relation-ships. When asked about the extent to which they had adopted the ethos, language and goals of the PEACE programme, many interviewees reacted by asserting that although they were fluent in the language of PEACE, this did not suggest a renunciation of the symbols, language and ideals of their earlier affiliations. Some invoked the militaristic image of paramilitary groups by referring to their networks as ‘sali-ents’ or ‘flanks’ (O’Cobtaigh, 2007), or to the capacity of still existent paramilitary command structures to exert discipline or simply influence among former prisoners and the community (Ritchie, 2007). Michael Culbert, a prominent member of Tar Anall and Coiste na-Iarchimi, stated that ‘we represent former IRA prisoners. We are what we were and we were what we are … we don’t hide it, we’re actually very proud of


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having fought the British army’ (Culbert, 2007). Another PIRA former prisoner and Coiste employee stated that ‘I willingly did what I’ve done and I willingly do what I do now’ (McCotter, 2007). Halligan insisted that his constituency ‘[have] a very long and a very proud history – of fighting the war and fighting in jail and whatever. And we don’t want that airbrushed … we know exactly who we are and we have always had that identity’ (Halligan, 2007). He warned policymakers to bear in mind the persistence of these ideals and groups, claiming that their tendency to ‘antagonize people’ involved in these groups ‘leaves the door open for more younger, more radical people, to stir things up’ (Halligan, 2007). These comments suggest that although uptake of the language, ethics and goals of the PEACE programme is not disin-genuous, it does not mark the total erasure or substitution of older paramilitary world(view)s. Moreover, these individuals expressed their struggle to preserve elements of their former lives while engaging in the processes of peace-building, thus resisting the complete obliteration of the former.

This brief analysis suggests that engagement in the ‘peace process’ involved at least some degree of radical threat, even to those who actively involved themselves within it. The conversion of solidarity-based, often-confrontational activism into rationalized, bureaucratic, formal modes of world-building caused some individuals to fear the loss of the Republican ethos. Similarly, compromise over goals, strate-gies and forms of activity raised fears that traditional Republicanism would fade away, or that elements of it were sacrificed. Meanwhile, several individuals struggled to preserve aspects of their previous worlds by retaining elements of language, narratives and concepts of social relationships that resisted the total eradication of the paramilitary form of Republicanism. Each of these dynamics suggests that the transforma-tion of this target group involved radical change and (at least) the threat of radical loss.

The Experience of (ir)resistibility

To what extent was the process of transformation described in Chapter 6 (ir)resistible to the Republicans who engaged in it? Some interviewees perceived their participation to be essential to the goal of Republican world-building as they believed it would become irresistible to others. One member of Coiste described the process of transformation as a way of ‘grinding away at society, forcing them to accept us … [and] forcing mindset changes in people’ (Culbert, 2007). Echoing this idea,



another interviewee claimed that ‘Republicans [should] worry when the process of change is slowed down’ (Byers, 2007). PIRA members interviewed in 2010 claimed that their goal was to accelerate the ‘peace process’ as much as possible as a means of neutralizing opposition from their (Unionist) opponents and precluding their ability to resist it (Sheehan et al., 2010). From this perspective, the strategy of engaging with transformative processes as a means for resisting the obliteration of Republicanism demanded that they become irresistible to others.

Many of the individuals I spoke to, however, commented on their own perceptions of the irresistibility of the process. This was particu-larly marked when it came to the implementation of ‘cross-community’ projects. One interviewee suggested that PEACE funding insisted that they engage with Unionists and Loyalists before both groups were com-fortable in doing so, with the result that ‘[the Unionists or Loyalists involved] were seeing themselves as being used, almost … [but] that was the sort of thing we had to do to try to comply, and it was meaning-less, really’ (O’Cobtaigh, 2007). In other words, the pace of change and pressure from funding bodies made it difficult to resist the changes they had in mind – in this case, ‘cross-community’ cooperation. This was compounded by the fact it was often unclear who was driving the proc-esses of change or making relevant decisions about the funding, activi-ties and goals of groups involved in specific initiatives (Barnes, 2007; O’Cobtaigh, 2007; McKearney, 2007). This made it difficult to control the manner, extent or pace at which groups were expected to change.

Several interviewees expressed a sense of powerlessness or loss of control vis-à-vis the changes that were taking place. One respondent viewed this as a consequence of the activities this group had under-taken and therefore something which must be accepted:

‘Republicans and particularly ex-combatants have to understand that their goal was to bring about change [so they] cannot expect every-thing else to change but them … as the situation transforms, you have to transform with it’.

(Maguire, 2007)

This comment suggests that, through their history of change-oriented practice, the Republican movement set in motion an unstoppable process and must now simply accept that. Indeed, several individuals commented that, as a result of taking an active role in transformative ini-tiatives, Republican groups were delegated a high level of responsibility for the success of the GF/BA and the broader ‘peace process’ – regardless


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of their degree of normative support for it. OIRA-affiliated individuals commented that the process of transformation ‘handed [responsibility for these services] to Republicans and said “do what you want with it, if you don’t do it, it’s your fault. It’s not the government’s fault [if it fails]”’ (Curry et al., 2007). Others expressed concern with their lack of control over changes at an organizational level. Members of An Eochair remarked that their group ‘snowballed in a slightly different direction of strengthening the peace process and all that … 90% of our time went towards strengthening the peace process instead of prisoners’ welfare’ due to changes in the priorities of funding bodies (Curry et al., 2007). In this sense, it was not simply the incentive created by the distribution of funding that prompted them to give in to this change, but also a per-ception that all former prisoners’ groups must make this change or risk being excluded from the peace-building process – and thus the broader processes of peace-building.

Furthermore, there was a strong sense that the rapid pace and inertial force of the peace process increased this sense of urgency and pressure. One interviewee stated that because change took place through proc-esses, it was necessary to involve oneself from the very beginning to avoid being left behind. This same issue has been a central concern for members of Loyalist-affiliated organizations (see below). As a result of this dynamic, many individuals believed that it was crucial to ‘gai[n] access to the process of change’ from the very beginning, even if this meant sac-rificing goals practices that were formerly (and possibly still) considered integral to Republicanism (Barnes, 2007). As one interviewee put it:

Times are changing whether you like it or not … I never liked change … But it was happening … you will be forced to change, whether you like it or not. And you mightn’t even recognize it, you mightn’t even comprehend it – you might say to yourself, ‘I’m still the same person I was twenty years ago’. Well, that’s nonsense, you know what I mean? You will [have to] change.

(Halligan, 2007)

Some interviewees attempted to mask or justify the extent to which they were powerless to resist or direct the processes in question. For instance, McKearney claimed that ‘we [the Republican movement] didn’t take the money to call it off [the armed phase of the conflict]. We called it off then said “we need something to support our people” … once the insurrection ended, we were going to have to move into nor-malization anyway’ (McKearney, 2007). The same argument is made by



many UDA-affiliated individuals with regards to the allegation that they accepted ‘money for guns’ in the decommissioning process (Bird, 2010; Gallagher, 2010 and see below).

One of the most powerful sources of irresistibility was the profound normative pressure placed upon ex-combatants to support and engage with the ‘peace process’, including not only the GF/BA, but also the myriad policies and strategies designed to embed it. For instance, although there was widespread support for many of the values, ideals and symbols of the PEACE programme among interviewees (primarily in terms of the socio-economic benefits it promised), there was a sense that the only ways to support or engage with peace-building were to adopt the practices, values and aims it promoted. This meant not only that organizations frequently felt compelled to ‘collapse’ or compromise their own goals to meet those of funding bodies (O’Cobtaigh, 2007; McKearney, 2007; Halligan, 2007) but also that they must constantly prove their loyalty to and support for the peace process. This lead to a dynamic in which critical normative orientations to the GF/BA or other aspects of the ‘peace process’ tended to be framed as the orientations of spoilers or ‘dissidents’. As one interviewee put it:

the process moves forward and how people who agree with it or don’t agree with it get dragged along with it … while you might have people who would like to do something different, they’re constrained in what they do … there is a certain dynamic happening which con-strains a lot of opposition … it’s there, but people fall in and then there’s a social construction process that occurs in which people actu-ally begin to believe it, soften their views on it, fall in behind it.

(Barnes, 2007)

In this sense, the dominance of these processes created a monopoly of meaning and normative authority and entrenched it within the transfor-mation process. By reducing the capacity of individuals to criticize the underlying norms or guiding ideals of the methods through which peace is implemented, these processes make the only meaningful or accept-able evaluation of PEACE a positive one. Those who were perceived either to hold views critical of certain aspects of the ‘peace process’ or, more often, to fall out of line with the views promoted by ‘mainstream’ (that is, largely PIRA-affiliated) ex-combatant groups often felt that they were branded as untrustworthy in the eyes of funding bodies (McKearney, 2007) and police (Halligan, 2007), or even persecuted by members of mainstream organizations and their supporters (MacIntyre, 2007).


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It is no coincidence that the individuals who made these claims were members of non-PIRA organizations. Indeed, the decision of PIRA-affiliated ex-combatant groups openly and enthusiastically to adopt the tenets and practices of transformative peace-building helped to establish it as a dominant actor among IRA-related organizations, creating signifi-cant inequalities between them. For instance, since the mid-2000s, Coiste has positioned itself as a representatives for all Republican groups, and has tended to speak on their behalf in policymaking processes, includ-ing ‘cross-community’ forums and initiatives. When I finished my first round of interviews in 2007, relations between the various Republican groups (that is, the PIRA, OIRA, INLA/IRSP and ‘non-aligned’ individuals) involved in these initiatives were relatively stable. However, by 2010, mem-bers of community groups involved in discussions with representatives of these organizations were commenting on visible fractures among them (Mitchell et al., 2010) and even the leader of a UDA-affiliated organization commented that he had observed members of PIRA and OIRA–affiliated organizations arguing hotly over PIRA policies (Bird, 2010), suggesting some cracks within the dominance of the PIRA. It is the establishment of this position of dominance within the processes of peace-building that enabled Republicans to enter the process of long division. In this sense, Republican leaders who actively engaged in transformative processes ‘passed on’ the radical threat they experienced vis-à-vis the process of long division by enacting radical violence within their own organizations, or the broader Republican movement. They did so largely by constructing, vilifying – and helping to create and empower – the category of ‘dissident Republicans’, to which I shall return in the next chapter.

Loyalists and radical threat

Members of Loyalist paramilitary groups had a distinctive experience of transformation compared to that of Republicans, but it, too, was shaped and driven by the same logic, and several forms of radical threat. Indeed, the ‘peace process’ itself raised the spectre of cultural or communal extinction for some members of these groupings. As Ian Wood (2006, p. viii) suggests, some Loyalists feared that, by supporting the GF/BA, they might ‘end up acquiescing in their own fate, not [in] genocide but the extinction of their identity and culture’. Like the Republican inter-viewees discussed above, many of the Loyalists I interviewed claimed that the process of transformation involved the loss of or threat to integral elements of their organizations and communities. The most extreme threat discussed was the constant fear among some Loyalist communities that physical or material violence against their community



was always an imminent possibility since the ‘peace process’ had not succeeded in extinguishing all Republican violence (see Chapter 8). According to UDA-affiliated interviewees, many members of their com-munities demanded that the organization keep some of its weapons right up until the very end of the decommissioning process in February 2010 (Bird, 2010; McDonald, 2010). According to McDonald, this was because of ongoing disbelief that Republicans had in fact surrendered all of their weapons, and the fear that they could resume violence at any time. He related a narrative of the IRA decommissioning process that he believes still resonates among people in Loyalist communities:

people said the IRA would never decommission; [former DUP leader Ian] Paisley said ‘we’ll never talk to you as long as you’ve got guns’, thinking that was a failsafe, it would never happen; and I didn’t think it would happen because [a Republican] on the border had been shooting people with his AK-47 for twenty years – how are you going to get his AK-47 off him? And the truth is, [he] still has his AK-47 – they never took it off him; but the IRA had this huge stockpile of weapons that were never used or were in bunkers or were in excess to their needs. So the British, Irish and American govern-ments … said to the IRA … ‘we can massage the figures to make it look as if that’s all you’ve got’. So they went to the bunkers and put the guns out of use, but [the man] on the border still has his AK-47 … You know, whenever we said ‘The IRA hasn’t decommissioned at all’, people would argue with us, and I’d say that if we were to drive down the Falls Road and start shooting out of the windows of the car, do you think the IRA’s going to phone the police? We won’t get to the bottom of the hill; we’d be killed with the weapons they still have … they never want to be caught defenceless

(McDonald, 2010)

This belief, he claims, underpins a very real fear in Loyalist areas, which has made many of their citizens reluctant to relinquish their own weapons:

Loyalist working class areas feel very vulnerable and insecure because the police won’t protect them; you know, when the IRA gave up their weapons, people in the Markets and the Short Strand were say-ing ‘the UDA’s gonna murder us in our bed’ – it was never going to happen, but that’s what they were afraid of; and when it came to the UDA decommissioning, people were afraid of the same thing.

(McDonald, 2010)


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This suggests that the fear of literal, physical eradication is still present within Loyalist communities. McDonald claimed that this fear can be extremely visceral; at one point prior to the beginning of the ‘peace process’, he claims, the UDA was training its members in map-reading and other skills in case Republicans attempted a ‘doomsday situation’ or the complete annihilation of Protestants (McDonald and Alan, 2010). Regardless of the likelihood of such a situation, it is an image that resides within the consciousness of Loyalists. Less extreme threats of physical violence are also pro-nounced. One individual, who is not affiliated to a paramilitary group, and is noted for his unconventional views, suggested that members of the security forces in certain areas of Northern Ireland still check their cars everyday for bombs (occasionally finding one) and that they fear ‘genocide’ or physical eradication (Lynch, 2007). While this is an extreme interpretation, it speaks to the underly-ing threat of eradication. UDA members interviewed in 2009 in the aftermath of the murder of PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll by ‘dis-sident’ Republicans, put the problem more simply: ‘We know that we are under attack, even in a time of supposed peace’ and that many Loyalists are now ‘living cheek by jowl with people they hate and fear’ (Templer, 2009, pp. 7, 10). On a less intense level, the relation-ships between ex-combatants collaborating on particular projects is underscored by this fear.

According to Adie Bird of the Lisburn Prisoners Support Project, this fear is more acute in some geographic areas than others, particularly in the areas near the border where ‘dissident’ activity is most frequent (Bird, 2010). According to several UDA leaders, ‘Protestants will always need to have a deterrent to that violence’ (Templer, 2009, p. 18), which, they claim, is the UDA’s role. Similarly, in 2007, the Belfast Telegraph commented that decommissioning was delayed because the guns were retained as ‘a security blanket, a “means of defence”, not offence’ (Belfast Telegraph, 2007). In other words, even if there was ‘no appetite for violence’ among most members of Loyalist communities, the idea that the UDA could respond if necessary was a crucial deter-rent to people ‘taking matters into their own hands’ (Templer, 2009, p. 6). Both of these comments suggest that the UDA and its members view the organization largely as a deterrent to violence, and not an inherently violent organization. This jibes with my argument that paramilitary organizations help to constitute threatworks used to con-trol or prevent violence, and become violent when these threatworks are breached.



Indeed, the threat of eradication experienced by Loyalists also relates to the loss of these organizations, their role in society or their resonance among the community. One individual who works with former UVF prisoners compared the process of transforming first ex-prisoners and then their paramilitary organizations as one of ‘dismantl[ing] the ille-gitimate security forces’ (Roberts, 2007). According to Bird, the idea that the UDA might be dismantled or divested of its ability to respond to violence was greeted by many individuals as a process that was moving too fast, and thus left them feeling insecure and anxious (Bird, 2010). Indeed, even those who wish to speed up the processes of transforma-tion and are thus not empathetic to this viewpoint acknowledge that resistance to it is drawn from a remaining need for security or ‘comfort’ within Loyalist communities (Purvis, 2010). Another ex-UVF leader, Billy Hutchinson, asserted that it is still necessary to preserve the struc-tures of paramilitary organizations, as they are an integral part of many Loyalist communities (Hutchinson, 2010) and act as crucial parts of the threatworks that allow them to preserve their communities in the face of threat. Several UDA members agree; they claim that the UDA’s ‘structure must remain; there can be no question of dissolving the organisation now’ (Templer, 2009, p. 14) because it plays a vital role in defusing tension at a local level – including death threats and rioting – and in helping the PSNI to maintain control. Indeed, according to Bird, the UDA’s role in policing communities remains so robust that they ‘need the police to fill the gap that we can no longer do [because of decommissioning]’ (Bird, 2010) – not vice versa.

Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group claims that this is especially important since, as a trade-off of integrating within the ‘peace process’, Loyalist paramilitaries have not only relinquished their capacity to enforce order in their communities, but are also rapidly losing the respect and authority upon which policymakers expect them to leverage in order to keep peace (Gallagher, 2010). Still others were concerned that, due to their embeddedness within transformative proc-esses and their lack of control over the direction of these processes, they might ‘get sucked in’ and turned into a mere auxiliary branch of government, thus losing their resonance within the community (Winstone, 2007). Furthermore, many of the individuals I interviewed felt that the reputation of Loyalist paramilitary organizations was severely damaged and continually threatened. This was not only due to allega-tions of criminality surrounding the Loyalist feuds in the early 2000s (see below), to the assumption by the media that the decommissioning process had been an exchange of ‘guns for [peace] money’, or that


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Loyalist organizations were using strategic ‘misbehaviour’ to manipulate funding bodies and government agencies (Hutchinson, 2010), but also because ‘mainstream Unionists’ and Republican politicians have tended to ‘demonize’ them (Bird, 2010; Gallagher, 2010). With regards to the second allegation, Bird claims that if he had gone to the authorities and said ‘“[the UDA wants] to hand in all of [its] guns, and we want to get money for them” – I’m not joking, I would have been killed’ (Bird, 2010), suggesting that the pride and integrity of the UDA – not just its power or capacity for violence – is still crucial to its members. These threats to the status, pride and authority of Loyalist paramilitary organizations has driven their concentrated effort to restore the reputa-tions of key organizations (see Chapter 8). Thus, despite the fact that the ‘peace process’ gave ex-combatants substantial attention, the trans-formative processes in question raised a radical threat to paramilitary organizations which, from these comments, are perceived at least by their leaders and members to be important aspects of the worlds built and inhabited by Loyalist communities.

Even more pronounced were the relative radical threats these individuals experienced vis-à-vis the transformation of Republican ex-combatants, and against a backdrop of escalating violence on the part of ‘dissident Republicans’. One of the greatest concerns voiced by inter-viewees was that Republicans had been able to access the resources and processes in question earlier than Loyalists, and had thus strengthened themselves in a manner that threatened the ultimate equality of the two groups. For instance, Gallagher remarked, Republican politicians were involved in the discussions that led to the granting of the PEACE funds, which gave them an opportunity to shape the norms, priorities and technical aspects of these schemes (Gallagher, 2010). Even within the negotiations leading up to the GF/BA, Loyalists tended to feel as if they were ‘an afterthought – if that!’ (Gallagher, 2010), or expected simply to follow the lead of Republicans rather than having their own ‘voice’ or visions for Northern Ireland (Bird, 2010; McDonald, 2010). Most of these interviewees claimed that their previous violent activities were only used as a response to Republican violence (and so was the process of decommissioning). However, this does not suggest that broader Loyalist communities did not have distinctive normative, political or ethical con-tributions to make to polity building, or distinctive worlds to preserve. The perception that these were excluded, on the whole, from mainstream policymaking generated anxiety among these individuals.

As a result of the perceived inequality of inclusion in decision-making processes, it is felt by many Loyalists that these processes



prioritize issues and areas that are of greatest concern to Republicans and their communities, without providing special attention the needs of Loyalist communities, or even exploring the idea that these might be different (Purvis, 2010; Gallagher, 2010). It was also asserted that, since their transformation was the priority of policymakers, Republican actors were ‘groomed to be the super-politicians they are today’ (McDonald, 2010) by the former as a means of ensconcing them firmly within the ‘peace process, whereas no such training was provided for Loyalists’. Others claimed that, due to their history of collective organization, their strategy and ideology, Republicans were ‘better prepared’ and more versed in the language and logic of trans-formative policies (McDonald, 2010; Gallagher, 2010). This reflects my suggestion that Republicans’ forms of world-building were simply closer to those promoted by the policies in question and thus join-ing these processes posed less of a radical threat to them. From this perspective, policies such as the PEACE programme may be perceived to reproduce or develop Republican worlds or forms of world-making, while excluding or negating potentially distinct Loyalist worlds. Thus, the worries experienced in this regard are not simply an example of zero-sum politics – that is, Loyalists do not necessarily believe that any gain for Republicans is automatically a loss for their community. What these issues reflect is the fear that ‘Republican’ forms of world-building will become dominant in the new polity to the point that Loyalist ones are ignored, negated or excluded. As such, the individu-als I interviewed viewed their participation in transformative proc-esses as an effort at ‘catch-up’ in a game in which they were ‘losers’, or ‘left behind’ (Gallagher, 2010; Purvis, 2010).

