40645292(1)

Parity of Esteem: A Conceptual Approach to the Northern Ireland ConflictAuthor(s): Jyrki RuohomäkiSource: Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Apr.-June 2010), pp. 163-185Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40645292 .

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Alternatives 35 (2010), 163-185

Parity of Esteem: A Conceptual Approach to the

Northern Ireland Conflict

Jyrki Ruohomäki*

This article applies a method of conceptual analysis to under- stand peace processes in a divided society. Through the analysis of the concept of parity of esteem, this article examines some ne- glected dimensions of conflict studies, including politicizations, contestations and politicking involving key concepts in peace processes and conflict resolution. The analysis focuses specifically on politics in Northern Ireland, but it also seeks to inform a more general understanding of the dynamics of peace processes and conflict reconciliation. Keywords: Northern Ire- land, conflict resolution, rhetoric, parity of esteem, peace process

This article discusses the Northern Ireland peace process through an analysis of the conceptual contestations over the vocabulary of the peace process and, more specifically, through an analysis of conceptual struggles around the concept of parity of esteem. Rather than searching for a dictionary meaning for this concept, I will look at the kinds of political intention that can be identified in the mutually conflicting attempts to define the concept of the parity of esteem in the Northern Ireland context. I am thus interested in how the concept of the parity of esteem has been used as a move in an argument, not in what the meaning of the concept could be.

The timespan of the analysis covers debate about the parity of esteem from its introduction into the Irish context in the early 1990s to the Belfast Agreement of 1998. This latter date can be taken to mark the closure of this particular debate; the use of the concept has since

*Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. E-mail: [email protected]

163



164 Parity of Esteem

lost its role as a normative tool in conflict resolution and as a concept in daily political struggles, partly for reasons I will examine in the article. Although the article addresses the conflict in Northern Ireland in particular, I hope that this approach can also contribute to a broader understanding of the challenges facing practices of conflict resolution in divided societies.

Although conceptual struggles can be considered to be an important part of peace processes and conflict resolution, they have rarely been studied. The power of a political concept is seldom as clearly visible as it is in the case of the parity of esteem. The content given to this particular concept influenced political decisions and discussions from the Protestant parades to the debates about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. As with any political concept, attempts to define the concept of a parity of esteem are firmly anchored in the political context of its time. I will interpret these attempts to contest and define the concept as examples of political action through words by contextualizing the Northern Irish politics of the time.

The normative use of the parity-of-esteem concept in Northern Ireland's peace process is grounded in the assumption that there are two mutually exclusive and hostile political cultures in Northern Ireland, and that those cultures must be accommodated. These two cultures are Northern Irish unionism and the Northern Irish strand of Irish nationalism. Parity of esteem was seen as a helpful concept to accommodate both of these cultures peacefully. Simon Thomp- son, who is one of the academic advocates of the concept, defines the idea behind its use to be a commonsense assumption that the two distinctive cultures should be acknowledged in any future political settlements in the region.1 In practice this means that the application of a parity of esteem should show in the institutional setting of Northern Ireland. Thompson sees the concept as useful in "a political project of cultural engineering" set to create two moderate political blocs, which are able to function in one political system.*

The concept of parity of esteem expresses the idea of striving for acknowledgment and recognition. One can nevertheless ask whether the assumptions sustaining this thinking are viable. Can the Northern Irish conflict in particular be framed in such a way, and would we not lose some of the analytical power that could be reached through a more refined reading of the conflict? The concept of parity of esteem is nevertheless used as a concept in political engineering and as a normative tool in conflict resolution. Whether this has been successful is one of the questions I want to consider here.



ìyrki Ruohomäki 165

The Bipolarity of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland unionists hold it paramount that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom should be maintained. Nationalists, on the other hand, dispute these premises and claim that only one legitimate state exists on the island of Ire- land, the Republic of Ireland. Since the Belfast Agreement (1998), this debate has taken place without a major threat of political violence.