These issues are compounded by the fact that many Loyalists feel that they have been disowned, betrayed or even used by the mainstream unionist political parties. Despite having extensive relationships among politicians from the local level to Stormont, several interview-ees suggested that politicians only enter Loyalist communities in the weeks leading up to elections, and then only in a perfunctory manner (McDonald, 2010; Bird, 2010), or that politicians still appear to mistrust Loyalists or to be overly suspicious of their activities (Hutchinson, 2010). Most of those interviewed believe that this is at least in part because the UDP does not want them to be viewed as ‘respectable and electable’ and thus to threaten the party’s voter base. According to Bird, this raises a real threat to the UDP since their ability to raise local support is significantly stronger than those of the parties: ‘[the UDA] had a meeting on Sunday and it was 238 people. If any of the parties


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had a meeting next Sunday they couldn’t get 238 – they would be lucky if they got 30’ (Bird, 2010). Moreover, it was suggested that the his-tory and ideology of Republicanism accepts and even encourages the entry of ex-combatants into governmental positions, whereas main-stream Unionism tends to condemn it (Roberts, 2007; Purvis, 2010; Hutchinson, 2010).

As a result, many interviewees believed that mainstream Unionists were doing nothing to dispel (if not encouraging) a negative image of Loyalists, creating intense pressure on Loyalists to ‘prove their worth’ (Gallagher, 2010; Hutchinson, 2010). Many Loyalists feel that ad hom-inem judgements are made about them which are not applied to their Republican counterparts in the same manner. For instance, McDonald claimed that Loyalists have been framed by the media as a ‘super-criminal gang’ (McDonald, 2010). Gallagher stated that he has ‘never had a conviction for anything, and my name is blackened, my name is mud locally; but if I go out to the Republic of Ireland, or anywhere else in the world, and people hear what I’ve done, I’m like a frigging hero. It’s so frustrating’, adding that he gets more phone calls from Catholic politicians than he does from his own community (Gallagher, 2010). Similarly, Hutchinson suggested that Unionists would not recognize the community work done in Loyalist communities even when high-profile Republican politicians such as Martin McGuinness acknowledged it (Hutchinson, 2010). Indeed, there is a sense among Loyalists that ‘even if we [Loyalists] invented a cure for cancer we would be regarded with suspicion’ or ‘when a Protestant does something wrong he is immedi-ately a loyalist’ (Templer, 2009, p. 18), suggesting that the very word is a used as pejorative term. These comments underscore a general feeling that ‘people often look at the bad elements in [L]oyalism, and the good ones in [R]epublicanism’ (Templer, 2009, p. 18). They suggest not only that the image of Loyalism has been degraded in the eyes of the public, but even, from the perspective of those attempting to restore its meaning and resonance, subverted to reflect the opposite of the purposes for which it originally stood (McDonald, 2010). Moreover, the feeling that the respectability, status and esteem of Republicans is higher suggests an inequality regarding moral judgements about these two different phenomena and the worlds they help to create and sus-tain. In this sense, there is a strong threat that the norms, ideals and worlds unique to Loyalism may be drowned out not only relative to Republican, but also mainstream Unionist narratives – a problem not believed to be faced by Republicans, who are perceived to be ‘joined up’ from Sinn Fein down to community groups (Gallagher, 2010; McDonald,



2010; Hutchinson, 2007; Roberts, 2007). This means that the relative threat to Loyalists worlds is not only more intense as there appears to be a strong normative bias against Loyalism, and thus the likelihood of more support for its eradication, but this threat also derives from several sources.

The experience of (ir)resistibility

To what extent were these threats, or the ‘peace process’ itself, experi-enced as (ir)resistible to Loyalists? For the most part, the dynamics of irresistibility experienced by Republicans were similar to those expe-rienced by Loyalists. Firstly, there was a sense that whether or not all members of Loyalist communities agreed with the processes in question, all must ultimately join them or risk either exclusion or a return to violence (Purvis, 2010) – that, literally, ‘there is no other option’ (Bird, 2010). For Loyalists, this was underscored by the fact that, as a result of the trends discussed above, their failure visibly to engage with the ‘peace process’ would lead to their actual exclusion from polity-building and/or the complete degradation of their role in society. It is for this reason that many Loyalists are concerned that if they do not present a positive image of ‘how [they] will be remembered’ (Purvis, 2010; Bird, 2010), they may risk losing all support. Secondly, the manner in which the transformation of ex-combatants was presented by inter-viewees left a sense that there is little or no opportunity to contest or abstain from the processes in question. According to two interviewees who are current or past politicians, in the current climate, it is not a question of whether paramilitary groups and actors should engage in transformation, but when and how (fast) (Purvis, 2010; Hutchinson, 2010). This mirrors the issues discussed above, in which Republican ex-combatants suggested that they perceived little option but to become involved in transformative processes. Thirdly, the speed of transformation was identified by several interviewees as a factor which precluded much debate about whether to transform. Rather, the goal is to ensure that all Loyalist communities transform quickly and evenly enough to constitute them as a legitimate group within the new polity (McDonald, 2010; Bird, 2010), often under significant pressure from international actors or funders (Hutchinson, 2010). Fourthly, as mentioned above, Loyalists felt a strong sense of ‘voicelessness’. As Bird suggests:

It was the IRA campaign that was causing the real trouble – they had the semtex, they had the capability to plant bombs on the mainland;


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the British government’s overall plan … was really to stop the IRA campaign against the mainland that was causing massive worldwide headline. The belief would have always been that when the IRA went into ceasefire … Loyalists would automatically have to follow.

(Bird, 2010)

In other words, many Loyalists felt that they, as a group, had little normative agency within the ‘peace process’ and were merely expected to respond to dynamics, opportunities and constraints created by the actions of Republicans. This dynamic appears to be reproduced in a dif-ferent manner by Loyalist leaders who believe that the way to ensure the full participation of Loyalist communities in transformative proc-esses is to provide material incentives to which they can respond. This depletion or negation of their communal agency made constructive forms of resistance difficult.

Indeed, several interviewees presented very positive images of trans-formers – members of their communities who represented transformative processes – as compared to those who resisted them. According to Purvis, ‘most of those I would work with are people who are heavily involved in conflict transformation, who are keen, you know, so people who are opposed wouldn’t necessarily be anywhere near my radar’ (Purvis, 2010). She provided a stark contrast between ‘transformers’ and oppo-nents of transformation:

there are individuals in my community who are involved with community work; they’re confident in their own beliefs, happy in their own skin and they’re out doing work with other community groups … or you could get somebody sitting behind their TV, every-day, who want to take a knife out and stab the TV screen every time they see Gerry Adams, you know, and they call … the people who are doing community work traitors.

Others, particularly within the UDA, tend to draw a sharp dichotomy between those who actively promote the ‘peace process’ and ‘thugs’, ‘criminals’ and ‘extremists’ (McDonald, 2010; Hutchinson, 2010). This suggests that, just as a negative image of Loyalists is promoted by main-stream Unionists, a negative image of dissenting Loyalists is engen-dered by mainstream Loyalists. This exemplifies the manner in which the Loyalist leadership has, like its Republican counterparts, largely responded to the logic of long division by ‘passing on’ the dynamics of irresistibility to its own membership.



The logic of ‘long division’ and radical violence

The dynamics discussed above – in which certain groups are ‘transformed in’ to the processes of peace-building and others are strategically ‘transformed out’ – embody a powerful and familiar logic. They unfold like a prolonged operation of long division: they transform and inte-grate by dividing. More specifically, they attempt to define common denominators – that is, laws, norms, rules, ethics and the processes in which they are embodied – into which most, if not all, of the plural worlds found in a situation of conflict can be integrated. In order to be integrated, groups must present themselves as formal units which are plural in relation to other distinct units, but presumed to be homog-enous within themselves. As the processes of peace-building described in previous chapters unfurl and expand, they are expected to ensconce ever more demographic groups or segments of society. In each episode of expansion, more worlds are integrated and divided into the proc-esses of peace-building – and more, I shall argue, are divided out. As a result, silent pluralities – the range of positions and world(view)s that exist even within seemingly unitary organizations – are suppressed, excluded or even erased.

Indeed, the process of ‘long division’ involves powerful, often irresist-ible, dynamics of exclusion, negation and possible eradication. In order to achieve the necessary unanimity, organizations and movements must use a range of tactics – including persuasion, coercive command structures or even physical threats – to attain cohesion and compliance among their members. When dissent or the retention of ‘old’ forms of world-building among members threatens this process of long divi-sion in an irresistible way, the leaders of paramilitary organizations have often responded with violence. This, in turn, may lead to cycles of violence within and among such organizations. In the next chapter, I shall demonstrate how this dynamic has operated among paramilitary organizations involved in the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’.

In addition to the fact that they are premised on radical violence, these processes of long division are dangerous in another sense: they generate small but significant remainders. This term refers to the various groups – whether formal or informal, existing or imagined – that are excluded, negated or otherwise radically threatened by the processes in question or, because they remain ensconced in different worlds or modes of world-building than their leadership, may be unable to engage with these proc-esses. Simply by retaining ‘old’ worlds or forms of world-building which clash with those in the ascendant, these groups create radical threats to


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peace-building actors and paramilitary groups seeking transformation alike. As a result, they are often silenced, disowned, negated or even demonized by the ‘mainstream’ of their own organizations; indeed, in many cases, they are not permitted by paramilitary leaders to exist (that is, to be rec-ognized or validated), let alone to resist. In such conditions of irresistibility, they often respond with physical or material violence, prompting cycles of violence within and among the organizations in question.

As mentioned above, the processes that compose peace interventions are designed to integrate conflicting groups by ensconcing them within a common set of norms, practices, rules and ethics, and thus standard-izing their modes of world-making. As I argued in previous chapters, these processes may nominally preserve sources which may be radical to the groups in question, and which may express difference – for instance, cultural elements or identities – but these elements must be preserved through the forms of world-making prescribed by the peace intervention (see Chapter 4). Whether, and how, a group or individual may become integrated in these processes is based on the logic, rules and ethics of the processes themselves. For instance, in the processes of decommissioning undertaken by both Republican and Loyalist para-military groups (see below) as a key component of their full integration within the peace process, the groups in question were admitted entry into the process by excluding those members who retained, or simply believed it was necessary to retain, weapons. As it has been made clear that decommissioning is a necessary condition of paramilitary structures remaining within the processes of peace-building, such views consti-tute a radical threat to transforming paramilitary organizations as well as proponents of the ‘peace process’.

On a broader level, the GF/BA worked in precisely the same manner: those who ultimately (albeit after long negotiations) agreed with the tenets of the document were able to take part in its processes and to assume leadership roles. Some of these individuals are now ensconced in the construction of the ‘dissident’ identity, a powerful vehicle for ad hominem exclusion from policymaking processes. As I shall discuss below, those who publicly expressed disagreement tend to be framed as spoilers, criminals, opportunists or, indeed, ‘dissidents’. In the words of former UDA brigadier Jackie McDonald ‘it wasn’t them over there [the PIRA] against us. It was the people who supported the Good Friday Agreement against the people and the peace against those who didn’t’ (McDonald and Alan, 2010).

As the peace processes unfolded – whether in the form of power-shar-ing arrangements such as the St Andrews agreement, or the successive



PEACE Programmes – there were opportunities not only to more deeply embed and transform those groups already engaged in transformative processes, but also to expand these processes to include more groups or individuals. This process tends to be viewed as one of social inclusion (see European Union, 2008; DSDNI, 2004), yet the logic of inclusion it pro-motes is premised on a stark calculus of exclusion. As each new process is unfurled or expanded, certain groups are (further) transformed, and thus empowered within a polity dominated by transformative logics, while others are further alienated and ‘fall behind’ as they are divided out (see Chapter 8). This creates a new source of relative radical threat, in which those groups that are transformed/transformers not only attain power in relation to excluded groups, but also the power to target the latter for trans-formation (and perhaps eradication). For instance, those paramilitaries who joined in the peace process early on, such as high-profile politi-cians like Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness, have not only gained significant political power, but also the ability to help steer the process of conflict transformation, and thus to designate which groups must be tar-geted and/or excluded. This has important implications in the context of the formation of the ‘dissident Republican’ construct, as I shall describe below. In the case of Loyalist groups, the pressure of relative threat was sufficient to prompt a process of severe exclusion, negation and alienation which generated dynamics of radical violence within their own groups.

Inclusion and transformation, I shall argue, are enabled by acts of exclusion, negation and, quite often, radical violence. These tend to go unnoticed by policymakers who have not been involved in paramilitary activity because they tend to assume that paramilitary organizations act as homogenous units, and are oblivious to (or choose to ignore) the dynamics of violence used to forge and sustain this homogeneity. Indeed, a primary rationale behind actively recruiting paramilitary groups as agents of transformation has been the attempt to capitalize upon the discipline and authority they can maintain within their ranks (Gallagher, 2010). I shall demonstrate, however, that multiple modes of world-building or worlds exist within paramilitary groupings, many of which are threatened or eradicated by the process of long division. Moreover, those policymakers who do have a paramilitary background have strong incentives to understate, deny or demonize those within their organizations that hold different worldviews, or occupy different worlds; they perceive their very survival within the peace process (and perhaps in general) to depend upon this. Indeed, it is often their own experience of potentially irresistible radical threat that compels them to transform/integrate themselves within the ‘peace process’ and, in so


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doing, generate radical threats and even violence within their own organizations. The violence enacted by ‘dissidents’ and other ‘dangerous remainders’ is at least partly a response to these cycles of violence and the logic of long division which drives them.

Remainders

What, exactly, is meant by the term ‘remainder’? It is not simply a means for extending the metaphor of ‘long division’, nor does it suggest the mere residue or ‘outside’ of the processes in question. Rather, the concept has important implications within political theory, particularly in the work of pluralists: it refers to the many fractures, gaps and divisions, ‘noise and energies’ that circulate in all polities and thwart attempts by policymakers to make ‘all the elements of the democratic imaginary fit together on the same space’ (Connolly, 1995, pp. 99, 153). Indeed, as Honig suggests, this approach seeks to eliminate dissonance, conflict, struggle – to ‘get politics right, over, and done with’ (Honig, 1993, p. 2). As Young (2000, p. 47) comments, even supposedly pluralistic practices such as deliberation are often employed ‘as a means of discrediting or excluding modes of politi-cal communication deemed disorderly or disruptive’ – in other words, plural modes of world-building. Indeed, as Honig (1993, p. 2) claims, mainstream democracy tends to frame politics itself (or the realization of difference and plurality) as a ‘disruptive practice that resists the consoli-dations and closures of administrative and juridical settlement’. Due to this ethos, Young avers, when the practices of deliberative democracy are used effectively to ‘label a certain range of positions extreme in order to dismiss them, such norms wrongfully exclude some opinions and modes of their expression’ (Young, 2000, p. 48). As such, according to Honig, the goal of rationalizing, integrative forms of democracy to

erase the resistance from political orderings and the struggle from subjectivity, eliminating the excess that haunts the formation [of subjects] and expelling … disruption from politics … engenders remainders that could disempower and perhaps even undermine democratic institutions and citizens … if those remainders are not engaged, they may return to haunt and destabilize the very closures that deny their existence.

(Honig, 1993, p. 14)

Indeed, Connolly claims that these remainders raise a particular threat to dominant groups or identities, who are shaken by the ruptures



and breaks created by pluralization. As he puts it ‘social pluralism … is often presented as an achievement to be protected, while the erup-tion of new drives to pluralization are often represented as perils to this achievement’ (Connolly, 1995, p. xiv). This is of particular relevance in the context of peace intervention, especially agreements such as the GF/BA, in which efforts are made to recognize and even enshrine plu-ral identities, rights or social groups, but which are ruptured by efforts to pluralize these constructs – or indeed, the agreement itself (see Chapter 3). Indeed, as Honig suggests, insofar as dominant systems recognize the phenomena of plurality, it is not out of respect or recog-nition for these phenomena, but rather from an impulse to convert and, ultimately, integrate them (Honig, 1993). She claims that when new actors are inducted into the processes that convert and integrate them, their ‘function is not to open up alternative possibilities or to investigate any unexpected effects of their initial agreement but to consolidate existing practices’ (Honig, 1993, p. 135). This comment has direct relevance to the integration of paramilitary organizations. The formation and integration of the ex-combatant identity within the ‘peace process’ was intended to imbue the former with specific modes of world-building and to empower its members to promote these as a means for further integrating the polity.

As Connolly suggests, the fear regarding pluralization, or what I have called plural forms of world-building, stems from the spectre of frag-mentation. Fragmentation is both the antithesis of the integrative, developmental ethos of transformative processes, and, not coinciden-tally, the ‘material’ which it converts in order to sustain these processes (see Chapters 3 and 4). According to Connolly, however, ‘to pluralize … is not to fragmentize. To dogmatize is to fragmentize’ (Connolly, 1991, p. 197). In other words, it is the very attempt to reconcile and integrate plurality by means of dogmatic principles or rigid universality that frag-ments a polity. Below, I shall examine how the homogeneity and compli-ance demanded by the ‘peace process’ contributed to the fragmentation of several paramilitary organizations by upsetting the balance between the plural worlds and forms of world-building engaged in by their members, and creating dynamics of radical violence between them.

Long division and paramilitary organizations: As the beast sleeps

As discussed in this chapter, the leadership of major paramilitary organi-zations faced significant radical threats and had good reason to doubt


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the resistibility of these threats. From a distance, it appears as if they responded to these threats by not resisting – that is, by taking an active role within them – or by contesting them in ways that did not threaten the basic tenets or processes of peace-building, such as parliamentary politics. As McDonald put it: ‘I don’t think we can stop a United Ireland. But, act-ing together, we can slow it down, at the same time promoting Ulster and making us secure within the United Kingdom as long as we can’ (Wood, 2006, p. 279). To do so, he believed, it was necessary to bring the UDA and other paramilitary organizations firmly within the fold of the ‘peace process’. Yet the transformation of paramilitary organizations was not based solely on ideals such as dialogue, attitudinal change and respect for the other. It was, in large part, made possible by dynamics of radical – and often physical – violence enacted through paramilitary structures.

Gary Mitchell’s (2001) play As the Beast Sleeps reflects these dynam-ics by exploring the dynamics within a fictionalized UDA, between its leadership, former combatants, and their friends and family. The main character, Kyle, is the leader of a local paramilitary squad that has been instructed to end the extra-legal activities they once undertook to sup-port their organization. As a result, they have lost their livelihood and sense of esteem within the community. Kyle’s best friend, Freddie, and his wife, Sandra, are deeply opposed to the (unnamed) GF/BA and the direction that the leadership has taken in order to conform to it. When friction arises between Freddie and representatives of the leadership, Kyle is asked by his commanding officer (Larry) to use his combat unit to identify and punish these ‘renegades’ – that is, any of those who disa-gree with and flout the leadership’s decisions. Larry, too, is acting under pressure from his commanding officer, Alec, who relies on the organiza-tion to provide funding for his political career (one to which Larry also aspires). Kyle immediately objects to leading a ‘punishment squad’, but is given an ultimatum: if he will not do it, then Larry threatens to select another member of the organization who may punish people arbitrarily or based on personal vendettas. Moreover, Larry tells Kyle, ‘if you refuse to do this … someone might suggest that you are a renegade’ and, it is implied, attack him or his family (p. 48). Faced with this direct threat to himself and his family, the latter reluctantly agrees to do the work in question. Ultimately, when a robbery at the organization’s club takes place, Kyle is forced by Larry to bring Freddie to the club’s punishment room and beat him into pulp. In so doing, he discovers that it was both Freddie and Sandra who were responsible for the robbery.

The plot of the play illustrates the manner in which dynamics of radi-cal threat and violence were passed from the level of paramilitary leaders



down to the lowest ranks of the organization. Alec, the highest-ranking among the characters, responded to the threats raised against his organi-zation by throwing himself into the ‘peace process’ – not coincidentally by maintaining, in more legitimate forms, the tactics of money launder-ing and racketeering which were used to fund paramilitary activity in the past (Mitchell, 2001, p. 34). In order to survive as a legitimate poli-tician, he must erase his connection to the young men (and women) who continue to engage in the forms of world-building they did during the Troubles. Indeed, as funders and governmental bodies required ‘safe hands’ (Gallagher, 2010; McKearney, 2007) for these processes, the leadership needed to exclude and, as the play outlined above sug-gests, even disown large swathes of their organizations. Alec delegates this task to his subordinate, Larry, who is deeply threatened by the prospect of being ‘left behind’ by the unfolding peace process (p. 22). Throughout the play, it is reiterated frequently that the decisions made by leadership are not to be debated by ‘soldiers’ or those lower-ranked members, and that ‘talking’ involves using the same chains of command relied on during violent operations to render threats and otherwise ensure compliance. Thus, Larry utilizes the command structure by creating an irresistible radical threat for Kyle, who responds by passing this threat down to Freddie and Sandra, the lowest-ranked, and thus least powerful characters (in Sandra’s case, unranked, as women were not allowed to join Loyalist paramilitary organizations). These two characters become the remainders of transformative processes which have excluded them and placed them in a dynamic of radical violence: their literal eradication (death) or the loss of their world or forms of world-building. Indeed, they are the characters most vehemently opposed to the ‘peace process’, not least because it has irrevocably changed and threatened their way of life. Kyle, too, is the victim of this cycle of violence, as it destroys the things most essential to him: his family and his closest friendship.

This play is not a real record of historical events (although its author has lived for most of his life in an estate where events of this kind were likely to have taken place), but it succinctly illustrates the manner in which dynamics of radical violence circulated within paramilitary organizations as a result of the logic of long division. The dynamic of radical threat and violence is passed down through the ranks, generat-ing significant remainders and placing them in dynamics of irresistible, potentially radical, threat. In the following chapters, I shall focus on the various forms of violence and dynamics of irresistibility generated by these processes within real paramilitary organizations.


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In many cases, this violence involved the exclusion, negation or even eradication of plural worlds/forms of world-building within paramilitary organizations and the communities in which they were embedded. The multiplicity of Republicanism has been much commented upon (see English, 2003), but the existence of fractures within Loyalism tends to be framed as a struggle between its ‘criminal’ and ‘respectable’ (Bird, 2010, McDonald, 2010) elements. Next, I shall argue that the rifts and fissures within all of the major paramilitary formations involved in the Troubles provide evidence of multiple forms of world-building, which were in many cases suppressed, extinguished or excluded as a means of entering the ‘peace process’.

Conclusions

The trans-formation of the ‘ex-combatant’ category, and its inclusion within the processes of peace-building, has generated several dynam-ics of radical threat for those actors involved. Some of these are direct, as they involve the removal or alteration of significant aspects of the worlds or modes of world-building engaged in by these actors. Many, however, derive from indirect radical threats which arise not from rivalries between the groups themselves, but rather from the inequali-ties they have experienced vis-à-vis the processes of transformation. These radical threats have placed significant pressure upon paramilitary actors to transform in order to ensure the survival of their organizations. In many cases, however, they do so by passing on the radical threats generated by transformative processes through their own ranks. The logic of ‘long division’ which drives this trend involves ensconcing ever more segments of a community – including the various factions of paramilitary groups – within the ‘peace process’. At the same time, the transformation and integration of these groups generates remainders: groups that are not only excluded, but also faced with radical threats vis-à-vis the processes of transformation. So far, I have discussed these dynamics largely in conceptual terms. Now, I shall examine the role they have played in the transformation of paramilitary organizations as part of the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’.


168

The radical threats created by the transformation of ex-combatants and the logic of ‘long division’ faced by the leaders of paramilitary organizations has had a powerful effect upon the members of these groups and the communities in which they are embedded. In order to survive the radical threats discussed in Chapter 7, paramilitary leaders were compelled to deliver their organizations into the ‘peace process’ as units, and to guarantee their compliance with its rules and norms. Although significant discussion took place between these leaders and representatives of formal political parties during the talks leading up to the signing of the GF/BA, this remained largely at the elite level. However, despite their monolithic images, within the ranks of both Loyalist and Republican paramilitary organizations existed plural world(view)s and modes of world-making. By virtue of the logic of long division, many of these silent pluralities were repressed, excluded, threatened and even eliminated, creating a strong dynamic of radical violence within and among paramilitary organizations. In many cases, where the degree of radical threat became irresistible, some of the groups in question responded with physical or mate-rial violence, and the more familiar patterns of violence recognized by policymakers and journalists emerged. It is this set of dynamics, I shall argue, that helped to ignite the ‘Loyalist feuds’ of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and, ultimately, the (re)emergence of ‘dis-sident Republican’ violence that is occurring at the time of writing (May 2010). By analyzing these dynamics, I shall demonstrate how the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’ – and the acts of physical and material violence that plague it – has been least partly predicated on radical violence.

8Dangerous Remainders: Long Division and Cycles of Violence in the Northern Ireland ‘Peace Process’


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Loyalists and long division

Here, I shall focus on three main junctures at which remainders were generated, excluded and, in some cases, eradicated through the instru-mentalization of Loyalist paramilitary structures to the imperatives of transformation. It should be noted that it remains very difficult to gain access to low-ranked individuals in any of the major paramilitary groups, often due to their persistent fears that they might be implicated in crimes (see Chapter 6). As such, I have drawn upon an analysis of the major dynamics as well as interviews with Loyalist paramilitary leaders undertaken between 2007 and 2010.

The CLMC ceasefire and long division

The events through which cycles of violence within Loyalism emerged began, in large part, with the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) ceasefire in 1994, which brought together the leadership of the UVF/RHC, UDA/UFF and their respective political parties (the Progressive Unionist Party(PUP) and the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP)). This organization issued a joint statement signaling an unequivocal end to Loyalist paramilitary violence, conditional on the maintenance of the ceasefire declared by the PIRA. In issuing this joint statement, the CLMC purported not only to represent Loyalism as a whole, but to act as a guarantor of the unity and compliance of its components. In so doing, it created the impression of a monolithic Loyalist bloc, or at least one that had attained unanimity in terms of its strategy and orientation to the peace process. The creation of this organization was essential in gaining a position for both of the major political parties in question in the multi-party talks that produced the GF/BA.

Yet the CLMC was, from its inception, an uneasy amalgam of organiza-tions with very different normative, ideological and strategic aims, not a homogenous unit. Indeed, one of its most vocal PUP-affiliated members remarked that the UDA were to be taken as seriously as cartoon characters, and UDA members reacted with concern to the speed at which UVF and PUP-affiliated members sought to accommodate the GF/BA and nation-alist leaders (Wood, 2006, pp. 236, 239). The UDA activist John White believed that the UVF had killed several UDA members ‘for no other reason than rivalry and disrespect for an organization [the UDA] which the UVF saw as a threat to its power base’ (Wood, 2006, p. 239). Moreover, it is believed that many within the CLMC were concerned that the PUP had imposed a socialist ideology upon a group with very heterogeneous



beliefs (some ultra-conservative), and some even felt that ‘the only way forward was to bring [Northern Ireland] to levels of violence not seen since the early 1970s’ (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). In addition, the CLMC’s unitary, hierarchical organizational structure and decision-making processes masked the very different forms of world-building that took place within each organization. For instance, the structures of each organization were distinct: ‘unlike the UVF, which [was] run on Bolshevik-style centralist lines, the UDA [was] a loose federal alliance subject to the conflicting whims of individual “brigadiers”‘ (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000, p. 400). Thus, the united front presented by the CLMC hid a variety of worlds and forms of world-building – whether ideological, structural or normative – within Loyalist paramilitarism.

This could only create tensions as the CLMC leadership unilater-ally promoted a pro-GF/BA agenda. According to Jim Cusack and Henry MacDonald, ‘the peace process and the [Good Friday/Belfast] Agreement … left Unionism and Loyalism more fractured and bitterly divided than at any time in its history’ (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000, p. 403). This was compounded by the fact that, with the demise of the UDP in 1998, ‘the biggest Loyalist paramilitary body had been left with no political reward for the extent to which it had supported the peace process and the eventual … agreement’ (Wood, 2006, p. 231) – not to mention the fact that this support for the ‘peace process’ had set its leadership at odds with much of its membership. This meant that there was intense pressure upon Loyalist paramilitary leaders engaged in transformative processes to ensure that they remained within these processes, to ‘divide in’ as much of their organizations as possible, and, simultaneously, to divide out those who threatened the overall process.

This logic of long division impelled Loyalist leaders to use a range of acts, including physical violence or the threat thereof to maintain compliance among their ranks and between various organizations. Much of this violence was physical or material and was often framed as an attempt to counter ‘anti-social’ behaviour or drug-dealing within communities controlled by paramilitary organizations. Indeed, one of the most common means for excluding, repressing and even killing members of paramilitary organizations was to frame them – whether accurately or inaccurately – as drug dealers or criminals. As an associate of the LVF leader Billy Wright (see below) commented upon his death:

it’s always been the same with the UVF [leadership] in Belfast. Once you stand up to them or question their authority they start using black propaganda. You are either a drug dealer, a child molester or a



tout. They try to discredit you within your local community and set you up for assassination.

(Anderson, 2004, p. 51)

Indeed, as I shall argue below, the construction of the ‘criminal’ or ‘drug dealer’ identity – contrasted with the ‘legitimate’ image of trans-forming paramilitary leaders – was central to the Loyalist ‘feuds’. It is often unclear whether these actors were ‘purely’ criminal or acting on other motivations (see below). Indeed, in periods of violence involving armed groups, it is common for interdependencies to develop between criminal activity and the more politicized activities in question (see McMullin, 2009), which was certainly the case with most paramilitary actors in Northern Ireland – including those leaders who became active in the ‘peace process’. Whether or not they were strictly accurate, these categories became a powerful tool of long division. On the basis of these categories, actors in each of the major paramilitary groups engaged in strategies of punishment and control against their own ranks, members of other paramilitary organizations, and the communities in which they were ensconced. Indeed, after the signing of the GF/BA, it is believed that attacks on ‘anti-social elements in Protestant communities’ increased in comparison to the time preceding it (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000, p. 378). Moreover, after the 2000 truce that followed a lengthy exchange of killings between the UDA and the UVF, each organization agreed to revive the system of ‘provost marshals’, who would act in local areas in response to any signs of violence. These individuals were given the kind of assignment described in Mitchell’s play: ‘the provost marshals … were for the most part men able and willing to hand out severe beatings to anyone transgressing the [1994 CLMC] ceasefire’s terms’ (Wood, 2006, p. 257). In this example, physical violence was directly employed to sustain the position and influence of transforming paramilitary leaders engaged in the ‘peace process’. It should also be noted that in some cases, it is believed, provost marshals also punished those who dis-rupted the lucrative drug trade secretly condoned by some local leaders (Wood, 2006), which suggests that opposition to drug-dealing was applied strategically rather than comprehensively. Furthermore, due to the terms of the ceasefire, Loyalist paramilitaries were bound by a ‘first-strike’ policy: that is, they could only engage in violence if Republicans attacked them first, ruling out punishment killings within and among their own organizations. To circumvent this problem, a new organization – the Red Hand Defenders – was formed and used by the UDA and UFF (and later the LVF) to carry out a number of killings within their own organizations



and, allegedly, attacks on Catholics who were not formally affiliated with the IRA (Wood, 2006; Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). The use of this pseudonym meant that physical violence could be used without compromising the position of any of the paramilitary groups that had signed on to the ceasefire. Indeed, the later disbanding of this group, as well as threats and violence against its alleged members, provided these organizations with an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the ‘peace process’ and to contrast themselves with ‘criminal’ elements. Each of these examples demonstrates how violence was used to sustain the unity, discipline and obedience necessary for the major paramilitary groups and their political wings to remain ensconced within transforma-tive processes.

Billy Wright and the LVF

This image of unanimity, however, was shattered by the Loyalist ‘feuds’ that took place almost immediately following the ceasefire. Although generally dismissed as ‘gangland battles for supremacy among rival terror organizations’ (Erwin, 2003). However, it is difficult to tell whether, or to what degree, the nature of the feuds was determined by individual power struggles within paramilitary organizations, standoffs between organizations with regards to control over territory, face-off between ‘criminal’ members (that is, those involved in drug-dealing or other crime) and ‘legitimate’ members or, indeed, orientations to the ‘peace process’ as mentioned above. Here, however, I shall focus on how the feuds were driven by the alienation, exclusion and radical threats to key individuals who opposed the decisions of the leadership with regards to the ‘peace process’.

Very soon after the ceasefire was declared, a fissure began to form around the figure of Billy Wright, leader of the mid-Ulster branch of the UVF. Wright has been described as a ruthless killer and (by the late PUP leader David Ervine) as ‘Northern Ireland’s first ever public terror-ist’ (Moloney, 2010, p. 456). Yet his controversial role within Loyalism initially emerged not from his reputation of killing, but rather from his strong normative opposition to the GF/BA and the political decisions of Loyalist paramilitary leaders. Indeed, Wright was initially supportive of the CLMC ceasefire and even described it to reporters as ‘the happiest day of [his] life’ (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000, p. 324). His opposi-tion to the way in which Loyalist participation in the ‘peace process’ developed related to his fears that too much would be lost if certain concessions and accommodations were made, particularly to the Dublin government (Anderson, 2004). Specifically, he was concerned that the



actions of David Trimble and others were tantamount to the ‘selling out’ of Loyalism, and raised the risk that ‘Northern Ireland [could be] lost forever’ (LVF, 1998) if the ‘peace process’ continued as it was. According to his father, David Wright:

[The UVF leadership] accused Billy of not wanting peace. Nothing was further from the truth. Billy wanted peace as much as any other man in Northern Ireland … But, unlike the UVF leadership at the time, Billy had principles and didn’t agree with the price the Protestant people were being asked to pay to achieve that peace … he ultimately paid the highest price possible for those same principles … he was a roadblock that had to be removed [by the UVF leadership] at all costs.

(Anderson, 2004, p. 55)

Wright’s concerns about the direction of the ‘peace process’ came to a head in 1995 in the events surrounding the Drumcree marches, in which a standoff between the Orange Order and police occurred when the former tried to march through a Catholic-dominated neighbour-hood in Wright’s local town of Portadown (see Ross, 2007). According to a close associate, ‘Wright viewed the Drumcree situation as more than just a parade down a road in Portadown. Instead he looked on it as a direct attack on the Protestant way of life and culture … its outcome would affect every Orange Parade in Northern Ireland’ (Anderson, 2004, p. 54). His biographer claims that Wright’s son remarked to his father after the initial Drumcree standoff that the Orange parades would never march down that route again (Anderson, 2004, p. 48). These comments suggest that, for Wright, Drumcree symbolized the eradication of the Loyalist, and perhaps even wider Protestant, way of life and the loss of its core traditions. At the same time, he felt powerless to affect events, stating that ‘we knew the government intended to push the political process through and in so doing would render the loyalist paramilitaries useless’ (Anderson, 2004, p. 49).

During this period, Wright began to accumulate support in the mid-Ulster region and formed the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), which was believed to be responsible for a number of killings, beatings and other acts in the Portadown area, as well as alleged drug-dealing (Moloney, 2010). At the 1996 march in Drumcree, Wright and his supporters actively clashed with police (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). At the same time, a Catholic taxi driver (Michael McGoldrick) was found dead and it was alleged by the UVF leadership in Belfast that this was the work of the LVF. However, the chain of events leading to this killing



remain murky. Wright’s father claims that the UVF framed his son for the murder in order to eliminate him on the grounds that he had broken the ceasefire (Anderson, 2004, p. 55), as a means for removing a powerful threat to the leadership. At the same time, David Ervine claimed that Wright and the LVF had arranged the killing to discredit the UVF leadership (Moloney, 2010, p. 453). Regardless, the response of the UVF was swift: in August, 1996, the UVF Brigade staff decided to stand down the mid-Ulster unit, although some senior members believe that this decision had been taken long before the events in question (Anderson, 2004, p. 60). Indeed, Wright’s biographer claims that, in a meeting between senior Orange Order members and the then-RUC, it was remarked that Wright would not ‘be a part of the [Drumcree] problem in 1997’, which Wright’s father believes was a reference to a plan to remove his son, rather than to his imprisonment. At any rate, the mid-Ulster branch of the UVF was disbanded on grounds of ‘treason’, and Wright was given 72 hours to leave the country or face death (Anderson, 2004, p. 62) – an extreme case of irresistible radical threat – which Wright defied. In January, 1997, Wright was sentenced to two years in prison for threatening to kill a woman in Portadown to prevent her from giving evidence against members of his organization who may have been involved in a series of assaults (Anderson, 2004, p. 63). During this period of imprisonment, the UVF leadership offered to cancel Wright’s expulsion if he would fall into line with their policies, to which he responded with three demands: the introduction of a rulebook for Loyalist paramilitaries similar to the IRA’s ‘Green book’; the presence of leaders from all geographic areas on the UVF Brigade Staff; and the stipulation that all members of the UVF could vote ‘according to their individual consciences’ on decisions regarding the ‘peace process’ (Anderson, 2004, p. 65). These demands were apparently rejected outright.

It was during his imprisonment that Wright was shot dead by members of the INLA, although speculation exists as to how the organization was able to kill him, and whether prison guards or others may have been complicit in the killing; an enquiry was launched into this in 2004 after the investigations and report of the Canadian judge Peter Cory into possible collusion in six controversial deaths (Billy Wright Inquiry, 2010). This Enquiry ultimately found that state collusion was not a fac-tor in Wright’s death. Wright’s biographer expressed concern over this process, claiming that possible proof of collusion in Wright’s killing ‘is something [the] British government cannot afford to allow. They have invested too heavily in the Northern Ireland political process to allow it to collapse for the sake of truth and justice’ (Anderson, 2004, p. 216).



It is also interesting to note that the INLA members who killed Wright claimed that since he posed a ‘serious threat to the nationalist com-munity’, his killing was ‘far from being an attack on the peace process [… It] was a positive blow for peace in Ireland’ (INLA, 2004). Perhaps not surprisingly, Wright’s death was used by his supporters to justify a string of attacks on Catholic targets after the killing, based on the belief that the ‘IRA under another guise’ had made a ‘first strike’ (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000, pp. 367–8). Regardless of the circumstances surround-ing his death, Wright posed a radical threat to Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries alike not primarily because of his extra-legal activities (which most paramilitary actors had been engaged with at some point), but also because of his perceived capacity to rupture the unfolding peace process. As a result, he was met with conditions of irresistible threat, which ultimately took the form of physical violence.

Wright was hardly a powerless (and by no means blameless) individual, but his activities prompted a cycle of violence within and among Loyalist paramilitaries that ultimately impacted upon his (mostly young) lower-ranked supporters. Notably, the UVF raised death threats against indi-viduals believed to be associated with Wright. The prolonged UVF–LVF feud, which involved an exchange of killings that took place between 1999 and 2007, began when a dozen members of the UVF attacked with pick-axe handles and clubs a group of LVF members who were toasting the memory of Wright in a pub near his former home (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). This lead to a concerted effort to eliminate the LVF in the following years. In 2005, the UVF ordered attacks against Jackie Mahood, an LVF member who claimed to be retired and solely working as a taxi driver, in order to drive him out of the Shankill area and thus consolidate UVF control within it (McDonald, 2005). Between July and August, 2005, the UVF killed four individuals believed associ-ated with the LVF, including a civilian not affiliated with either group (McCambridge, 2005). It is widely believed that these killings were intended to eradicate the LVF and thus remove the threat it continued to raise to the UVF. However, this hard-line approach generated a new radical threat for the UVF: its political wing and most direct connection to the ‘peace process’, the PUP, threatened to sever all ties with the UVF if it continued along this path. Indeed, the party issued a statement that it was committed to working only ‘with all those committed to trans-forming loyalist communities’ (Belfast Telegraph, 2005). On 30 October 2005, the LVF announced that it had ordered its units to stand down (Melaugh, n.d.), yet this, too, created a dynamic of irresistibility within the splinter group. In 2007, violence continued under the name of what



Mahood described as a ‘drug gang’ using the name of the LVF (Breen and McGuigan, 2007). At the same time, the UVF expelled over 60 members of its organization in mid-Ulster (the original source of the LVF splinter group) by the ‘Shankill-based leadership’. The latter claimed that

There is some dissension within the UVF’s ranks in the mid-Ulster area over the direction the group has taken and that’s why the leadership has stepped in … a lot of the men didn’t take it too well because many of them believe there is still a threat from dissident republicans in the area. These men were disobeying orders and other members have been told that this will not be tolerated … because the leadership is sticking to its stance on keeping everyone behind the one strategy.

(Breen, 2007)

These quotes illustrate the manner in which Loyalist paramilitaries con-sistently used tactics irresistible to their membership – whether the use of rigid command structures, physical violence, exclusion or criminali-zation – to maintain the unity required to guarantee their place within formal politics. Thus, each time the coercive tactic of ‘standing down’ was used by paramilitary leaders – whether the UDA, UVF or LVF – some of those excluded, punished or negated by this tactic responded by cre-ating irresistible radical threats, including physical violence or death.

Johnny Adair and the UVF–UDA feuds

The efforts on the part of the UVF to eliminate the LVF were inter-twined with the broader feud between the UVF and UDA that unfurled around the character of Johnny Adair, a supporter of Wright. Adair, who was a UFF commander in the Shankill area and was, at the time, engag-ing in a power struggle among UDA leaders (BBC, 2000). Adair, the first individual jailed for ‘directing terrorism’, was released from his 16-year sentence early under the terms of the GF/BA and, like Wright, initially claimed to support the Agreement whole-heartedly. Indeed, on the day of his release, his mentor and UDP politician John White claimed that he had come to the release in order to ‘thank Mr. Adair personally for his role in the peace process from its inception … [and his] unwavering support for the peace process’ (Wood, 2006, p. 240). However, immedi-ately upon his release, he began to consolidate local control in his native Shankill area, in part by using tactics of conflictual world-building key to the creation of Loyalist threatworks during the Troubles, such as the painting of curbstones and the restoration or creation of new



paramilitary murals (Wood, 2006). At the same time, however, he engaged in a power struggle with the UDA leadership, apparently as a means of taking the organization in a direction different from that promoted by its leaders. Indeed, at one point he threatened to negate the CLMC ceasefire, claiming that he would call it off if nationalists did not stop attacks on Protestant homes (it is believed that he organized several attacks on Catholic homes in reprisal) (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). This, and his affiliation with the LVF, pitted him against not only the UDA leadership but also the UVF. Moreover, in a dynamic that aptly illustrates the power of indirect radical threats, his actions ignited the feud between these organizations; the UVF blamed the UDA for allowing Adair to gain power, and the UDA blamed the UVF for the actions of the LVF, which provided the normative thrust behind Adair’s actions (once again, a confusing combination of crime, brutality and genuine normative opposition to the ‘peace process’).

Adair attempted to bring this feud to a head (and perhaps thus to consolidate a leadership position) during a ‘Loyalist Day of Culture’ in 2000, in which a parade of Loyalist bands passed the Rex bar on the Shankill Rd (a well-known UVF pub) and unfurled a large LVF banner in front of it. This lead to a prolonged exchange of violence between high-profile members of the UVF and UDA (see BBC, 2000b). In 2002, Adair was ordered back to prison on the basis of a violation of the conditions of his release, as a means for ending this exchange of violence as the battle between the UDA and UVF continued.