The concepts defining the parties in the Northern Ireland conflict are very diverse. Can one usefully speak, for example, of the struggle between the Protestants and the Catholics, as the conflict is often described in the media, especially outside the United Kingdom, or should one use the terms referring to the political objectives and speak of unionists and nationalists? This article will use the terms "unionist" and "nationalist" when speaking of the political conflict, and the terms "Protestant" and "Catholic" when referring to cultural communities and traditions. One must also remember that the division of the unionists and nationalists is very imprecise. For example, unionism can be divided into unionism and a more extreme loyalism or to mul- tiple conflicting political traditions inside unionism. Loyalism is also a diverse concept since it includes not only demagogues such as Ian Paisley but also the loyalist paramilitary organizations, even though politically the two have little to do with each other.3 Loyalism is also more working-class than the broader unionism.4 On the other hand, nationalism can be interpreted to include republicanism, which historically has striven more straightforwardly toward a united Ireland. More moderate constitutional nationalism can therefore be said to form a parallel concept to constitutional unionism. From the main nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) has represented constitutional nationalism and Sinn Féin republicanism.5 From the main unionist parties, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has been more moderate, while Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has been loyalist. The concepts of unionist, loyalist, or Protestant can also be used as a part of a political strategy, as, for example, when it is argued that the Protestant Orange Order parades are not political (loyalism) but cultural (Protes- tantism) , an argument that can be reversed if necessary.6 This also goes to show the arbitrary and contestable nature of these terms.

There are also political forces, such as the Alliance Party of North- ern Ireland (APNI) and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition (NIWC) , that are trying to position themselves outside the hegemonic division between unionism and nationalism. The bipolarity of North- ern Ireland has nevertheless proven challenging for these parties. This



1 66 Parity of Esteem

can be seen, for example, from the decreasing support of the APN and of the problems that the NIWC has faced.7 The all-embracing constitutional question establishes a demarcation to unionism and nationalism, especially during political crisis. This easily marginalizes those who do not fit into this division. The political debate in North- ern Ireland is therefore very strongly constructed by the two hegemonic discourses of unionism and nationalism.8 This also contributes to the politicization of concepts such as the parity of esteem to the point that they reflect this bipolarity, even if they were created to serve as nonpartisan instruments. In fact, by upholding the hegemonic bipolarity, these concepts do their part to exclude opinions and ideas questioning this bipolarity.

Another example of the conceptual struggles in Northern Ire- land is the naming of the area itself, and particularly whether one should call the area a state, an autonomous province, Ulster, or the six counties (so as to separate it from the historic nine counties of Ulster) . Although Northern Ireland is constitutionally a part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is not similar to Wales or Scot- land. To use the concept of a state is especially problematic and easily locks its user into a particular way of understanding the conflict. To call Northern Ireland a state does not, however, make one a unionist, as the concept of the state has been used to both legitimize and delegitimize the independence of the area, for example by ap- pealing to the exclusive nature of the Northern Irish state.9 However, the state powers and the monopoly to use force in Northern Ireland derives from the United Kingdom, so that one cannot really speak of the Northern Irish state as an independent actor. Politicking with the concept of the state can be seen as a one more example of how important it is to get legitimacy for a particular meaning of a particular concept.

From the premises described above, it is not surprising that naming and conceptual contestations have played a significant role in the Northern Irish peace process. Although this process came to an important interim conclusion at the Belfast Agreement (1998), it is still unfinished. The Belfast Agreement was partly renegotiated at St. Andrews in 2006, and the local parties have had difficulties reaching an agreement upon policing and decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. In addition, the "peace process" itself is a somewhat contested concept as the term process implies movement and change, which are opposite to the core idea of unionism, which stresses permanence and seeks to anchor the Northern Irish constitutional status quo to a future far ahead.



Jyrki Ruohomäki 167

History of the Concept

The roots of the concept of a parity of esteem are in the broad debate of the early 1990s about recognition. One key focal point of this debate was Charles Taylor's 1994 essay The Politics of Recognition. Taylor's argument was that gaining recognition is a central need of an individual, shaping one's identity.10 The global political context for the debate was given by the emerging new states in Europe, the break- down of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany, and especially the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, which together generated questions about nationality and the rights of national minorities.11

Taylor argued that liberalism is a suitable political vehicle for recognition. Perhaps the primary characteristic of a liberal state is that the state does not take a stand regarding the personal life of its members. The central attribute of a liberal state is its diversity, which means that the state does not interfere with the aspirations of the people, and the people are treated equally by the state. A modern liberal state cannot protect only one culture at the expense of others. However, Taylor argues that a community sharing a common aspiration can also be liberal as long as the community seeks the fulfillment of that aspiration in a way that does not reduce the diversity of the whole society. Taylor uses the French minority in Quebec as an example of a community with a strong desire to distinguish itself from the English- speaking majority of Canada and to protect the distinctiveness of its own culture, without the minority giving up its liberal ethos.12 Whether the same kind of solution could be reached in Northern Ire- land proved to be an even more difficult question.