Meanwhile, the mainstream UDA leadership, particularly in south and east Belfast, was increasingly concerned by Adair’s behaviour and began to intimidate or attack individuals who did not cut ties with Adair (see Erwin, 2002). These individuals threatened the UDA in a variety of ways: by violating its command structures and the direc-tives of its leadership; by engaging in illicit and illegal activities such as drug-dealing, which created a very negative public image for the organization; and, crucially, by prolonging violence which threatened to disqualify the UDA from any role in the ‘peace process’. The current UDA leadership blames individuals such as Adair for destroying the reputation of the UDA in the eyes of the public and within Protestant communities. McDonald, among other UDA leaders,1 was involved in a long-standing battle with Adair, and spent much of the early 2000s in the heavily fortified Taughmonagh estate, guarded 24 hours a day by armed men (McDonald, 2010). In spring, 2010, he showed me the apartment blocks where armed guards were positioned to shoot Adair or suspected agents, and photos taken of these guards which were



distributed to local newspapers in order to warn Adair off. He described this period as such:

[When I got out of prison in the 1990s] it was a completely different place … There was an awful lot of murders going on, assassinations. It was just killing for the sake of killing, or extorting money for someone’s personal use, not for Loyalist prisoners … I didn’t really approve of it … [as soon] as I got a chance to have some kind of influ-ence again, I tried to get it back to the way it was … we tried to give Loyalism some respectability again, because it lost its way big time … and we were being destroyed by the media. Anyone who wanted to kick us could kick us because we’d left ourselves so vulnerable. The IRA always had this sort of respectability about them … but if the UDA or the UVF said something, they just didn’t believe it.

(McDonald, 2010)

At several points during the interview, he mentioned Adair, as well as other ‘criminal’ leaders such as the Shoukri brothers and Jim Gray, as specific contributors to the decline of the UDA. His comments underscore the strong pressure on paramilitary leaders to create and maintain an image of respectability in order to preserve credibility within the ‘peace process’. As the highly violent nature of the feuding suggests, this was often achieved through material violence, or the threat thereof. Since Adair and his associates did not respond to the directives of the leader-ship, or to traditional command structures (which they had attempted to usurp), they were treated as – and dealt – an irresistible threat. Adair and his close associate John White were expelled from the UDA that year, and are now vehemently referred to by UDA leaders as ‘ex-Loyalists’ (Templer, 2009). Eventually, Adair, his family and his supporters were driven out of Northern Ireland and moved to England and later it is believed, Scotland. Asked in 2009 whether there were any prospects of return for these exiles, UDA leaders stated that this is unlikely since it would probably cause ‘problems for the PSNI’ (Templer, 2009, p. 20). Whether or not this refers to concerns about drug-dealing or to the possibility of a renewal of fighting among Loyalist groups is unclear. What it unequivocally states is that the radical threat raised by these individuals, against the perceived reputation of the UDA and its position in the ‘peace process’, was sufficient to prompt its leadership into the irresistible response of irrevocable exclusion.

The role of these two individuals in the Loyalist ‘feuds’ provides insight into the logic of long division and how it may engender cycles of violence. Both individuals in question raised a number of threats to their own



and other paramilitary organizations through insubordination and illegal activities. However, most members of paramilitary organizations had, in the past, relied openly on crimes such as robbery and extortion to fund their activities. It seems that the most operative threat in this case was a radical one: the vocal opposition of both individuals to the ‘peace process’, combined with their ability to break from command structures and generate support for their views, raised a radical threat to the new form of world-building that was gaining a position of dominance after 1998. It must be emphasized: I do not intend to defend Wright, Adair or their supporters, or to suggest that their actions were purely motivated by normative disagreement. However, they were punished not just (or even primarily) for their ‘criminal’ activities, but also because of the threat they raised to the long division process and the role of their leaders within it.

Following this, a period of consolidation occurred in which the new leadership of the UDA, following the relatively ‘liberal’ principles of former leader John McMichael, began efforts to restore the reputation of the UDA and ensconce it firmly within the ‘peace process’. These narra-tives helped to create a convincing dichotomy between the ‘legitimate’ UDA leadership and its criminal elements. This dichotomy (much like the mainstream/dissident dichotomy within Republicanism described below), reinforced by media images of ‘terrorists’ and ‘internecine drug wars’, promoted a belief that those who were not aligned with the main-stream leadership were likely to be associated with the criminal aspects of Loyalism. As Agathangelou and Ling (2009) argue, the formation of such ‘us-and-them’ dichotomies has a tendency to ‘erase’ the plurality of world(views) and forms of world-making that exist within organiza-tions and communities. Indeed, the creation of this dichotomy tended to mask, exclude or deny the existence of a silent plurality of individu-als within the organization and Loyalist communities who were neither aligned with the criminal actions of ‘dissidents’ like Wright or Adair, nor in full agreement with the decisions of the leadership.

It should also be noted that the forms of exclusion, negation and radi-cal threat discussed here did not only relate to world(view)s, but also to forms of world-making. As the play As the Beast Sleeps illustrates, one of the greatest difficulties experienced by Loyalist paramilitary leaders in the period following the signing of the GF/BA was related to stopping the illegal activity which they had condoned and even trained their men for during the Troubles. Several of the characters in this play have trouble understanding that they are no longer expected to engage in criminal activity, or why they cannot. Indeed, it must be noted that many of the



activities that were so quickly branded as ‘criminal’ in the post-GF/BA period – such as robberies, extortion, and certainly killings – were condoned prior to it. In this sense, it is possible to view the formation of the criminal/legitimate dichotomy as a disjuncture between forms of world-building. For those leaders and members who accepted the new world and forms of world-building, such activities posed a threat to their world and their status within it. However, for those who disagreed with the ‘peace process’ and did not accept, or even fought against, the world and forms of world-building it promoted, the cycle of violence in which they were ensconced was not over. This chimes with the belief of LVF members that the INLA (whom the LVF believed to be affiliated with the PIRA) had broken the IRA ceasefire by killing Billy Wright; to them, this was not the aberrant act of a splinter group, but rather a new episode in an unfinished war.

For many individuals, the forms of world-building used within the ‘previous’ world, including criminality, remained logical and, in some cases, necessary to maintain this world.

Thus, the opposition of paramilitary leaders to such actions was not a condemnation of illegality per se, but rather a response to the fact that illegal actions, as an ‘old’ form of world-building, threatened the newly transforming paramilitary groupings. To put it simply, Loyalist para-military leaders have not necessarily acted hypocritically by condemning acts that they may once have committed, nor are ‘criminal’ elements of these organizations necessarily taking a principled stance or attempting overtly to resist the peace process. Rather, both are engaging in the forms of world-building appropriate to the worlds they consider themselves to occupy. As the earlier chapters have argued, when the conflictual coexist-ence of these forms of world-building is breached – for instance, when ‘criminal’ elements attempt to usurp ‘legitimate’ or political leadership – a cycle of irresistibility, and radical violence, is likely to occur.

Decommissioning and ‘Dissident Republicans’: Loyalist paramilitaries in 2009–10

Even after the end of this long period of feuding, there was still a strong imperative placed upon Loyalist leaders to maintain unity and quell dissent among their membership. The pressure increased as two new sources of potentially radical threat arose for Loyalist communities: the UDA faced a deadline for decommissioning its weapons at the same time as ‘dissident Republicans’ were increasing their attacks on political and economic targets around Northern Ireland (see below). As I shall illustrate below, the acts of these dissidents were at least partially a



response to the conditions of irresistible radical threat they experienced at the hands of their own leaders and the ‘peace process’ (see above), and which subsequently raised a direct radical threat against Loyalist communities.

Between March 2009 and March 2010, the UDA was tasked with the difficult double task of restraining responses to a wave of ‘dissi-dent Republican’ violence while convincing its membership that the decommissioning of weapons was feasible and desirable. It should be noted that decommissioning was important to the leadership not only because it would help them to attain more political legitimacy and influence, but also because if they did not meet the deadline, any guns found by the PSNI could be used as evidence to prosecute them; thus, posing an irresistible threat (the threat of incarceration for past offenses) to the leadership.

The UDA leadership have been feted for the relatively peaceful man-ner in which these aims were achieved. In the words of UDA leader, ‘when there was no violent response to the attacks in March, it sort of legitimised the organisation – we met with the Secretary of State, the DUP, there was lots of high-level and high profile interaction’ (Templer, 2009, p. 22). In other words, this period represented another expansion of the long division process, in which more members of the Loyalist community could be brought into the processes of transformation – and more excluded. I shall now demonstrate how the UDA’s attempts to ensure the unity of its membership during this period once again repro-duced, albeit in a less physically violent manner, the same dynamics of exclusion and negation I have described above.

Even today, the UDA’s membership holds a plurality of views with regards to the ‘peace process’. As one key UDA figure commented, ‘It’s not easy to maintain [a] disciplined response and to make people under-stand why there’s no point in retaliation [to dissident violence]. Many people were saying “youse are letting us down” by decommissioning and forbidding any violent response’ (Templer, 2009, p. 16). It has been perceived as crucial, however, that the UDA maintain unity within its ranks, including with regards to issues such as decommissioning and the response to violence on the part of dissident Republicans, in order to secure its voice in the processes of polity-building and governance. As local UDA leaders suggest, the range of viewpoints held by members may be expressed simply through disagreement in the many meetings held by the UDA since the Massereene Barracks incident of 2009 (Bird, 2010). However, others are more adamantly opposed to the direction taken by the leadership and have maintained death threats against key leaders;



indeed, when I interviewed McDonald in February 2010, he informed me that he had received an imminent death threat the evening before.

How, then, did the UDA’s leadership manage to deter its membership from retaliating and convince it to continue with the decommissioning process? Templer’s (2009) interviews with UDA leaders at the time are revealing. Shortly after the murder of PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll, to which many Loyalist communities reacted strongly, the UDA agreed with PSNI that ‘a lid would be kept on any loyalist response’ (Templer, 2009, pp. 4–5). Thus, they despatched leaders in many of its communities to ‘put out the message that people should be restrained’ and conveying an unambiguous message to their supporters: ‘anything you do in retali-ation will isolate you from your own community’ (Templer, 2009, p. 4). Moreover, although the actors in question firmly asserted that they used discussions and other non-violent means to disseminate their decisions, it is clear that these tactics did not seriously entertain the possibility of other options. As Templer notes,

While earlier in the interviews it was asserted that the UDA has a strong culture of inclusive communication … the interviewees acknowledged here that, in the past, action was often controlled by, as one put it: ‘is fear the right word?’ They acknowledged that ‘constituents used to just obey orders, and were used to that’. But all of the interviewees were emphatic that … ‘after the shootings [by dissident Republicans in 2009], we had to patiently explain what the response was to be, to one person after another’.

(Templer, 2009, p. 22)

In other words, rather than simply handing down commands, the UDA leadership used its command structures to communicate messages and ensure compliance. While not as threatening, perhaps, as the physical violence used in the past, this created a potentially irresistible dynamic for the individuals affected: they could either accept the commands of the leadership (and, it should be noted that these commands were given to whole communities, not just paramilitary members) or be associated with dissent from the ‘peace process’ and, potentially, with the ‘criminal’ elements of Loyalism.

On a more subtle scale, the tendency to gloss over the plurality of reactions and orientations to decisions made by the leadership is strong among Loyalist paramilitary organizations more generally. For instance, Purvis believes that any opposition to the ‘peace process’ on the part of Loyalists derives from their inability to leave their ‘comfort



zone’, or from antiquated sectarian or emotional views regarding the ‘other community’ (Purvis, 2010). When asked about this comment, a former UDP activist and taxi driver told me that it is precisely the ‘comfort’ and security created within these tightly knit, if separate, communities that allow working-class Protestants to interact positively with Catholics in shared settings such as workplaces (Jackie, 2010). McDonald made a similar comment about relatively closed-off estates such as Taughmonagh and Suffolk, claiming that it was the relative safety and security provided by these areas that allowed their residents to feel safe enough to interact with others in public spaces and contexts (McDonald, 2010). This suggests that the spaces perceived as ‘segre-gated’ by politicians may be crucial elements of the worlds occupied by working class Unionists and Loyalists – and in fact crucial to their relationships with other groups.

Similarly, Bird suggested that the many individuals who attended the UDA’s meetings regarding decommissioning and dissident Republican violence, and who expressed disagreement with the leadership, did so out of obstinacy, contrarianism or emotion (Bird, 2010). These ways of framing plural interpretations of decisions subtly disqualify the former by reducing them to irrational, reactive or unenlightened aberrations. That is, instead of acknowledging the various world(view)s possessed by members, Loyalist leaders immediately and implicitly attempt to over-come or transform these views, thus attempting to bring all members onto an equal level of transformation (Hutchinson, 2010; Purvis, 2010; Templer, 2009).

Based on the brief analysis above, it appears that dissent within Loyalism is dealt with in one of two major ways: if the dissent is suf-ficiently powerful to threaten the status of paramilitary groups or their role in the peace process, the dissenting actors are (whether fairly or wrongly) criminalized, excluded, punished, exiled from their organiza-tions and/or communities and even killed. If, however, dissent is less pronounced or poses less of threat to these organizations, it is targeted immediately for transformation, and possibly dismissed as emotional, irrational or as a mark of recidivism. Through these strategies, ‘main-stream’ paramilitary leaders are able to cement their position within the processes of peace-building and gradually expand the scope of transformative processes. The brief narrative of the complex Loyalist feuds above illustrates how the exclusion of, and subsequent radical violence against, these individuals and groups by the first method can lead to cycles of violence in which ‘dissidents’ – in this case, the ‘criminal’ element of Loyalism – become the antagonists. This dynamic, I shall



now argue, created a similar phenomenon within Republicanism which has, ultimately, generated the cycle of ‘dissident Republican’ violence in which Northern Ireland is ensconced at the time of writing.

From dissenters to ‘dissidents’: Long division and radical violence among Republican paramilitary organizations

Throughout its formulation and implementation, the GF/BA and the policies associated with it generated a range of responses among Republicans, from outright support to indifference to extreme opposi-tion. Therefore, the ratification of the document by those individuals and groups who voted for it, or were able to shape it, reflected only a limited set of normative orientations towards it. Those who did not agree with the Agreement, as I shall now discuss, tended to be framed as spoilers and, in extreme cases, dissidents. ‘Mainstream’ Republicans – that is, those who openly and actively espoused the GF/BA and its associated policies – used these frames to disqualify, disempower and even attempt to eradicate dissent within their ranks. As such, a dichotomy has been created within public and policy discourses between ‘mainstream’ Republicans and dissidents that closely resembles the dichotomy of between ‘criminal’ and ‘legitimate’ elements of Loyalist paramilitary organizations.

This dichotomy leaves very little room for the silent plurality – that is, the wide range of normative positions and orientations towards the GF/BA and the broader ‘peace process’. For instance, many individuals dissent from the main norms of the GF/BA, but do not support the actions of so-called dissident Republicans. Others ‘signed up’ for the GF/BA for strategic or practical reasons – for instance, to improve their socio-economic position or escape from violence – but do not endorse its basic tenets. However, the logic of long division inherent to the peace process has demanded a more or less unanimous Republican orientation towards the ‘peace process’. The pressure to do so is compounded by history of fragmentation – or, from another per-spective, the existence of plural worlds – within Republicanism, and the perception that this fragmentation or pluralization was a direct cause of the fateful splits of the 1970s. Indeed, in a workshop held in January 2010 regarding ongoing conflict in Belfast, one of the most prevalent fears articulated was ‘whether Republicanism can survive the new splits within it’, and the consequences for the peace process if it should prove unable to (Mitchell et al., 2010). I shall argue that the danger in question does not lie merely in an established history



of ‘fragmentation’ within Republicanism, but rather in the tendency of the logic of long division to generate irresistible responses to acts of pluralization.

Repressing dissent: The use of material and physical violence to consolidate unity

The pattern in which remainders were generated, excluded, negated or eradicated, and ensconced in cycles of violence within Republican organizations entailed similar dynamics to those discussed above, but in a different order. Whereas the main activities of ‘dissident Loyalists’ took place in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, directly following the GF/BA, cycles of violence between ‘mainstream’ and ‘dissident Republicans’ (re)-emerged in the mid 2000s, and are escalating at the time of writing. However, in the period preceding the negotiations for the GF/BA, there were documented attempts within Republicanism to neutralize, exclude or alienate groups that challenged the solidity of the leadership and its position within the processes of peace-building. One important case of this was the PIRA’s attempt to eliminate a small organization known as the Irish People’s Liberation Organization (IPLO), which was formed after a split in the INLA over the circumstances of the 1981 hunger strike. This organization had raised a number of challenges to the PIRA; it was a small and unruly group which was accused of drug-dealing, rape and raising threats against PIRA leaders. It is believed that as early as 1987, ‘within the [Provo] rank and file there was a frustrated desire to … finish the group off for good’ (Holland and MacDonald, 1994, p. 335). To this end, the PIRA waited for the organization to weaken itself through internal splits; as a former UDA leader commented, ‘the big tiger [the PIRA] would pounce on the wee tigers once they had finished tearing each other apart’ (Holland and MacDonald, 1994, p. 340). Indeed, on 31 October 1992, the PIRA carried out a systematic attack on members of the IPLO and alleged associates, dispatching up to 100 PIRA armed ‘volunteers’ for the task, and including armed raids on pubs and apartment blocks (Holland and MacDonald, 1994, p. 345). Following this, a ‘hit list’ was drawn up by the PIRA with the names of alleged associates of the IPLO, prompting many on the list to leave Northern Ireland (whether or not they were associated with the group). The surviving IPLO leadership asked the death sentences placed upon them by the PIRA to be commuted in exile, and the IPLO surrendered unconditionally.

While the IPLO cannot properly be called a dissenting group in the sense of raising normative concerns with the decisions of PIRA leadership



(although, arguably its roots in the Republican socialist INLA may have led to this), it raised a radical threat to the PIRA’s dominance within the Republican movement. The important element to note is the system-atic, totalistic and coercive manner in which these threats were dealt with, and the attempt on the part of the PIRA to quite literally eradicate the source of this radical threat to its authority and its new political role. It should also be noted that this was not the first time the organization had attempted such a purge; exactly 17 years ago, they had unleashed a similar operation against the OIRA, which they viewed not as a feud, but rather a ‘pogrom’ aimed at ‘wiping [their challengers] out of political exist-ence on the streets of Belfast’ (Holland and MacDonald, 1994, p. 343). It is important to remember that at this time, the PIRA leadership had been engaged in long-standing negotiations with governmental officials, some of which originated in the hunger strikes (see Chapter 7), and was thus attempting to survive as a legitimate political actor. Thus,

Paramilitary logic would dictate that the Provos ha[d] no other option. The last thing the IRA leadership c[ould] afford at a time of possible cease-fires and vaunted peace initiatives [was] an independ-ent fledgling paramilitary force in its own back yard willing to absorb Provo volunteers who want to carry on fighting if the armed struggle is called off.

(Holland and MacDonald, 1994, p. 347)

As this comment reflects, regardless of whether the IPLO was engaged in illegal activities, its presence raised a radical threat to the new emerging force of ‘mainstream’ Republicanism. To this day, the PIRA is believed to use physical violence to maintain control in communities it domi-nates, particularly with the ‘punishment beatings’ and threats issued to young people who challenge its authority (see Roche, 2008; Group Interview, 2010). Even in non-violent strategies of exclusion and aliena-tion, a similarly systematic pattern can be observed within ‘mainstream’ Republicanism.

Disciplining Dissent

Another example of the exclusion, negation or attempted erasure of dissenting voices in the 1990s was the PIRA’s treatment of outspoken members such as Brendan Hughes, a prison OC, leader of the 1980 hunger strike and close associate of Gerry Adams, who spoke out against the direction taken by PIRA leadership in the events leading up to the signing of the GF/BA. As early as 1991, a rift had grown between Hughes



and the PIRA in relation to the latter’s suppression of dissent within the Republican movement. In 1994, he openly opposed efforts to block the re-entry of released prisoners into the IRA because they included indi-viduals sceptical of the ‘peace process’ among their numbers (Moloney, 2010, p. 294). He was also concerned about the neglect shown to aging IRA activists, such as the first blanketman, Kieran Nugent, who died drunk, unemployed and suffering from depression. Hughes himself was to suffer a similarly alienated demise in 2008.

In 1994, Hughes resigned from the IRA’s Army Council, although he remained a member of Sinn Fein. In the following period, he remained active and outspoken, and began to write frequently for The Blanket, an online journal focused on the perspectives of ‘dissenting’ or ‘protest-ing’ Republicans. In 2000, he criticized Sinn Fein for condoning the payment of low wages to former prisoners working on building sites: ‘When I came out from jail in 1986 having spent more than twelve years there I found work on a building site on the Falls Road. Some of the people I thought I was fighting for were now seeking to exploit me’ (MacIntyre, 2000). Trends such as this, he believed, demonstrated not only the lapse of socialist principles within the PIRA/Sinn Fein struc-ture, but also the creation of new hierarchies within the movement. This, he claimed, was making citizens ‘politics weary’ rather than ‘war weary’ – ‘The political process has created a class of professional liars and unfortunately it contains many republicans’ (MacIntyre, 2000). Indeed, one of Hughes’ most prevalent concerns was that the majority of PIRA members did not have a significant voice within the negotia-tions that created and followed the GF/BA, and that many of them were, as a result, neglected and even exploited by the new political class – which he called the ‘Armani Suit Brigade’ (Stanage, 2000) – that was emerging around figures such as Adams and Martin McGuinness. The main thrust of his normative opposition to the PIRA’s involve-ment in the ‘peace process’ was that the leadership had given up too many of the Republican movement’s demands, leaving the condi-tions of the past decades more or less intact. In 2000, he wrote in The Observer that the IRA’s

experience [of the ‘peace process’] up to now has been humiliating. We have danced to every tune; broke every promise ever made; pursued all the policies we used to term others ‘collaborators’ for pursuing; and have dressed it all up as something progressive in order to deceive our base.