Another central figure in the recognition debate has been Michael Walzer. Walzer has conceptualized Taylor's argument in terms of two liberalisms, liberalism 1 and liberalism 2.13 According to Walzer, Tay- lor speaks of liberalism 1 when he means a state that does not take a stand on the behalf of any cultural, religious, or similar project, and of liberalism 2 when Taylor means a state in which this kind of project is an elemental part of the character of the state. According to Walzer, it is also possible to select liberalism 1 inside liberalism 2, so that a particular state can be committed to a particular ethos, but its citizens can still choose as individuals whether to support that ethos or not. According to Walzer, almost all nation-states represent liberalism 2 since they produce citizens like Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, and so on. Immigrant states, such as the United States, however, represent liberalism 1, because the application of liberalism 2 in an immigrant society is virtually impossible given the difficulties of a multicultural state to guarantee the existence of every microculture.14




The parity-of-esteem concept was not at this point treated as a normative tool for divided or even multicultural societies, and it is important to notice that Taylor and the other discussants were interested in discussing the problems of multicultural societies and not those of divided societies. It can be argued that when parity of esteem was transferred from the academic debate on multiculturalism to serve as a normative tool in a divided society, insufficient attention was paid to the completely different problems characterizing the two different contexts. We must notice that the introduction of the parity-of-esteem concept to Northern Ireland took place before Taylor's essay was published, although this does not detract from the impor- tance of the broader debate for Northern Ireland; discussions of recognition were already widely discussed before Taylor's specific in- tervention.

Parity of Esteem and Northern Ireland

The parity-of-esteem concept was first mentioned in Northern Ireland in the so-called Opsahl report,15 which was intended to document human suffering in the Northern Ireland conflict. The report was named for Torker Opsahl, a Norwegian professor chairing the commission. The Opsahl commission was preceded by Initiative 92, the purpose of which was to include the independent citizens in the debate upon the future of Northern Ireland.16 Initiative 92 got its in- centive from the political deadlock in which the peace process was stuck during the 1992 round of negotiations.17 The Opsahl commission compiled a report of the statements given by individual citizens, together with its own proposals to bring the peace process forward. The commission's work was published under the title of A Citizen's In- quiry in 1993.18

Although Opsahl used the parity-of-esteem concept in the introduction of A Citizen 's Inquiry, the intent of the concept was rather to serve as a means for reconciliation rather than to work as a normative tool to solve a political deadlock. The first significant political use of the concept can be found in the two so-called Coleraine speeches by the British secretary for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, in De- cember 1992 and April 1993: "Each of the main components of the community will need to be given recognition by the other, and in any settlement each must be accorded parity of esteem, the validity of its tradition receiving unqualified recognition."19

With his two speeches, Mayhew transferred the concept to the political debate on the Northern Irish peace process, using the concept to refer to an argument that the political arrangements in Northern Ireland should be made so that both unionism and Irish nationalism




would be given the same right of recognition and self-expression. Al- though the use of the parity-of-esteem concept was not totally without political implication in the original Opsahl report either, Mayhew's speeches meant a clear transfer from academic discussion to daily politics.