(Hughes, 2000)



As a result, he averred, Sinn Fein had ‘sentenced young people … to another generation of fighting’ (Moloney, 2010, p. 293). He also openly criticized Adams’ role in the negotiations that brought the PIRA into the GF/BA talks. With regards to this, he stated:

I don’t condemn him for it. I criticize him for the devious way that it was all brought about. There were people still dying when they were talking and these people who were dying … should have known the talks were going on.

(Moloney, 2010, p. 292)

Hughes was deeply supportive of Adams leadership’, but disagreed profoundly with the way in which the Sinn Fein leader disowned his paramilitary past. Moreover, he believed that the political decisions taken by Sinn Fein constituted an abandonment of republican social-ist principles and had upstaged the SDLP, which he thought better represented the socialist, populist roots of the Republican movement (MacIntyre, 2000).

In response to his outspoken dissent from the PIRA/Sinn Fein party line, Hughes was ostracized and monitored carefully by the PIRA. He claims that critical articles he wrote were censored by the PIRA leader-ship (MacIntyre, 2000) and that his apartment in the Divis Towers was bugged not by MI5 agents, but rather by members of the PIRA (Moloney, 2010). In addition, he believed that he was subjected to social, economic and political strategies of alienation. Hughes was not alone in this. Another former hunger striker, Marian Price, also expressed strong disagreement with the GF/BA (Cowan, 2003). She was banned from entering and performing in some Republican clubs and was eventually run out of her neighbourhood (the Short Strand) as a result of her views (Jackie, 2010). Similarly, the former editor of The Blanket and outspoken dissenter, Anthony McIntyre claimed to have been ostracized by main-stream Republicans. He told me in 2007 that PIRA-affiliated Republicans used the significant influence they had garnered among policymakers, local employers and others to exclude those who did not comply with their policies. According to him, ‘the people who do not toe the line would find that they will not get jobs … alienation, marginalization and ostracisation are all powerful weapons that [are] used against a dis-senting voice’ (MacIntyre, 2007). In response to such treatment, Hughes and others founded a group in 2004 called ‘No More Lies’ which sought to offer ‘moral protection to those republicans who felt they wanted to push back the party censors and thought police’ within the PIRA/ Sinn



Fein (Hughes, 2004, 2007). In 2007, Hughes released a statement on behalf of this group claiming that the individuals it sought to protect were being framed as violent threats to the PIRA/Sinn Fein, and thus to the ‘peace process’. He stated that

[i]t is not the threat of physical attack that Sinn Fein leaders fear. It is the possibility of republicans fed up with Sinn Fein lies and deceit deciding to mount an electoral challenge that sends shudders of anxiety through the leadership circles. We are concerned that in a bid to stifle wider discussion within the republican community, Sinn Fein is pursuing a strategy of threat against dissenting voices. They are disguising their own menace by attributing violent intent to those voices. Such voices are healthy in a republicanism unafraid of critical self-examination.

(Hughes, 2007)

In this passage, Hughes reflected the emerging tendency of the PIRA/Sinn Fein to use tactics of intimidation, threat, censorship and aliena-tion in order to disqualify dissenting members and maintain the image of unity and ‘pan-Republicanism’ necessary to cement their place within the ‘peace process’. It is important to note that when The Blanket was shut down, three months after the death of Hughes in 2008, McIntyre attributed this not to any improvement in the accommodation of dis-senting voices within the ‘mainstream’ Republican movement but to the ‘total demise of the Provisional republican project’ (MacIntyre, 2008). He went on to suggest that ‘We are now in a post-republican world where others, such as Eirigi, have picked up the baton and hope to reverse the order of things’ (MacIntyre, 2008). Indeed, the alienation of dissenting voices within Republicanism was continuing throughout the Republican movement at this time, albeit through more subtle strategies.

Policymaking and the formation of the ‘mainstream/dissenter (possible dissident)’ categories

Throughout its involvement in the ‘peace process’, and in particular the social, economic and community development programmes pro-moted by initiatives such as PEACE, the ‘mainstream’ (PIRA/Sinn Fein) Republican leadership deftly produced a dichotomy between those indi-viduals who aligned themselves directly with mainstream policy and those who did not. The latter were placed in a category that was not exactly conflated with the rising threat of ‘dissident Republicans’ such



as the CIRA and RIRA, but nor was it demarcated from these groups. As such, the threat of being placed within the ‘dissident Republican’ category was used to maintain paramilitary-style discipline even within the sphere of policymaking and community development.

Indeed, in a context in which policymakers already possessed limited trust at best for ex-combatants (Shirlow, 2008; McKearney, 2007), they relied heavily on the cultivation of a ‘safe’ or trusted set of organiza-tions and leaders upon whom they could rely. It was alleged by several interviewees that members of the ‘mainstream’ (PIRA) former prison-ers’ sector were able to influence policymakers and officials in order to help determine who would receive funding and support. In this sense, the distribution of PEACE funds and other resources helped to cement the dominance of ‘mainstream’ Republicans. Despite the appearance of relative harmony among Republican paramilitary-affiliated organi-zations, some non-PIRA groups believed that PIRA-affiliated groups manipulated funders by raising, more or less explicitly, the spectre of potential spoilers or non-compliers as a means of attaining power and resources. According to Halligan, ‘we didn’t fit the criteria of some people. They seen the pie getting sliced up. They wanted all the pie – they didn’t want us to get any of it. And they [told some officials] “if you give Teach na Failte [an INLA prisoners’ support organization] money, the INLA will come in and take it and buy guns”’ (Halligan, 2007). He claimed that such tactics were often used to derail funding proposals and other initiatives of the group, stating that the PSNI had raided one of their offices and confiscated their files based on such informa-tion. This was, he claimed, ‘basically a political move’ (Halligan, 2007). McKearney, too, argued that ‘powerful voices’ within the mainstream had generated ‘a fear that we were a group of Republicans that were not … fitting into the pattern’ and therefore should not be given fund-ing (McKearney, 2007). As a result, he argued, policymakers ‘formed the opinion that Sinn Fein Republicans were peaceful [and] could be counted on to support the peace process … but other organizations … were a potential risk’ (McKearney, 2007).

When asked directly about this dynamic, PIRA-affiliated actors almost unanimously claimed not to be engaging in these forms of exclusion, in particular ‘character assassination’ (McKeown, 2007). However, the manner in which they defined and described the individuals and groups in question provided insight into the dynamic of long division. Members of Coiste claimed that they had a ‘frosty’ relationship with ‘more recent dissidents’ despite initially trying to include them in their programmes and thus bring them into the mainstream (Ritchie, 2007).



The formation of these ‘mainstream’ and ‘dissenter/potential dissident’ categories reflects the manner in which the transformation process consolidated a monopoly on meaningful or admissible opinions, activi-ties or normative assessments and used the processes of transformation to enforce it. In effect, those that were willing to undergo the process of transformation relatively easily gained access to it, while those who were not were framed as a threat or obstruction to it – and to the main-stream groups who did support it.

At any rate, ‘mainstream’ Republicans relied on a process of exclu-sion, negation, the manipulation of fears surrounding recidivism and dissidents, and even coercion or violence to guarantee their admission into, and power within, the processes of peace-building. As in the split that occurred within the IRA in the 1970s, those possessing dissenting views were faced with an ultimatum: either they could compromise their views and activities, at least to a certain degree, in order to join the mainstream or they could remain outside. However, in this case, remain-ing outside meant exempting oneself from the ‘peace process’ – and thus the dominant mode of world-building, and any hope of shaping the new polity through resistance. As such, the dynamic of long division involved the creation of severe radical threats to the existence and acknowledge-ment of dissenting groups.

Dangerous remainders: The (re)emergence of ‘dissident republicans’

Wright, Adair and the other key antagonists of the Loyalist ‘feuds’ were the first visible ‘dissidents’ of the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’. Their punishment and exile by Loyalist paramilitaries engaged in the processes of long division reflected a dynamic that would very soon affect Republicans. Throughout the interviews quoted above, the issue of ‘dissident Republicans’ remained an important factor. The PIRA/Sinn Fein-affiliated individuals to whom I spoke in 2007 were adamant in their intolerance for this group of people, which chimed with the move-ment’s policy at the time. They did not provide any specific names of the individuals or organizations in question, and it is quite likely that the ‘dissidents’ they referred to were members of the CIRA, RIRA or other ‘splinter groups’. Several attempted to negate the presence and power, as well as the legitimacy, of a broader dissident movement. One claimed that ‘the dissident movement is not a movement. It’s a group of people who are, to varying degrees, unhappy about things’ and another asserted that ‘very few former prisoners are opposed to the political [settlement] … if the truth be told, they don’t really exist, but they’re



funded. It’s a disgrace’ (Culbert, 2007). The latter comment seemed directly to justify the exclusion of dissenting groups from the ‘peace process’. Given that the interviewee referred to PEACE-funded organiza-tions, it is also likely that the ‘dissident’ category he employed included some of the dissenting organizations and individuals discussed above, not only splinter groups that were engaged in violent acts. In this sense, the comments of this interviewee and others seemed to associate, if not completely conflate, dissenting Republicans and ‘dissidents’.

By winter 2010, PIRA-affiliated individuals were not denying the existence of dissidents, or broader support for them in as strict a manner; due to the increased activity and notoriety of the latter, it is possible that they could not. In a group interview with six PIRA-affiliated former prisoners in winter 2010 (Sheehan et al., 2010), I observed that several different orientations towards dissidents were expressed and argued about: one individual claimed that they were ‘all criminals’, while another suggested that they simply reviving the ‘old politics’ (that is, the Marxist ideology) of 1970s Republicanism, and another pointed to non-violent (but non-PIRA) protest movements such as Eirigi (see below). The latter two comments constitute an admission that some dissenting (if not strictly ‘dissident’) groups have a normative role within Republicanism. At any rate, the manner in which dissenters and ‘dissidents’ alike were marginalized, excluded and negated by ‘main-stream’ Republicanism up until that point may have had a profound effect upon the cycles of violence unfolding at the time of writing.

The discussions above illustrate how the imperatives for integration and compliance created by processes of peace-building unbalanced the silent pluralities within paramilitary organizations, whether silenced dissenters or violent ‘dissidents’. This dynamic, generated through coercive tactics such as threat, intimidation and ostracism, created rela-tions of radical violence between them and the ‘mainstream’ leadership. This generated not simply divisions, but remainders. That is to say, those worlds or forms of world-building excluded, silenced or negated by these processes were not simply ‘left out’ and thus exposed to relative threats (see Chapter 8), but also targeted for eradication. Public responses to the acts of ‘dissident Republicans’ have underscored the demand for further excluding or eradicating the groups responsible. For instance, in a BBC News report, a PSNI Chief Superintendent was quoted as stating that ‘the people who carry out these senseless acts show a total disregard for their fellow man and are not part of the society within which the majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to live’ (BBC, 2010e). This comment (inadvertently, perhaps) underscores two important points: first, that



the ‘dissidents’ occupy different worlds than those who support and are engaged in peace-building or the forms of world-building it endorse; and secondly, that the continued exclusion and negation of this world is perceived as a fitting punishment for the attacks.

Indeed, what makes these remainders ‘dangerous’ is not that they are different or even the fact of their exclusion. Rather, their tendency towards violence derives, at least in part, from the means of their exclusion and possible negation creates a dynamic of irresistible radical threat – the root, as I have argued, of cycles of violence. Since the means for doing so have been largely coercive – for instance, through paramilitary command structures, threats or physical violence – they are likely to engender cycles of violence. However, they tend to be treated as criminal acts in the case of the former, or atavistic attempts to ‘return’ to violence with regards to the latter. Indeed, the manner in which ‘dissident Republican’ activities are portrayed in the media is telling in this regard: the politicians, police officials and other authority figures quoted in these reports tend to analyze the attacks in terms of the violence that took place during the Troubles. That is, they assume that the violence in question is intended to further traditional Republican goals such as a United Ireland (see BBC, 2010f). While the worlds or forms of world-building engaged in by individuals involved in ‘dissident’ groups – for instance, in their personal or community lives, or non-violent activities of the association – may support such goals, the goals themselves, or their ideological sources, are not the direct motivation for such violence. For instance, the political party Eirigi advances Republican socialist princi-ples largely through non-violent means (Mackel, 2010) (although outside of the organization, it is of course possible that some of its members are involved in violent acts). At any rate, there is not a direct causal link between these ‘old’ world(view)s or forms of world-building. According to the analysis I have presented throughout this book, it is the irresistible threat against the world in which these groups exist (one in which goals such as uniting Ireland are still possible) which prompts them to engage in violence, just as the PIRA did in the 1970s (see Chapter 5).

Another common conception appears to be that these groups are keen to establish strong community support, as traditional Republican organ-izations did in the past (see BBC, 2010g; Breen, 2010c). This may be the case for some of the tactics used by the organizations in question – for instance, taking a hard line against drug dealers, handing out pam-phlets or political tracts, or attempting to consolidate influence within small neighbourhoods (Breen, 2010c). While gaining and maintaining support may be integral to the maintenance of these threatworks, built



in part as a bulwark against the radical changes promoted by the ‘peace process’, the violence they engage in is not necessarily intended to gain support, although it may do so as a by-product (Breen, 2010c). Instead, it is an attempt to gain and consolidate control, which is in turn an effort to resist the forces of the state and security forces in the face of the radical threats raised by them. Rather, I want to claim, it is at least in part a response to the conditions of irresistibility and eradication faced by these groups. The latter is further cemented with each new expan-sion of the ‘peace process’ – for instance, the devolution of policing and justice to Stormont in early 2010 – from which these groups are further removed with each violent act.

Yet in framing these acts as attempts to block progress or bring back the Troubles, policymakers and the media have effectively severed their direct connection with the processes of peace-building. The causal relationship between peace-building and these acts is framed as uni-directional – that is, ‘dissidents’ are thought to engage in spontaneous attacks on the ‘peace process’ from outside of it. The role of transforma-tive logics of peace-building – and in particular, the dynamics of long division discussed above – in directly engendering these acts is all but erased from public discourses. Here, I shall highlight these links by showing how the acts of ‘dissident Republicans’ are part of cycles of violence, not simply uni-directional attacks on the ‘peace process’ and its proponents.

The activity of dissident Republicans dominated the news in Northern Ireland at the time of writing. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to provide a comprehensive list of the acts in question, particularly as the situation develops from day to day. Here, I shall focus on the events that occurred between the Massereene barracks incident of 2009 and the bombing of the MI5 base in County Down in 2010, on the day that policing and justice powers were devolved to Stormont. It is interesting to note that these incidents were directed on people and physical targets that were not only representative of the state or security forces, but also against those elements within or among Republicanism (including young people within Republican communities) who are believed to challenge the authority and meaningfulness of these groups. This suggests that both raise powerful radical threats.

According to the BBC’s ‘security sources’ these acts are at their high-est frequency since the Omagh bombing of 1998 and are not ‘likely to improve [decrease] in the foreseeable future’ (BBC, 2010a). The recent upsurge in violent acts on behalf of these groups began in spring 2009 and has continued to the time of writing, as brief timelines reflect



(see BBC 2010b; Breen, 2010a). This wave of attacks rose to the atten-tion of media, policymakers and the public after an attack on the Massereene Barracks in March 2009, in which two soldiers were shot and killed, followed 48 hours later by the murder of Carroll (see above). In April 2009, members of the RIRA claim to have shot a convicted rapist in the legs in (London)Derry, and prominent Sinn Fein politician Martin McGuinness claimed that dissident groups had threatened to kill him, possibly in response to his comment that dissidents were ‘traitors’, made in the wake of Carroll’s murder. The homes of two Sinn Fein poli-ticians were allegedly attacked with petrol bombs by ‘dissident’ groups in May and June of that year. In July, ‘dissident’ groups were accused of orchestrating rioting in north Belfast, in which a shot was fired at police and at two blast bombs were thrown. The PSNI claims that the RIRA attempted to kill officers near the border of the Republic of Ireland with a 600-pound bomb, and two bombs were detonated near the homes of family members of a PSNI officer in (London)Derry in September 2009. In October, four masked men fired shots over the coffin of ‘dissident Republican’ John Brady, who was believed to have committed suicide in PSNI custody, while a ‘dissident’ group known as Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) took credit for the shooting and injury of a man in (London)Derry. At the same time, threats were raised against Ian Paisley Jr., and bombs exploded near a Territorial Army base on the home of a police officer in east Belfast. November 2009 saw the partial explosion of a 400-pound bomb outside the offices of the Policing Board in Belfast, threats against the home of a prominent judge and a gun attack on police officers in County Fermanagh. In January 2010, a Catholic police officer was shot and injured in Randalstown, as was a (London)Derry shopkeeper who sells marijuana paraphernalia. February 2010 saw a number of incidents, beginning with the attempted bomb-ing of a courthouse in Newry, and followed closely by the killing by the RIRA of a man claimed to be one of its members, Kieran Doherty of (London)Derry. During this month, 400 families were moved in response to an alleged pipe bomb in Belfast, and members of a ‘32-County Sovereignty Group’, believed to be a political wing of the RIRA, were said to picket shops that dealt with the PSNI. Frequent activity con-tinued in April 2010, when a bomb placed in a hijacked taxi exploded outside an MI5 base in County Down on the same day that policing and justice powers were devolved from Westminster to Stormont. Though not comprehensive, these timelines provide a cross-section of the various acts of violence committed by ‘dissident Republicans’ and their apparent escalation over the period in question.



These acts are related to the dynamics of long division in an important way. First, as I have argued above, the division of dissenting members out of the processes of peace-building may have generated a major rela-tive threat in two senses: those constructed as ‘dissidents’ were denied (or denied themselves) the ability to contest issues such as policing and justice issues within the processes of polity-building, and they also perceived themselves to be unable to resist the collaboration of their own former movement with institutions such as these, in addition to Unionist politicians. As such, they were (sometimes self-) excluded from the world formed through peace-building and directly threatened by its instruments of control – primarily the police, but also ex-combatants or transforming paramilitary organizations tasked with controlling local communities. This created an irresistible threat against their modes of world-building. Indeed, just as I argued above that many of the forms of world-building used by Loyalist paramilitaries in the past became a radical threat to mainstream organizations after they became inte-grated within the peace process, a similar dynamic has emerged with regard to Republicans. As I shall argue below, they exist within, and seek to preserve, a different world than those Republicans ensconced in peace-building, not only because they are often geographically isolated from Belfast, the epicentre of peace-building in the region, but also because they still exist in same world(s) they did during the Troubles and continue to use the forms of world-building traditional to Republican groups. The RIRA for instance, does not describe itself as the Real IRA, except when distinguishing itself from other paramilitary groups; rather, it simply refers to itself as ‘the IRA’, and those close to it suggest that the ‘Republican struggle’ is far from over (Breen, 2010b). This suggests that its members possess a completely different cognitive orientation than mainstream Republicans. Similarly, the tactics used to create and maintain control of communities (see below), including the creation of ‘no-go’ spaces through hoaxes and by attacking members of the PSNI who enter these areas (BBC, 2010d), echoes the threatworks of the early Troubles (see O’Dochartaigh, 2005, and Chapters 4 and 5). This suggests that dissidents are not attempting to ‘bring back’ the Troubles. Rather, they exist in a parallel world in which the cycle of violence which constituted the Troubles continues, but the source of threat is now the polity-building processes initiated by the GF/BA, instead of simply the British Government.

Indeed, many of the acts undertaken by ‘dissidents’ which have not resulted in physical violence can be viewed as extreme forms of conflict-ual world-building, or the preservation of threatworks. For instance, the



threats and symbolic acts of violence against those believed to be involved in drug dealing (see Breen, 2010a,b) are a means for consolidating con-trol through maintaining law and order within communities, and thus protecting them in the older sense of the term. In a similar manner, the hoax bombs or ‘suspicious objects’ left in strategic places (such as near railway lines or major streets) function to mark territories controlled by paramilitary groups by forcing the police to close them (see BBC, 2010d). Similarly, by attacking police who enter specific neighbourhoods, these groups have staked out territory as their own, and made it clear that a breach of these boundaries will result in a violent response. This suggests that the threatworks of these organizations are believed by the latter to be under attack by institutions such as the PSNI or ‘mainstream’ para-military organizations. Due to the paucity of reliable information about these groups, it is difficult to tell whether they engage in other forms of collective world-building, which might provide more insight into their threatworks and means of maintaining them. However, the reports discussed above suggest that they are engaged in at least some forms of political activity, and even PIRA-affiliated ex-prisoners suggested that there may be some ideological motivation behind their actions (Sheehan et al., 2010). Some indications of other forms of world-building engaged in by these groups include the prison protest organized by ‘dissident Republicans’ in Maghaberry Prison in April 2010 (see BBC, 2010h) and followed up with a protest around their conditions at the 2010 Belfast marathon (BBC, 2010i); the hunger strikes undertaken by some RIRA members in the early 2000s (including Kieran Doherty, a former RIRA OC who was killed by the organization in April 2010) (Breen, 2010b); and the traditional paramilitary-style funeral given for the suicide of Brady (see above). Moreover, a ‘Sovereignty Movement’ associated with ‘dissident’ groups delivered letters to shops, cafes and businesses in (London)Derry advising them not to serve members of the PSNI (a Sainsbury’s employee was suspended for obeying these orders), and members of these groups stormed District Policing Partnership meetings in the same city in 2009 (Breen, 2010c). These acts suggest that ‘dissi-dent’ groups are engaging in a variety of different methods for building and maintaining threatworks – not just spontaneous or instrumental physical violence driven by emotion or irrationality. The latter occurs most often, it appears, in response to policy decisions or police reprisals that threaten or breach the former, or more generally in response to the perceived loss of the (socialist) Republican cause or ideals.

In other words, ‘dissidents’ are engaged in forms of world-building that are radically threatened by the ‘peace process’, as is the world in which



the cycle of violence that constituted the Troubles is still acknowledged to exist. Moreover, the forms of world-building promoted by the ‘peace process’ (and taken up by Sinn Fein/PIRA) are considered anathema to these groups; as a source close to them claimed, they have thus far refused to engage in talks with the British government because ‘the British would attempt to offer grants or community jobs in exchange for an end to armed struggle. If [Real] IRA leaders were interested in such things, they would have stayed with the Provisionals’ (Breen, 2010c). In other words, to abandon the forms of world-building preserved by these groups and to adopt the forms promoted by the ‘peace process’ is considered unacceptable to these groups. Their resistance, it seems, has led to reprisals (exclusion from the mainstream IRA and the processes of peace-building) which have ultimately helped to place them in a position of irresistible radical change.

It is also important to note that the acts above appear to have been committed by a range of groups – the CIRA, RIRA and lesser-documented organizations such as the RAAD and the RIRA splinter group Oglaigh na hEireann. In spring 2010, it was reported that individuals who had defected from the PIRA, or ‘independent republicans’ were working with both the RIRA and ONH, but ‘refused to join either for security reasons and because it gives them more freedom’ (Breen, 2010c). This underscores my rationale for using inverted commas around the constructed, and contested, term ‘dissident Republicans’. The comment of PIRA-affiliated ex-prisoners that ‘dissidents’ are not a movement (see above) is an apt one, although not in the way that this interviewee means. Rather, they do not form a single, coherent movement, although recent reports suggest that they are beginning to collaborate in terms of training, logistics and the provision of materials used in violent acts (BBC, 2010b). Instead, as the brief time-line above shows, all violent acts of non-mainstream Republicans are placed in the ‘dissident’ category, even before the perpetrators have been confirmed. This suggests that the concept of ‘dissident Republican’ activity is less defined by its association with specific organizations, and more with the phenomenon of violence as a response to the irresistible, radical threats raised by transformative processes. In other words, the exclusion, negation and radical vio-lence enacted against the worlds and forms of world-building of the silent (or silenced) pluralities within Republicanism has caused some of them to perceive themselves as the recipients of irresistible radical threats and to respond with violence. The emergence of plural groups



(not to mention the non-violent, ‘dissenting’ organizations discussed above) suggests that the logic of long division resulted in the exclu-sion of a sizeable silent plurality from the ‘mainstream’ Republican movement.

Finally, it must be noted that the actions of ‘dissident Republicans’ create a direct, radical threat to many Loyalists or working-class Unionists, as my Loyalist interviewees have suggested. For the time being, few major incidents have occurred in which Loyalists have responded with violence to the activities of ‘dissident Republicans’ (although this is difficult to measure, since many acts of violence take place on the scale of street-level beatings, shootings and intimi-dation). However, as many of the interviewees quoted above suggest, maintaining control over these responses is difficult. Moreover, as paramilitary organizations become more firmly integrated within the processes of peace-building, they are perceived by some members of their community to be less effective elements of threatworks. For instance, now that the UDA has decommissioned its weapons, some of its former supporters do not feel that it can provide them with protection in case of a major attack (see Templer, 2009 and above). In addition, the dynamics of unequal transformation discussed in Chapter 7 have led many communities to lose respect for the com-mand structures of paramilitary organizations, which also act as crucial elements of threatworks and deterrents against violence. As a result, Gallagher claims that paramilitary actors have expended much of the ‘social capital’ they require in order to maintain control over their communities as they are expected to do. Similarly, it is believed that while Sinn Fein is successful in maintaining electoral support, largely among ‘middle class’ voters, its influence over ‘dis-sident’ and even dissenting Republicans is waning (Breen, 2010c). Interestingly, comments posted online below the article just cited mocked the PIRA, calling it names such as ‘Sinn Feign’ and ‘Shame Fein plc’, and suggesting that even if violence was not desirable, at least ‘dissidents’ were keeping traditional forms of Republicanism alive (see Breen, 2010c). This suggests that the esteem in which para-military organizations of both ‘communities’ are held is waning as a result of their changing forms of world-building and the tendency of the new world they have built to exclude large swathes of the polity (see Breen, 2010c).

Gallagher claimed that the esteem of Loyalist paramilitaries – one of the key bulwarks against reprisal attacks in response to ‘dissident Republican’ violence – is extremely fragile as a result of the way in



which politicians leveraged it in the ‘peace process’. He summed up the problem as such:

[T]here’s a continued IRA traditional armed force [‘dissident Republicans’] still being used against us, and our community and our home and our homeland and our estate and all the rest of it … You can only take that so long … [and] with the limited resources we have, and the lack of support we’re getting from those in power [former paramilitary actors] can only tell people for so long [to refrain from violence] … your respect and your credibility only lasts so long … and it’s pretty much at the last stick at the moment … it’s getting stretched.

(Gallagher, 2010)

As a result, he twice reiterated, things ‘could end up blowing up in our faces’ (Gallagher, 2010).

Conclusions

The processes of transformative peace-building in Northern Ireland have been driven by a powerful logic of ‘long division’, which inte-grates and transforms ex-combatants and paramilitary groups by compelling them to exclude, negate and even eradicate their silent pluralities. These ‘remainders’ become dangerous not by virtue of their difference or separation from the mainstream, but, as I have argued, because they become the objects of radical violence intended either to integrate or eradicate them. As Chapter 7 illustrated, integration within the processes of peace-building creates radical threats, which leaders then ‘pass on’ through their ranks, creating a series of radical threats. When these threats become irresistible to those they affect, cycles of violence are likely to emerge. This chapter has examined how the dynamic of long division has operated in Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organizations through their integration in the ‘peace process’, and the cycles of violence that have emerged – and may yet arise – at least in part due to these logics. The last three chapters have demonstrated how the formation and transformation of the category of ‘ex-combatants’, beginning with former prisoners and extending to paramilitary organizations, has engendered the currents of radical violence that underpin the ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland. This process may build a particular model of peace with more or less success, but it does so, I have argued, through the exertion of radical violence.



It is crucial to note that this line of argument should not be read as an endorsement of the violent actions of any of the groups or individuals in question; as I have stated throughout, my normative orientation is towards non-violent forms of world-building. Moreover, it is certainly not intended to absolve any of the actors discussed above from responsibil-ity for their acts or the harm they may have caused. Rather, the goal is better to explain why these acts of violence occur, the dynamics that underpin them, and how they are inextricably linked with the processes of transformative peace-building.


202

Peace interventions may engender their own kind of violence, as this book has argued. Not only do they institutionalize some forms of physical, material and structural violence enacted by conflicting parties (see Keen, 2000), but they may also embody forms of violence in their underlying logic and the means by which they are realized. In Chapter 1, I framed peace interventions as a confrontation between different forms of world-building, of which specific models of peace and many kinds of conflictual praxis are examples. Peace interventions tend to deny the validity or worth of conflictual modes of world-building and impose their own forms upon perceived areas of ‘conflict’. I then explored the meaning of the term ‘radical’ and restored the complex ambiguity of the idea of the radical and in particular, ‘radical violence’. The latter, I argued, refers not only to the kind of extremist violence which many of the acts of ‘dissidents’ and paramilitary groups discussed here may enact. It may also be used to discuss violence against theradical sources of conflicting groups, or indeed, against conflictual forms of world-building. Transformative peace interventions, which literally attempt to remove the ‘roots’ of conflict, may promote this kind of radical violence. In Chapter 2, I explored how this approach is underpinned by a misconception about conflict and violence: that the former causes the latter, and that conflict left unattended – or rather, un-transformed – necessarily leads to violence. Here, I posed an alter-native hypothesis: that conflictual practices may help to constitute and maintain ‘threatworks’, the phenomena through which groups confront, resist and manage radical threats to them. When these threat-works are breached, or indeed eradicated – whether directly, indirectly, or through the ‘entropic’ damage caused by some transformative processes – physical or material forms of violence are most likely to

9Conclusions: From Peace-Building to (Plural) World-Building? Implications for Peace and Conflict Studies


Conclusions 203

occur. To make this argument, I developed Arendt’s (1965) statement that violence is the opposite of action, claiming that violence occurs when it is impossible to act against a threat to one’s world. In Chapter 4, I illustrated how the ethos of transformative peace interventions, driven by a powerful processual logic, may promote forms of radical threat and, in some cases, violence, that remain invisible until they reach the point of physical or material violence.

These ideas were explored in the specific case of Northern Ireland. Chapter 3 entailed a rethinking of the cycles of violence that led to the Troubles, undertaking a large-scale analysis of the effects of radical violence on three major antagonists: Loyalist and Republican para-military groups, and the state. The next chapter discussed the post-1994 ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland, including the influential PEACE programmes and other policies that promoted a similar ethos of trans-formation. In both cases, I argued, the transformative processes used to bring about radical change in the Northern Irish polity enacted violence against existing threatworks and, in some cases, contributed to the emergence of cycles of violence between key groups. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 delved in more detail into the effects of radical violence on individuals and groups, focusing on the category of ‘ex-combatants’ and members of paramilitary organizations who became involved in the ‘peace process’. Chapter 6 traced the trans-formation of the ‘ex-combatant’ category from the time of the prison protest, while Chapter 7 discussed the vari-ous forms of radical threat faced by these groups when they entered the sphere of transformative peace-building. As Chapter 7 illustrated, this included powerful relative threats and the logic of ‘long division’, which impelled paramilitary leaders to use violent and coercive command structures (including threats and physical violence) instrumentally in order to survive within, and to fuel, the processes of peace-building. Chapter 8 examined in detail the ways in which this logic created cycles of violence within paramilitary organizations, and concluded by highlighting the link between ‘dissident’ violence (on both the Loyalist and Republican ‘sides’) and the radical violence promoted by transformative peace interventions. Its goal was not to justify these acts of violence, but rather to (re)establish a connection between the radi-cal violence promoted by peace-building and the physical or material violence which tends to be framed as the behaviour of ‘spoilers’ (see Stedman, 1997).

Throughout these chapters, I have demonstrated that although from a normative perspective transformative peace interventions espouse non-violence, in practice they themselves are not necessarily non-violent,



and may even contribute to cycles of violence among the groups they seek to transform. In so doing, I have also attempted to re-establish the causal links between ‘peace processes’ and the forms of physical and material violence that often accompany them, and to contest the key assumption that conflict is the primary cause of violence. This raises several important – if counter-intuitive – dilemmas. First, peace-build-ing can be a source of violence, whether directly or indirectly. Secondly, conflict, and conflictual modes of world-building, can be non-violent, and perhaps even anti-violent (that is, resistant to violence). Thirdly, and in relation to these two points, conflict is not a cause of violence, and its removal is not necessarily generative of peace. Indeed, what I have called ‘violence against conflict’, or violence against conflictual modes of peace-building, can be a profound cause of damaging cycles of violence.

What, then, does this mean for peace and conflict studies as an inter-discipline, and for peace interventions? By way of conclusion, I shall briefly outline some of the key implications and suggest some new directions.

Peace or non-violence?

First, this analysis raises an important question: should the priority of interventions be (specific models of) peace or non-violence? This book has argued for the latter. The ethical, moral and practical goal of inter-ventions should be to mitigate violence and end it wherever possible, not necessarily to implement a specific model of peace. It may be asked, however, whether it is really necessary to choose between peace and non-violence. The simple answer is that it may not be. It is of course possible that there are ways that do not involve radical violence; however, insofar as peace-building tends to involve the removal or re-construction of conflict into radically different forms, these remain elusive in the current context. Moreover, if one accepts that transformative (and other mainstream) forms of peace-building may involve radical violence, then any search for ‘non-violent’ forms of peace presupposes a recognition that there are multiple, plural ways of being peaceful. Most importantly, it must be accepted that being peaceful does not necessarily mean con-forming to the logics of democratization, governance, development, and ultimately, securitization, that many of the authors I have cited in this book identify. It may challenge, flout or disrupt these logics. Indeed, it may even be conflictual (see below).

As I have argued above, threatworks are integral to the prevention of violence in many conflicting communities, and, in these contexts,


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may be an important way of being peaceful. It is worth noting that assessments of the ‘success’ of a peace operation tend to assume that there is a direct correlation between elements of the ‘peace process’ and observable changes in the polity (see, for instance, Coopers and Lybrand, 1997). This tautological approach not only excludes the pos-sibility that peace processes can cause violence as well as peace, but, by positing peace-building and its effects as the only causal factors in the changes, it refuses to consider the way in which threatworks con-strain, shape and respond to radical threat (see Chapter six, and Kelly and Mitchell, 2011). As I have argued above, it is highly possible that threatworks, and the forms of conflict that occur within them, are cru-cial in terms of coping with radical threat and preventing violence. To achieve non-violence, then, it is necessary to move towards an ethics of intervention that recognizes and permits the existence of plural forms of world-building – including conflictual ones. This, in term suggests a shift in the underlying goal of interventions into situations of prolonged or acute violence from ‘peace-building’ to plural world-building.

From peace-building to plural world-building

In short, priorities need to be shifted from peace-building, or the promotion of a single form of world-building predicated on the trans-formation or removal of ‘violent conflict’, to one which promotes the non-violent (but perhaps conflictual) coexistence of plural forms of world-building. This, in turn, makes it possible for groups to constitute, maintain, change – and, in an ideal situation, move between – multiple worlds without enacting radical violence. It also means that each of the groups in question has some ability to resist, shape, or simply understand the radical threats it faces. The complete removal of radi-cal threat is not feasible nor, as I shall argue shortly, is it even desirable. Instead, the goal should be to enable all actors to respond creatively to threat – that is, by building or altering aspects of their worlds, instead of engaging in violence against them or creating irresistible radical threats to their existing worlds. In other words, interventions into cycles of conflict should help to create the conditions in which pluralisation – and not simply the reification of certain markers of plurality – can take place (see Connolly, 1995 and Chapter 8). What are the practical implications of such an approach?

First, any intervention into a prolonged cycle of conflict should acknowledge the various forms of world-building taking place therein, and the multiple worlds that are at stake. Based on this awareness, it



should be recognized that peace-building is only one possible form of world-building that can be used to stop violence, and not always the most effective (or ethical) one. Indeed, in Chapter 3 I suggested that, in many cases, the term ‘violent conflict’ is an oxy-moron; conflict and violence coexist not because the former causes the latter, but because the former responds to the latter, and the removal of conflict may promote violence. The aim of a non-violent intervention, therefore, should not be to use transformative or other mainstream logics of peace-building to eliminate other forms of world-building (including threatworks and many forms of conflict). When these threatworks are perceived as radical to a particular group, and necessary to resisting radical threats against it, such interventions perform eradication, often in irresistible ways. These may be extremely subtle – for instance, they may unfold through seem-ingly democratic policy processes (see Chapters 4 and 5).

I am not, however, suggesting that transformative modes of world-building should not be used at all. There may be some settings in which they have very positive effects – for instance, in dealing with parliamentary or constitutional issues in the midst of violence. My point is that they should not become dominant to the point that they preclude or exclude all other forms of world-building on the basis that the latter threaten to rupture the processes through which they unfold. In other words, the ‘peace process’ should not be allowed to dominate the polity in the way that it does in many ‘post-conflict’ settings. In set-tings that are not thought to require peace interventions, such as most of towns and cities of western Europe and North America, the logics of ‘peace’ do not dominate daily life to the same extent. This is not to say that lives in ‘non-conflict zones’ are not driven by similar transforma-tive processes – of governance, democratization, securitization and development/consumption – which of course they are. The main differ-ence is that conflictual acts which disrupt these processes are not auto-matically viewed as a harbinger of violence and collapse. For instance, altercations between protesting crowds and police disrupt the function-ing of processes of securitization, and may even erupt into relatively short-lived acts of violence, but they are not generally treated as warning signs that the entire polity may soon collapse into war. Rather, this kind of agonistic or conflictual exchange, which tests the boundaries of different forms of world-making, is often the sign of a healthy and func-tioning democratic system. Similarly, crimes of a violent nature tend to be treated as localized or even individual aberrations, not as symptoms of impending collapse. In fact, the main difference between ‘conflict zones’ and ‘non-conflict zones’ appears to be that in the latter, conflict


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is permitted. ‘Conflict zones’, then, are constructed as the spaces in which conflict cannot be allowed. I want to argue that the presence of conflict in ‘non-conflict zones’ is part of the reason why violence is not a major problem for the majority of their citizens.

In such spaces, people are able to construct and maintain threat-works that help them to manage or maintain the threats raised by other forms of world-building without feeling that their own worlds are in danger of eradication. These threatworks may include living in closed-off or close knit communities – whether the gated communities of the wealthy or the ‘towns’ occupied by new immigrants – or even joining social groups such as dissenting social movements or groups of young people who occasionally clash with other young people or police. While they may not be condoned by statutory bodies, or may even be the subject of policies designed to control them (or, in the case of crime, met with coercive forms of control), they are not viewed as a radical threat to the forms of world-building that are considered necessary to a ‘peaceful’ society. This may be in large part because the threatworks of the state – for instance, policing and the judiciary – are considered strong and well-established enough to withstand small disruptions, disturbances and mutations without collapsing. In such contexts, different forms of world-building may ‘hybridize’ each other (see Mac Ginty, 2008), but they need not preclude or destroy each other. Indeed, in such cases, engaging in disruptions may in some cases be an important means for being peaceful, or coexisting without violence. As such, multiple forms of world-building are allowed to exist, and a range of responses – from acceptance to coercion – is used to respond to them. In other words, peaceful contexts are defined at least in part by the ability of citizens to conflict without serious cycles of violence erupting. Yet when these practices arise in a ‘conflict zone’, they are swiftly made the targets of transformation and/or eradication in order to preserve the ‘peace process’.

It is necessary, therefore, to rethink several of the modes of con-flictual world-building that are viewed as threats to transformative peace-building, and therefore targeted for transformation. Here, I shall briefly explore three examples of conflictual forms of world-building in contemporary Northern Ireland. In so doing, I shall approach them from the perspective of plural world-building, rather than (liberal- or social- democratic) peace-building. Instead of viewing these phenom-ena uncritically as obstacles to the ‘peace process’ that need to be removed, I shall explore how they may be viewed not only as possible ways of being peaceful or resisting violence, but also as crucial sources



of information about radical threats, their sources, and how groups attempt to protect their worlds against them.

Rioting

Despite the negative image promoted in policy and legal discourses, rioting is neither the result of blind ‘ethnic’ hatreds, nor of mere bore-dom caused by the ‘underdevelopment’ of poor neighbourhoods or the inadequate provision of public services. Rather, it is an important way in which two or more groups can challenge the boundaries of their localized worlds and, quite literally, test the ability of their threatworks to control violence. In crossing an interface or throwing missiles across it, one group may breach the boundaries of another. The low-level violence that often follows is, indeed, violence, but a particular form of controlled violence. As Liam Kelly’s (2010, 2011) work demonstrates, even at the moments of most intense rioting in Belfast in 1969 (just before the emergence of the Troubles), episodes of seemingly random violence in fact took place in a manner that was tightly constrained both in geographical terms and the kinds of violence which emerged. This was due to the presence of unspoken but widely established patterns of rioting in which certain areas were known to be flashpoints and others remained largely untouched. Indeed, rioting tends to occur at the faultlines where radical threat between two groups is highest – whether this threat is between members of two ‘ethnic’ groups, between young people and the police or between individuals and paramilitary actors. After a riot, threatworks are reconstructed, sometimes with changed boundaries, whether physical or in the relationships between the groups that threaten one another. As such, rioting is not strictly non-violent, but it is directly involved with testing the limits of conflict and indeed limiting violence, and it may also contribute to the formation and maintenance of threatworks that are crucial to preventing larger cycles of violence from emerging.

In recent years, most of the attention on rioting has focused upon young people, and has framed rioting as a something they do out of boredom or ‘sectarian’ attitudes (see below).

So-called recreational rioting involves rioting or fighting (planned or spontaneous) in which groups of young people attack each other verbally, physically or by throwing stones or fireworks at one another (Jarman and O’Halloran, 2001; Hansson, 2005). These activities, may, in certain cases, be condoned by authority figures such as adults and paramilitary leaders, but in other cases where they disrupt the perceived authority of local paramilitary groups, they may result in another form


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of violence – punishment beatings – against the perpetrators (Jarman and O’Halloran, 2001). Rioting of this kind is generally considered to be an act of anti-social behaviour (sometimes it is alleged to be drug-fuelled), criminality or even the enactment of ‘destructive orgies’ (see BBC, 2010c). Yet, according to the young people I interviewed in 2010, it is not simply the result of boredom, lack of forward thinking (Farrell, 2010) or a ‘nihilistic existence’ (BBC, 2010c). Rather, it involves responses to two irresistible forces which seek radically to alter the social groups and practices created by young people: the police and paramili-tary actors.