After Mayhew's speeches, parity of esteem was quickly found in other documents that were generated in the debate constructing the peace process. One of these most important of these documents was the declaration by the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland governments titled Frameworks for the Future, published in February 1995. The purpose of the declaration was to outline the direction in which the two governments wanted to take the ongoing peace talks. Parity of esteem is found in paragraph 10:

Any new political arrangements must be based on full respect for, and protection and expression of, the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland and even-handedly afford both communities in Northern Ireland parity of esteem and treatment, including equality of opportunity and advantage.20

The reception of the parity-of-esteem concept was at first positive among both the unionists and nationalists. This was partly because the Opsahl Commission had reached a rare position in Northern Ire- land in that its work was not straightforwardly regarded as partisan. Documenting the experiences and opinions of ordinary people as well as the policy proposals based on those hearings were received ex- ceptionally well. Parity of esteem was seen by the unionists and nationalists as a concept offering political room to maneuver and to reach political gains. Nationalists saw in it the possibility of getting institutional recognition for their political aspiration of a united Ire- land, whereas unionists saw the concept as a chance to cement the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as a part of the United King- dom. From these mutually exclusive premises, it was clear that the concept would rapidly be politicized and a heavily contested.21

The nationalist tradition, contrary to the unionist one, has always searched for a change. To aggravate things, it first strove for the independence of Ireland and, after 1921, for the unification of Ireland.22 Although moderate nationalism has diluted its ambition for a united Ireland, the Northern Irish nationalists' minimum objective has been to improve the overall standing of the Roman Catholic population in Northern Ireland. Moderate Irish nationalists have argued that, in a possible united Ireland, the rights of the unionists would not be limited and the New Ireland would not dictate matters that belong to the individual's private sphere.23 The intention of this was to alleviate the fear felt by the Protestants toward the historically strong Roman Catholic




ethos of Irish nationalism. The thought that Irish nationalism should be given political recognition was a central element in, for example, the New Ireland Forum declaration by the Irish and Northern Irish nationalist parties in 1984. This document suggested that the political structures in Northern Ireland would be altered to better accommodate both traditions. The report argued for the right of nationalists to effective political, symbolic, and administrative expression of their identity, and for the right of unionists to effective political, symbolic, and administrative expression of their identity, their ethos, and their way of life. It argued that "So long as the legitimate rights of both unionists and nationalists are not accommodated together in new political structures acceptable to both, that situation will continue to give rise to conflict and instability."24

In 1997 a think tank, Democratic Dialogue, published a report, With All Due Respect: Plurality and Parity of Esteem, in order to put together the views of the people and politicians upon the concept and idea of parity of esteem.25 One can read from the report that the attitude of the nationalist parties toward the possibilities of the concept was positive. This is understandable, in that the parity-of-esteem thinking fitted well together with the proposals formulated in the New Ireland Forum. Jonathan Stephenson of the Social Democratic and Labour Party mentions his party's hope that the parity of esteem would bring with it equal treatment in matters of labor and social and human rights, as well as in politics.26 Stephenson argues that, in practice, parity of esteem should manifest in political life as an institutional power-sharing between the unionists and the nationalists.27 Jim Gibney from the Republican Sinn Féin offers a more aggravated and a fairly traditional republican reading of the concept of a parity of esteem as concerning "the plight of people who in this state are Irish nationalists, or Irish nationals living in this state against their wishes under foreign occupation by British government . . . [and] have lived to all intents and purposes in a system which discriminates wholesale against them" and argues that the concept "discriminates against them in terms of their identity and their culture."28

Both comments give the concept a meaning demanding both cultural and political recognition. Whereas the moderate SDLP concen- trates on the recognition given inside the polity of Northern Ireland, the more radical Sinn Féin also wants to include the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland into the sphere of recognition. This con- siderably broadens the political potential of the concept. Especially in the Republican reading, one can detect a desire to use the concept as a tool to end the alleged oppression of the Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland. Gibney crystallizes the Northern Irish conflict by his account that the conflict has been primarily about the majority of the people wanting to dominate the minority, while the policy of




the United Kingdom has made this possible. Parity of esteem gives, according to Gibney, a chance to correct this.29

The Unionist Critique

Next I present some critiques of parity-of-esteem thinking, which come mainly from the unionist tradition or from people who are sympathetic to unionism. These critiques express fears that were felt about the normative application of a universal principle of the parity of esteem. In addition, these critiques show how these debates can be academic and political at the same time. One of the central unionist critics of parity-of-esteem thinking has been Professor Richard En- glish, of Queen's University, Belfast. English, and other critics who could be argued to be sympathetic to unionism,30 claim that the biggest problem in parity-of-esteem thinking is that it parallels cultural and political recognition. According to these critics, the mixing of these two would not only be wrong toward the majority of the people but in addition, these false parallels could lead to the increase of political violence.