According to young people who regularly take part in rioting, or have friends who have, this rioting is not necessarily associated with inter-ethnic resentment nor even dislike of the ‘other’ group (Group Interview, 2010). Indeed, Roche’s (2008) interviews with several hundred young people in (London)Derry revealed that many of them did not even identify their acts as ‘sectarian’ until the term was suggested to them in interviews. Many members of the opposite sides of the riot are friends; indeed, it is often through social, digital or mobile phone networking that they arrange riots (see BBC, 2010c). The young people I interviewed suggested that rioting was not a simple act of disobedience, but rather that it involves a complex mix of motivations, including the desire for excitement, but also the ability to access local collective mem-ories of repression and protest, and to engage in rebellion, contestation and the testing of authority (Group Interview, 2010). In this case, the young people in question were able to test their own social relations, their ability to gather a crowd and mobilize a riot, their capacity to stake and defend space, and their ability to undermine the local power structures that constrain their behaviour.

For the young people I interviewed, rioting is a means for resisting the attempts of paramilitary actors and police to constrain, control and alter their modes of world-making. This explains why riots between members of different ethnic groups are apparently not based on hatred or ‘sectari-anism’ – members of both groups engage in the riot as a collective act of violence not against each other but against the irresistible forces that target, constrain and alter their modes of world-building. It also goes some way in undercutting the assumption that rioting in these areas is a blind response to boredom; young people in almost every large city face boredom and not all of them engage in carefully planned and executed riots between defined ethnic groups.

Indeed, rioting may be used by young people to resist radical threat – and perhaps violence – on the part of police/policymakers on the one



hand and paramilitary groups on the other. The former appear to have taken an increasingly intolerant line with regards to rioting in recent years, particularly as citations for ‘anti-social behaviour’ have become more common across the UK. Since the signing of the GF/BA (which most of the young people in question were far too young to have had any input into), one of the biggest socio-political ‘problems’ identi-fied by policymakers has been ‘anti-social behaviour’, in particular around the interface areas of major cities (McDermott and McAvoy, 2010). In addition, programmes such as PEACE actively target young people, engaging in a ‘counter-attack’ (BBC, 2010c) against this activ-ity by attempting to transform young peoples’ activities away from the potential for violence or destruction and towards the promotion of ideals such as toleration and ‘cross-community’ learning (see European Union, 2008). While part of this strategy might be benign – for instance, attempting to engage youth in community-based projects – some strate-gies are much more coercive.

Young people appear to be particularly concerned about surveillance and perceived unfair treatment by the police. Surveillance is used in many urban areas to control and punish disorder, particularly among youth, and is often a very visible and intimidating presence on the streets. Indeed, the Community Relations Council states that 44 cameras were introduced in interface areas since 2002 (Community Relations Council, 2009). Simply because they are now ‘an established feature’ of the streetscape (Community Relations Council, 2009), however, does not mean that their presence is viewed as any less invasive by young people. Young people who live in areas where surveillance is common believe these cameras are used primarily to target certain individuals involved in rioting, often after the fact: ‘if they [the police] can’t get them on the night, they’ll come back and get them whenever they can’ (Group Interview, 2010). Indeed, they claimed that police would often provoke or tease young people on the street whom they believed were ‘bad kids’, possibly on the basis of having seen (or suspected) them, or others similar to them, believed to be involved in rioting footage. Those interviewed claimed, however, that the security provided by such surveil-lance did not benefit them in return: ‘if something happens in the street, and the police just don’t want to be annoyed – [they’ll say] the cameras weren’t on at that time … They can see everything, but they don’t see what they don’t want to see’. (Group Interview, 2010). This suggests that the young people in question feel that surveillance is used to punish, but not to protect them, and is indicative of their deeper mistrust of police officers with whom they may have confrontational relationships.


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Simultaneously, young people face an ongoing threat of violence from paramilitary actors, another source of violence generated by the long division process (see Chapters 7 and 8). One of the most impor-tant ways in which paramilitary organizations have been expected to integrate themselves within the processes of peace-building, promote transformation and maintain unity and compliance is by controlling the actions of young people, whether formally through ‘restorative justice’ or community projects, or informally through paramilitary-style threats and beatings. Although paramilitary leaders active in the ‘peace process’ tend to disavow the latter, it is clear that a mixture of the two takes place in many communities. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that much of the status and perceived authority of paramilitary leaders in their communities derives from the knowledge that they have engaged in violence and, perhaps, that they might do so again if not respected sufficiently.

It is common for paramilitary actors to express frustration with ‘anti-social behaviour’ and to undertake initiatives to prevent or control it. Several Loyalist paramilitary leaders described this as a matter of maintaining control among ‘headstrong’ young men, ‘with a lot of bra-vado’, who were ‘trying to be like the dissidents – hijacking and burn-ing cars, and just being a nuisance’, and thus diverting PSNI resources away from the more important work of tracing the dissidents (Templer, p. 9). Indeed, Paramilitary organizations have traditionally used such tactics to divert young people from destructive or criminal behaviour in their communities towards service within paramilitary organizations (Alonso, 2006); it is believed that the controversial Loyalist paramilitary commander Johnny Adair (see Chapter 9) joined the UDA/UFF as an alternative to a punishment beating in response to his disruptive behav-iour (Cusack and MacDonald, 2000). In the present period, Republican and Loyalist ex-combatants – especially former prisoners – have been tasked with the project of reducing anti-social behaviour as a means of preventing paramilitary beatings against them as well as punishment through the formal legal system (Maguire, 2007; Winstone, 2007). My interviewees claimed that they have done so through discussions with or mediation between young people, or simply by sharing their experi-ences and highlighting the costs of paramilitary involvement (Sheehan et al., 2010; MacDonald, 2010).

However, young people still believe that they face the threat of punishment beatings, intimidation or even death threats against them-selves or family members if they disobey paramilitary groups (Roche, 2008; Group Interview, 2010). Indeed, when I asked some young people



about their relationships with paramilitary actors in their communities, they responded with disdain and dismissiveness. One interviewee com-mented that ‘they’re not fighting for us anymore – they’re starting to turn on us … Paramilitary doesn’t mean what it used to mean’ and several stated that local paramilitary actors had threatened to shoot them if they did not respond to orders given by the former (Group Interview, 2010). Rioting – as well as engagement in less conflictual acts such as youth work or community projects – is viewed a way of flout-ing paramilitary control in the face of such threats. Even if mainstream paramilitary organizations are no longer carrying out punishment beatings or other overtly violent acts, however, the fragmentation and alienation of ‘dissident Republican’ groups has a similar effect. It has been observed that dissident Republicans have attacked young people involved in an organization called the ‘Divis Hoods Liberation Army’, whose name deliberately mocks paramilitary organizations and which engages in acts of disorder intended to disrupt the police and para-military organizations alike (BBC, 2009b). A quick scan of the online social networking sites of members of this organizations reflects graffiti against Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries, as well as the PSNI. It is believed that members of this organization were threatened by ‘dis-sident Republican’ groups who were aiming to consolidate control and support within communities through controlling anti-social behaviour (BBC, 2009b).

From this perspective, rioting is far from ‘recreational’ or an ‘unthink-ing’ response to boredom (see Jarman and O’Halloran, 2001; Farrell, 2010). Rather, it is an attempt to protect and bolster an often hidden world of young people, which faces threats and violence from both the police and paramilitaries. Although part of the motivation of young rioters may indeed be to relieve boredom, it is also an important means for resisting the (threat of) violence they face on an everyday basis as a result of the long division process. As such, rioting and other forms of social organization among youths – including their tendency to gather and loiter in public places (Farrell, 2010) – may be seen as an important means of constructing threatworks and resisting violence. Moreover, this analysis helps to answer a question often posed by proponents of peace-building: why do young people who had very little experience of the Troubles still engage in ‘sectarian’ acts (Hutchinson, 2010)? Here, I have argued that although these young people were not part of the Troubles, they are deeply ensconced in the cycles of violence that accompany the ‘peace process’ that followed and which has directly tar-geted their worlds and forms of world-building in the effort to produce


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a particular form of peace. Rioting highlights the sites at which this threat is resisted by young people.

Division and ‘interfacing’

The boundaries of worlds – although constantly shifting and frequently contested by other groups and the members of the group maintaining them – are crucial to their survival. As such, the creation and preser-vation of social, cultural, economic and geographic boundaries is a constitutive element of the threatworks created in Northern Ireland. Rioting, discussed above, as an important form of interfacing reshapes and contests the boundaries of worlds. Other, less overtly conflictual acts may contest boundaries in a similar way – for instance, when Orange parades march through nationalist-dominated neighbourhoods, or, conversely, when large numbers of nationalist families move into unionist or Loyalist-dominated areas. Sometimes, even the act of indi-viduals crossing interfaces can create a perceived breach in the bounda-ries of these worlds. ‘Interfacing’ is one of the most important tactics used by local actors to establish and maintain threatworks, through the physical, geographical separation and demarcation of members of plural worlds in places where their interaction is perceived as a mutual threat. Moreover, in an important sense, interfacing critiques trans-formative peace interventions by directly contesting how the city has been redeveloped or ‘transformed’ and literally attempting to reconfig-ure the socio-cultural space and thus to realize a different conception of peace (or simply of daily life). These phenomena can involve the erec-tion of physical barriers (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006), the movement of families associated with one ethnic group away from areas dominated by another (Jarman, 2006a), the marking of ‘territory’ with threatening symbols (Bryan and Gillespie, 2005) or simply ‘cocooning’ – the crea-tion of ethnically homogeneous social networks that insulate individu-als from contact with others (Roche, 2008). These practices are quite often not designed or controlled by a central person or group (although paramilitary actors have traditionally taken a strong role in determining them), nor are they strategic in the sense of a coordinated attempt to consolidate power. Moreover, they are not usually the result of deliber-ate or organized planning, although they may respond to patterns of fear and intimidation created by paramilitaries (see below, and Roche, 2008; Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006). However, they reflect a pervasive spatial understanding within certain neighbourhoods, and may help in channeling, controlling and limiting the spread of violence or the threat thereof (see Kelly, 2010). Moreover, as mentioned above, many



individuals feel that these divisions or boundaries between worlds, often as small as a neighbourhood or housing estate, can help to cre-ate the sense of security necessary so that their residents feel confident enough to interact within shared or public spaces such as the workplace or the city centre (McDonald, 2010; Jackie, 2010).

Yet interfaces, boundaries and the acts that create them are primary targets for transformation. Acts that promote or maintain ‘division’, such as interfacing and the erection of barriers, are often treated as products of socio-economic deprivation, marginalization or isolation (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006; Hansson, 2005). According to Neil Jarman, the conflictual acts that take place in relation to interfacing and division tend to be perceived and prosecuted as crimes or infractions of public order (Jarman, 2006a). The most common response by peace-building and governmental actors is to attempt to remove and/or prevent these phenomena (Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006; OFMDFM, 2005) using tech-niques such as surveillance (Jarman, 2006b, p.20), mobile policing and the development of community groups tasked with diverting individual actors towards more desirable activities (Jarman, 2006b). Indeed, since boundaries, barriers or evidence of ‘division’ are often sites of conflict-ual world-building and threatworks, and thus assumed to promote violence, it is one of the priorities of peace-building processes such as PEACE to remove them through strategies that promote ‘open’ or ‘shared’ space and the breaking down of ‘divisions’ (Hand, 2010). This strategy may be promoted through a range of logics, including the methods of surveillance and control of rioting discussed above, but also strategic redevelopment projects or attempts to control events such as bonfires, parades and holidays through localized modes of governance (Kelly and Mitchell, 2011; Francey, 2010). Each of these strategies may be used to remove or dilute division. Yet these elements of threatworks may be crucial forms of resisting violence (or perhaps unleashing the impulse to violence in non-violent forms), and evidence of the fissures created by radical threat. Therefore, their uncritical removal may be detrimental to the goal of non-violence and to the establishment of conditions in which plural worlds can coexist non-violently.

Sectarianism

The term ‘sectarianism’ tends to refer to any activity which demarcates individuals or groups in terms of their ‘ethnic’ (that is, broadly speaking, Catholic or Protestant) background. Efforts to dissolve sectarianism and to create ‘reconciliation’ between the ‘two communities’ in Northern Ireland has been the goal of many programmes and initiatives, including


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PEACE, the now-defunct ‘Shared Future’ policy and the ‘Good Relations’ agenda of authorities such as the Belfast City Council (Francey, 2010). These and other policies attempt to reduce perceived sectarian behav-iours by creating neutral events and celebrations on holidays of cultural significance such as St. Patrick’s day and the 12th of July (Francey, 2010; Hand, 2010). These events, which were previously used by paramilitary groups and organizations representing each major community to assert their identities and symbols and, simultaneously, to reclaim territory (Jarman, 2005) have been reframed and regulated as neutral civic ‘carni-vals’ (Nagle, 2009) to take place in a ‘shared’ city centre As John Nagle (Nagle and Clancy, 2010) argues, although these events tend to be non-violent, each group still perceives them as an important occasion for marking and maintaining territorial control over the much-contested city centre. Moreover, local and regional authorities have taken an active interest in counting flags and other ‘sectarian’ symbols with a view to removing them (Bryan and Gillespie, 2005; OFMDFM, 2007) – or, indeed, tasking community organizations or even former paramilitary actors with this project (Gallagher, 2010). Another prominent policy used to combat ‘sectarianism’ is ‘reimaging’, or the re-painting of paramilitary and other murals that reflect images of conflict or violence and replacing them with more ‘acceptable’ or ‘neutral’ images (Francey, 2010). Moreover, as discussed in previous chapters, many of the processes associated with peace-building are directly designed to promote ‘reconciliation’ – framed as the non-conflictual and non-sectarian interaction between members of different ethnic groups. Yet by ‘re-imaging’ or destroying these markers, the processes of transformation may not only break down important threatworks, but may also erase information about the dynamics of radical threat that are crucial to understanding and even predicting the faultlines where violence might occur (see below).

One example of this is the flying of paramilitary and other ethnically significant flags, which is often framed as a form of segregation (see Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006), and thus an affront to the liberal ideal of open space and inclusion. In recent years, the local and regional gov-ernments have invested a large amount of time and money into moni-toring the use of these symbolic-territorial markings and, ultimately, finding ways of removing them (Bryan and Gillespie, 2005; OFMDFM, 2005; Gallagher, 2010; Hutchinson, 2010). Yet the yearly marking of the boundaries of neighbourhoods with flags may be viewed as an everyday practice through which people attempt safely to navigate through their lives. The placement of flags and murals does not only help paramili-tary organizations to consolidate power, but it also helps members of



local communities (and perhaps even law enforcement professionals) to understand the dynamics taking place within these groups and how best to respond to them, whether by resisting or simply avoiding dan-gerous confrontations. For example, the murals re-painted by Adair in the early 2000s provided much insight into what is known about the ‘Loyalist feuds’ and the potentially dangerous power struggles taking place within these organizations. In more benign situations, they may also allow communities to assert a spatial presence in a way that reaf-firms their local world and thus reduces their fear of eradication.

Another example is the use of sectarian slang, jokes and other verbal ways of conflicting. The use of sectarian jokes may be one way of dif-fusing tensions or even bridging the gap between groups. For instance, speculation about one’s background based on the practice of ‘telling’ is often used in groups as a form of social exchange (Wilson and Donnan, 2006). When living in Northern Ireland, I quickly found that participat-ing in more or less sectarian jokes regarding my forename and surname (both of which are ambiguous in the context of Northern Ireland) allowed research subjects not only to enhance their rapport with and trust of me but also to demonstrate to me, through ironic or testing comments, their willingness to tolerate contact with a person of either ethnic background. At the same time, by accepting these jibes with good humour, I was able to demonstrate that I did not wish to break down the threatworks relied upon by my interviewees. In addition, rather than entrenching ‘ethnic hatreds’, the frank – and often humourous or face-tious – referencing of ethnic backgrounds may encourage honesty about one’s ethnic background as a means of diffusing potential tensions. For instance, one of my interviewees described the way in which, in the 30 years that he has worked in a ‘mixed’ taxi company (that is, employ-ing Catholics and Protestants), he and his co-workers have consistently had ‘a bit of banter’ about each others’ ethnic backgrounds. This, he claimed, allowed them simultaneously to put their backgrounds out in the open while marking a boundary: they could joke about their back-grounds, but they would not delve into personal histories or political debates. As a result, he related, it was possible to work in such a setting even during times of high tensions ( Jackie, 2010).

Even more aggressive forms of ‘sectarianism’, such as intimidation, may be vital to threatworks. Examples include the use of intimidation to control entry and exit into certain areas, and the unofficial segregation of public places such as bars, restaurants or social clubs – for instance, between the supporters of different football teams (see Mitchell, 2009). Individuals may also be targeted or enact forms of intimidation and fear


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by using sectarian threats or forms of harassment on private property, public spaces or workplaces, such as verbal abuse, overt physical threats, the destruction of property or the display of symbols that may be per-ceived as threatening or degrading to particular ethnic groups ( Jarman, 2006; Bryan and Gillespie, 2005). Intimidation may often involve threats or actual violence. Yet it is interesting to note that in many cases, those who are intimidated either ignore the threats (Group Interview, 2010) or simply obey them without much struggle (Kelly, 2010) rather than attempting to bring in the police or other bodies. Indeed, there is an established pattern of intimidation within Belfast that, Kelly argues, may have been used as a warning system, for instance, to remove fami-lies from houses in areas that were likely to be burnt during the early stages of the Troubles (Kelly, 2010). Although this was more likely due to a fear of being arrested for murder than altruism, it does suggest that even intimidation – which is still resistible and therefore not yet an act of violence – may be used to reduce violence and harm. Intimidation (like rioting) is an important grey area in which the line between violence and non-violence is blurred, in which conflictual behaviour may be insufficient to restrain the exchange of threat. Therefore, while caution should be taken in uncritically condemning all ‘sectarian’ acts, they must still coexist with the basic standards of the law.

Each of these examples not only demonstrates the (perhaps counter-intuitive) ways in which threatworks may help to promote non-violence and make possible plural ways of being peaceful. It also demonstrates how efforts to remove, deny or simply ignore threatworks and the manifesta-tions of threat they create may increase the likelihood of violence and, conversely, how knowledge of threatworks can be used by policymakers and police to help prevent it. Rather than viewing threatworks as mere obstructions to the ‘peace process’ that need to be removed, would-be intervenors should pay attention to the nature of threatworks and the in sight they provide into the radical sources of groups. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the radical is an elusive concept; it is central to daily life, but impossible to define or even pin down. However, forms of world-building, including threatworks, provide a physical manifestation of the radical. What is built – or protected – by these forms of activity is likely considered to be radical to someone. As such, the removal of such threatworks is not only an act of radical violence, and one which may intensify the radical threat raised by other groups, but it may also be a profound act of erasure that blinds intervenors to the radical violence their actions may create.

The goal of any intervention that is attentive to radical violence should not be to remove conflict, but to make it possible to conflict,



and thus to resist cycles of violence. Indeed, instead of assuming that areas emerging from cycles of violence should be ‘allowed’ less con-flictual activity, perhaps they should be allowed more than in relatively non-violent societies as a means of dealing with the higher threats they experience. How much non-violent conflict is tolerable is a matter that should be discussed explicitly in the negotiations leading to peace inter-ventions. It should also, however, adapt to the forms of contestation that take place when and after they are implemented. For instance, the riots discussed above act as a critique of the dynamics of violence faced by young people, at least in part as a result of the processes of peace-building. Rather than discounting this activity as mere criminality or attempting to convert it into a neutral, highly-governed ‘carnival’, poli-cymakers and security forces should critically consider the amount of threat their own threatworks can withstand and make decisions based on this, rather than adopting a zero tolerance approach, and being open to adjustments. Once again, even in ‘non-violent’ contexts, the rule of law is constantly challenged not only by transgression but also by the formal legal processes through which it is developed and maintained. A similar standard should apply to the policing of conflictual activity in societies recovering from prolonged cycles of violence. While this may be difficult and imperfect, it may be necessary in creating and inhabiting a plural polity.

Indeed, rather than just building (one model of) peace, interventions into cycles of violence should find ways to help the groups in question to identify and rebuild their worlds – including their threatworks. In such a context, multiple forms of world-building could coexist along with transformative modes of peace-building in certain spheres – for instance, in formal politics or the establishment of law and order. The most important caveat is that, while all of these forms of world-building are likely to raise radical threats to one another, none should involve direct, indirect or entropic radical violence against the other. For instance, it may be asked what the response should be when conflictual forms of world-building contravene the law. In this case, certain laws are radical to the ‘peaceful’ mode of world-building, such as the proba-tion of killing and insurrection. In these cases, violence is enacted not only against the victim but against the form of world building that governs law and order (the rule of law), and the coercive response of the police and appropriate forms of punishment may be justified. However, non-compliance with certain regulations (for instance, those that govern public order or events such as riots and bonfires) do not involve an irresistible radical threat to governing bodies, unless they involve


Conclusions 219

killing, physical harm or severe material destruction. indeed, they can be predicted and responded to with relative ease by most individuals living in Northern Ireland (many respond by leaving the city during bonfire nights such as the 11th of July). In short, only those acts which violate the radical sources of a particular form of world-building – for instance, by breaking the basic rule of law – or make it impossible to engage in a form of world-building should be met with violence, whether it comes in the form of coercion or transformation.

Moreover, it is important that intervening actors – particularly ‘inter-national’ actors – make their interventions more resistible to the groups they will ultimately affect. Some good starting points with regards to this goal are awareness of threatworks, as discussed above. The acknowledge-ment that these phenomena may be aspects of worlds that are cherished by specific groups, and that their removal is a form of violence, may make intervenors think twice about policies or initiatives designed rapidly to remove them. By studying, acknowledging and appreciating threatworks or general patterns of conflict, it may also be possible to identify the source of acute radical threats between groups and to find ways of alleviat-ing these – without simply assuming that the threat in question is territo-rial or ethnic. This means that interventions may need to be as localized as the groups engaged in them, and related to specific issues such as the breaching of a local boundary, rather than broad goals such as the ‘reconciliation’ of whole ethnic groups. Peace interventions, from this perspective, should take place on a small scale, not as the local application of universal goals. This occurs in the current context, where small-scale groups such as NGOs are sub-contracted the task of implementing uni-versal goals such as cross-community dialogue at a local level. Rather, it should involve the exploration of radical threats at the level of threatworks and the specific incidents in which they are perceived to be breached, regardless of whether these can be instrumentalized to a broader project of peace-building or a broader pattern of conflict. This also means that dif-ferent forms of intervention may be needed among the various groups that have been engaged in violence, and that peace interventions need not ‘link up’ in the way that many proponents of transformative peace-building demand (O’Reilly, 2010). Indeed, if peace interventions were undertaken at the level of threatworks (possibly by rebuilding these threatworks) rather than at the level of polity-building, they would contribute to the plurality of world-building and generate more possible ways of being peaceful rather than erasing or homogenizing these.

In addition, the (perhaps unintentional) reproduction of the dichot-omy between ‘peace’ and ‘violent conflict’, manifested in the logic of long



division (see Chapters 8 and 9) needs to be addressed. As Agathangelou and Ling (2009) suggest, such dichotomies entail acts of erasure or involve (the threat of) eradication. They also promote a totalizing form of world-building in which markers of plurality – such as gender, race and identity – can be preserved, but alternative forms of world-building (some widespread, and others localized as far as a single street) are excluded or destroyed. Rather than seeking to include groups, whether paramilitary organizations or ‘target groups’ such as women and youth, as a whole, peace interventions should encourage awareness of the plurality within communities, groups and organizations. Instead of demanding that it be reduced to the greatest common denominator – generating and enact-ing violence against its remainders – the goal should be to find ways of allowing these plural forms of world-building to coexist. In other words, rather than constructing the processes of peace-building in terms of long division, it may be possible to re-imagine them in terms of multiplication, or at least the critical, reflective recognition of new and existing plurality. It may be unlikely that leaders of paramilitary organizations would take to such an approach, given their history of consolidating support. However, they certainly will not when the incentives – and threats – they face impel them to mask or even eliminate plurality within their ranks as a means of guaranteeing compliance. On a similar scale, the insistence by funders that the ‘voluntary sector’ organize itself almost solely along the lines of advocacy and service provision may involve similar, subtle acts of radical violence in other groups (see Mitchell, 2009a). Rather than maintaining a false dichotomy between ‘peace’ and ‘conflict’ (read: ‘violent conflict’), the emphasis should be on exploring the various forms of peace and conflict. In other words, rather than associating conflict with violence, the shift proposed here would associate it more closely with the capacity to create and maintain peace as non-violence.

‘Post-Peace’ interventions? Implications for the field of peace, conflict and violence studies

These suggestions have important implications for the field of peace and conflict studies. First, they suggest that it is necessary to look beyond peace as the ‘bottom line’ of interventions designed to mitigate conflict. The term ‘post-peace’ does not mean that various models of peace – including mainstream or transformative models – should be abandoned, but rather that care must be taken to prevent their becom-ing hegemonic and/or radically violent. This is not a call for a simple return to ‘conflict management’, but rather one in which the plural


Conclusions 221

nature of both peace and conflict are explored as potential ways of being peaceful and preventing or halting violence. Nor does this book espouse the toleration of violence, such as that enacted by ‘dissident Republicans’ in recent months or indeed of ‘dissident Loyalists’ in the last decade. On the contrary, it suggests that if the individuals under-taking these acts felt that it was still possible to engage in forms of world-building without an immediate violent or coercive response, they might not experience their conditions as violent. Even for these groups, who often actively espouse violence in ideological terms, violence is merely instrumental to their ability to create and inhabit a particular world. When, however, they wish to impose that world upon others to the destruction of other worlds, their aims become indefensible. Thus, rather than condoning or condemning the violence of ‘dissidents’, this book appeals for critical thinking about how best to mitigate the exist-ing cycle of violence, including the role of the ‘peace process’ in it.

The plural world-building approach reframes the very term ‘peace and conflict studies’ from one which contains an opposition to one which expresses a complementarity and openness to multiple forms of world-building. Secondly, they suggest that the acknowledge-ment and exploration – not the measurement and transformation or eradication – of threatworks is necessary in order to intervene in ways that mitigate violence and do not embody it in themselves. This means that the inter-discipline of peace and conflict studies should engage less with the large-scale, often-universalizing normative frameworks of international relations and more with anthropological, sociological, historical, cultural, artistic, literary and micro-economic approaches to conflict and threatworks. The goal is not to divorce peace and conflict studies from the field of international relations, but rather to equip its proponents with the tools to understand the nature of radical violence at the level where it has the most impact: everyday life.

Moreover, this re-framing of the phrase ‘peace and conflict’ suggests that researchers and scholars in the field should focus more attention not only on understanding theatworks but also on the ways in which they may be rebuilt in ways that attenuate the severity of radical threat between conflicting groups – including the indirect threats caused by peace interventions or large-scale, even global phenomena. The empha-sis here is not to encourage conflicting actors blindly to resist these events, but rather to equip them for dealing with them better – not only by teaching them the language and skills necessary to engage with new forms of world-building, but also in helping them to build or enhance



their existing threatworks such that they are able to cope with change non-violently. In other words, the role of intervenors should be to prepare conflicting groups to assess and perhaps even resist change, not simply to train them to adapt to it. This is important not only for interventions that take place in areas where prolonged cycles of violence have taken place, but perhaps also as a preparatory measure in areas where threat-works are imminently threatened by phenomena such as environmental change and shifts in the demand for resources. Finally, in the light of these perspectives, I propose that the term should be changed to ‘peace, conflict and violence’ studies to reflect the relationship between these three contested terms, and to avoid dichotomizing peace and conflict. In other words, the term ‘conflict’ in ‘peace and conflict studies’ should not signal the simple impulse to remove conflict as a means for creating peace. Rather (or perhaps also), it should promote an understanding of how conflict relates to peaceful or non-violent modes of world-building and violence.

From this point of view, the role of international actors and propo-nents of peace and conflict studies should be to help conflicting actors to construct worlds that are resilient to these threats but able to coex-ist with them, for instance by discussing how local traditions can be reconciled or combined with new socio-economic practices (Richmond and Mitchell, 2011). In other words, a commitment to multiple world-building instead of peace-building alone has important implications both in addressing and preventing violence. It does not condemn peace interventions as such, but rather draws attention to the unintended violence that interventions may involve, and calls for reflexivity on the part of all actors with regards to what they perceive as radical to themselves and others. It also calls for creative thinking about conflict and an active commitment to recognizing and promoting pluralisation rather than seeking primarily to simply reduce and integrate ‘conflicted’ polities. Of course, what I have presented here is an approach and a nor-mative orientation, not a set of policy prescriptions; indeed, I have not attempted to provide these. Rather, I have re-interpreted several forms of conflictual world-building from the perspective of plural worlds to illustrate the implications this shift in perspective may have for understandings of violence, conflict and peace (-building). As I have dis-cussed above, peace interventions should not necessarily take place at the level of large-scale interventions, but rather in response to the breaching of specific threatworks. Thus, developing large-scale or even universal strategies for peace-building may serve only to obscure local threatworks and ways of responding to them. Yet I am not suggesting


Conclusions 223

that each peace intervention (or act of conflict) should be so locally based that it is divorced from any normative project; on the contrary, I have presented the ideal of plural world-building as a broader norma-tive structure. Indeed, the suggestions I have made above with regards to recognizing plurality and exploring the peaceful potential of conflict and threatworks provide some basic tenets of the approach without over-prescribing the practices through which it can be furthered. The specific means for doing so should be the work not only of a new genera-tion of scholars and practitioners in the field of peace and conflict studies, but also of a new concept and norm of peace and conflict studies. By refusing to do violence to multiple worlds, and consciously orient-ing interventions towards non-violent forms of world-building, it will ensure that less is lost in peace interventions, and that much can be restored and even created.


224

Notes

2 Violence against Conflict: Radical Peace, Radical Violence and the Paradox of Conflict Transformation

1. Republicans were opposed to the 1921 treaty which concluded the partition of Ireland.

3 Radical Violence and the Beginning of ‘the Troubles’ – Northern Ireland 1965–72

1. James Chichester Clark, UUP Leader 1969–71, was O’Neill’s successor.2. That is, conforming to the Bible verbatim.

8 Dangerous Remainders: Long Division and Cycles of Violence in the Northern Ireland ‘Peace Process’

1. Some refused to become involved in the feud and made this clear to both Adair and the UDA leadership.

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240

Index

Adams, Gerry 159, 162, 186–88Action (Arendtian) 3–5, 7, 14, 24,

25–6, 32, 56, 94, 110–15, 203Adair, Johnny 176–79, 191, 211,

216Agonism 21, 24, 30, 95–8, 206Arendt, Hannah 3–7, 14, 24–5,

93–4, 109–14, 203‘As the Beast Sleeps’ (play by Gary

Mitchell) 164–65, 179

B- Specials 39, 52Barriers 28, 214

See also interfaces and peace wallsBelfast City Council 15, 215‘Blanket, the’ 187–9Bonfires 15, 27, 214, 218–19

Civil society 17–19, 21, 74, 76–8, 85, 95, 99, 101–7, 119, 129

See also Social capitalCoiste na Iarchimi (Republican

Former Prisoners’ Organization) 86, 124, 132–34, 144, 145–47, 151, 190

Cold War 18, 22, 45–50, 95–6 Peace-building project 50

Combatants 2, 7, 22, 52Definition, ‘targeting’ and

‘trans-formation of 82, 117–37, 138–68, 190, 196, 200, 203, 211

Ex-combatants 7, 22, 78Combined Loyalist Military

Command 169–72, 177Complexity 92, 97–106, 115Community Development

Policies 74, 76–7, 190Community Relations Policies 74–7,

210Conflict, definitions of 24–30

Ethnic 9, 15, 42As resistance to violence 30–42

Conflict Transformation 73, 93, 106–08, 118–19, 159, 162

See also Democratization; Securitization; Governance, and Development

Connolly, William 95–101, 163–64, 205

Consultations 74, 78, 85–90, 101, 123, 128, 133–34

Cross-community initiatives 77, 121, 133, 145, 148–51, 210, 219

Decommissioning (of weapons) 131, 152–5, 161, 180–83, 199

De Certeau, Michel 5, 31, 94, 111Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

51, 88, 152, 181Democratization 1, 17, 44, 47, 73,

75, 91, 92–95, 102, 104, 108, 115, 117, 137, 204, 206

Derry/Londonderry, city of 37–9, 52, 65–7, 195, 197, 209

Development (socio-economic) 1, 16–19, 28, 35, 47, 48–51, 58, 68, 73–85, 89–91, 92–95, 102–109, 115, 117, 119, 133–37, 141, 143–4, 164, 189–90, 204, 206, 208, 214

‘Dissident’ Republicans 2, 23, 51, 66, 83–4, 89, 146, 150–53, 161–63, 168, 176, 179, 180–85, 189–203, 211–12

Continuity IRA (CIRA) 190–91, 198Oglaigh na Heireann 198Real IRA (RIRA) 140, 190, 191,

195–98‘Divis Hood Liberation Army’ 212

See also Young people – and paramilitaries

Eirigi (political party) 140, 189, 192–93

9780230280137_13_ind.indd 2409780230280137_13_ind.indd 240 11/21/2010 11:13:04 AM11/21/2010 11:13:04 AM

Index 241

Eradication 3, 7, 12–16, 42–50, 54, 61, 66, 115, 119, 138, 140, 146, 153–54, 158, 160–67, 173, 194, 206–07, 216, 220–21

See also violence – radicalEuropean Union 18, 74

And PEACE programmes 75–84European Union Programmes for

Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

Everyday life 2, 4–8, 29, 31, 40, 46, 65, 84, 89, 91, 92, 94, 108, 212, 215, 221

Festival 15, 16, 94, 215Flags 15, 28, 215

Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (GF/BA) 73–80, 82–3, 88, 90–91, 118, 120, 128, 132, 135, 142, 144, 145, 148,150–51, 155, 161, 164–5, 168–72, 176, 179–80, 184–88, 196, 210

Governance 16–21, 44, 47, 51, 69, 73–5, 79–91, 92–3, 95, 98–102, 105–09, 112, 117, 134, 137, 181, 204, 206, 214

Harris, Rosemary 12, 36–7Hughes, Brendan 186–89

Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) 120, 142, 144–45, 151, 174–5, 180, 185–86, 190

Irish People’s Liberation Organization (IPLO) 185–86

Irish Republican ArmyOfficial/OIRA 61–3, 120, 127,

142, 145, 149, 151, 186, 198Provisional/PIRA 61–4, 86, 88,

119–21, 124–5, 127, 131, 133, 142, 147–51, 161, 169, 180, 185–99

Splits within 61–2, 72See also ‘Republicans’

Interfaces 33, 67, 208, 210, 213–14Irresistibility 21–2, 24–5, 28, 30,

37–8, 41, 42–6, 48–50, 55–6, 62–5, 68–72, 83–4, 91, 92–3,

95, 97, 108–16, 117, 231, 139, 147–50, 158–62, 166, 168, 174–76, 178–82, 185, 193–98, 200, 205–06, 209, 218

July, 12th of 15, 27, 215

Lefebvre, Henri 5, 15, 94, 102‘Long division’, process of 22–3,

115, 137, 138–41, 151, 159, 160–67, 168–71, 179, 181, 184–85, 190–1, 194–96, 199–200, 212, 220

Loyalists 23, 46, 49, 53, 55, 56, 66, 68–71, 119, 122, 127–31, 141, 148, 151, 143–9, 179, 182–85, 199, 221

Feuds 154, 168, 171, 172, 176–78, 183, 191, 216

See also paramilitary organizationsLoyalist Volunteer Force (LVF)

170–80

McDonald, Jackie 120, 122, 131, 152–3, 155–9, 161, 165, 167, 175, 177–78, 182–83

McGuinness, Martin 157, 162, 187, 195

McIntyre, Anthony 188–89Mouffe, Chantal 10, 24, 94–8Murals, paramilitary 15, 177,

215–16And ‘re–imaging’ 215

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) 16, 19, 21–2, 73–90, 104–05, 132–35, 143, 219

Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movements (NICRMs) 37, 49, 61, 65–9

And Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) 38, 53, 62, 65–8, 70

Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) 79, 81–2

O’Neill, Captain Terrence 46, 48–50, 53–60, 62, 67–70, 79, 80–1, 91

‘O’Neillism’ 46, 51–60


242 Index

Orange Order, the 27, 36, 39, 51, 129, 174

Paisley, Ian 51, 56–7, 61–2, 66, 152Paramilitary Organizations 2, 22–3,

31–2, 42, 49, 52–64, 70–3, 82, 117–30, 134, 136–9, 142–67, 168–200, 203, 208–15, 220

Command structures 124, 146, 160, 166, 176–79, 182, 193, 199, 209

Leadership 40, 63–6, 88, 118, 121, 124, 126–32, 135, 138–9, 145, 151, 153–54, 159–92, 198, 200, 203, 208, 211, 220

Low-ranked members 169See also Irish Republican Army;

Loyalist Volunteer Force; Red Hand Commando; Republicans, Dissident; Ulster Volunteer Force; Ulster Defence Assocation.

Peace – theories of 1–7, 12, 15–22, 24–35, 42–50

PEACE Programmes 22, 73–91, 106, 120–62, 190, 192, 203, 210, 215

See also European UnionPlurality/pluralities 3–6, 17, 20, 29,

47, 91, 95–117, 160, 163–4, 168, 179, 182–85, 192, 198–205, 219–23

see also pluralism (theory)Pluralism (theory) 3, 6, 95–8, 100,

164Police 38–40, 52, 56, 130, 150–54,

173, 188, 193–7, 206–12, 217–18

Prisoners 22, 86, 118–37, 140–46, 149, 154, 178, 187, 190–200, 211

‘former’ 22, 118, 130–36, 140, 140–49, 190–1, 200, 211

Protests 52, 119, 122–30, 135, 137, 140, 141, 197, 203

Strikes 123–31, 144, 185, 186, 188, 197

Process, critique of 92–115Progressive Unionist Party (PUP)

169, 172, 175

Radical, ‘the’ 7–16, 22, 24, 29, 40, 44, 53, 65, 68, 70–1, 115, 139–42, 151, 167, 168, 178, 194, 202–5, 217

See also eradicationReconciliation 77, 81, 89–90, 107,

215, 219See also cross-community initiatives

Re-integration (of combatants) 82, 118, 131–37

Remainders 23, 96, 115, 137, 139, 160, 163, 166–67, 168, 185, 191–200, 220

Republicans 15, 23, 28, 39, 46, 49, 51, 54, 57, 62–5, 68, 71, 83–4, 119, 122, 124, 127–31, 141, 144–59, 171, 180–200, 221

See also Coiste na Iarchimi, Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein

Republic of Ireland (Government of)54, 57, 80, 157, 195

Resistance 30–6, 44, 55–7, 60, 63–71, 90, 93, 104, 108, 119, 125–26, 130, 159, 163, 191, 198

Riots 2, 15, 23, 28–9, 36, 41, 52–3, 67, 125–6, 128, 154, 195, 208–12, 217–18

Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) 39, 52, 174

Sectarianism 2, 23, 27–8, 33, 40, 53, 61, 65, 67, 70, 78, 121, 183, 208–09, 212, 214–17

Securitization 2, 17, 22, 44, 47, 73–5, 82–3, 91–5, 106, 115, 117, 134, 137, 204, 206

Sinn Fein 88, 121, 125–26, 142, 157, 187–91, 195, 198–99

Social capital 18, 81–2, 92, 99, 104–05, 119, 136, 199

Target groups/demographic targeting2, 7, 15, 20, 22, 39, 62, 77–85, 91–2, 102, 108, 115, 117–18, 121–23, 127, 131–34, 139–42, 147, 155, 162, 192, 207, 209–12, 214, 216, 220

Taylor, Charles 8–9, 13–14, 100, 111


Index 243

‘Threatworks’ 12, 21–4, 28–41, 45–6, 56–7, 71, 75, 117, 125–30, 142, 153–4, 176, 193, 196–99, 202–202, 212–19, 221–23

‘Troubles’, the 2, 15, 22, 26, 35–7, 41–2, 45–7, 49–53, 55, 57, 71–4, 84, 121, 142, 166–67, 176, 179, 193–96, 198, 203, 208, 212, 217

Ulster Defense Association (UDA)57, 120, 127, 129, 131, 150–61, 165, 169–71, 176–85, 211

And Red Hand Defenders 171See also Adair, Johnny; Loyalism –

feuds; McDonald, JackieUlster Democratic Party (UDP) 88,

156, 169–70, 176, 183Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) 51,

53–4, 60Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) 56–7,

120, 127, 133–4, 154, 169–78See also Loyalist Volunteer Force;

Wright, BillyUmbrella organizations 79, 85,

133–34See also Northern Ireland Council

for Voluntary Action, Coiste na Iarchimi

Violence ‘against conflict’ 21, 24–45, 202, 204

Violence, cycles of 1, 2, 17, 21, 23, 29, 30, 32–6, 39–40, 42–4, 46, 48–50, 71–4, 83–4, 91, 115, 117, 127, 139, 161, 168–69, 178, 183, 185, 192–4, 200, 203–12, 218,222

Violence, instrumental 30, 44, 137, 203, (see also ‘long division’)

‘Worlds’ 1–10, 14–17, 22–37, 41, 44, 50, 57, 71, 83, 93–100, 103–04, 108, 110–11, 120, 127, 134, 137, 139–47, 155–60, 164, 167, 170, 180, 183–84, 192–93, 198, 205–08, 212–14, 218–24

Loss of 13, 14, 55, 128, 142, 144–45, 166, 173, 197

Multiple 3–4, 6, 17, 36, 41, 44, 93, 98, 103, 111, 167, 204–05, 207, 218, 221–22

And world-building 1–23, 24, 26–41, 45–7, 55, 60, 62–3, 69–76, 83–4, 91–8, 102–15, 118–19, 125–27, 130–31, 134, 139–45, 147, 156, 160–70, 176, 179–80, 191–93,196–99, 202–09, 212, 214, 217–23

Wright, Billy 170–80, 191

Young people 27, 89, 121, 140, 186, 188, 194, 217–13, 218

Zizek, Slavoj 10, 114–15, 126, 131


lost in transformation: violent peace and peaceful conflict in northern ireland (rethinking peace...

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