English claims that the unionist objective of keeping the constitutional status of Northern Ireland has been asserted by numerous agreements between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ire- land. This is not the case with the nationalist or republican striving toward unification, which does not, according to English, have any kind of legitimacy. According to English, it is clear that unionism enjoys the support of the majority in Northern Ireland, while this legitimacy given by the people is lacking for Northern Irish nationalism. English argues further that it is therefore unthinkable that these two conflicting political aspirations should be gren equal recognition in Northern Irish politics. English suspects tha* behind the nationalist argument mixing the cultural and p

" !cal recognition, one can find a political strategy aiming to alter the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. In other words, the parity-of-esteem concept has been hijacked to serve as a vehicle in a political project striving toward the unification of Ireland.31

According to English, in Northern Ireland cultural parity also in- evitably carries political parity with it. Cultural recognition thus means automatically granting parity between political aspirations as well, thereby enhancing instability rather than conflict resolution and peace. In the context of Northern Ireland, as in all conflict societies, the application of an unsuccessful policy can easily make things worse. A failed attempt to defuse a conflict can result to an outcome that is worse than the original situation.32 For English, the application of parity of esteem would destabilize the constitutional status of North-




ern Ireland, as well as the collective ethos of the unionists, while strengthening the political project of the Northern Irish nationalists, by hinting that the nationalists could get the active support of the British government to back their project of unified Ireland. As parity of esteem increases the uncertainty of the unionists, it has the ten- dency to evoke political violence from uncertain unionists (loyalists) as well as the triumphant republicans (IRA) .

Others shared English's concern, most notably Arthur Aughey, another academic commentator sharing English's unionist sympa- thies. Aughey argues that the idea of applying parity of esteem has led to a "We are the masters now" mentality in the nationalist ranks.33 The increasing sense of unionist insecurity of the mid-1990s is also seen in unionist pamphlets such as Selling Unionism (1995)34 and Idea of the Union (1995) in which the critique of parity of esteem had a central role. As one can see, the change in the debate around parity of esteem from a positive to a negative and aggressive was rapid. The concept was therefore transformed from referring to a nonpartisan idea of mutual respect to a tool used for partisan objectives, as with the legitimation of Orange Order parades through Roman Catholic neighborhoods.

As Northern Ireland is an area in which two hegemonic historic political traditions are in power, it may be asked whether there is even a theoretical possibility of forming a single polity. This question goes to the heart of debates about the concept of a parity of esteem in that it is unclear whether the concept can be universally applied without significant political risks. Shane O'Neill, another Queen's University professor, has argued that the inoperability of pluralist models in Northern Ireland is the consequence of the universal principle guid- ing these models, a principle that inhibits discussion of the legitimacy of different traditions or political identities. The application of pluralist theories does not provide the means by which to assess the possible consequences of a full and equal recognition of all the traditions in Northern Ireland.35

A standard liberal-unionist argument for denying the legitimacy of Northern Irish nationalism has been that the aim of Northern Irish nationalism, to break the constitutional connection between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, removes categorically any possibility of giving nationalism the same recognition that is given to unionism, in that only unionism enjoys the democratic acceptance of a constitutional status.36 According to unionists, the re- alization of the objective of the Northern Irish nationalists would mean a defeat of a Northern Irish polity built on the ethos of liberalism, an ethos that is understood by contrast with the exclusive nature of an Irish nationalist polity. According to the unionist beliefs, the unionists would not be able to get the same cultural recognition in Roman Catholic Ireland that they enjoy in the liberal and secular




United Kingdom. This obviously clears the way for, among many other things, the claimed exclusion of nationalists from the existing Northern Irish polity.

One strand of argumentation in unionism has been to offer full integration with the United Kingdom as a solution. This idea nevertheless fails to take into account the central claim of Northern Irish nationalists that the border between Northern Ireland and the Re- public is, in a symbolic sense, the biggest problem. The integration option would also leave completely unaddressed the question of nationalism's lack of self-expression in Northern Ireland.37

In the defensive unionist reading of the concept of parity of esteem, the concept is compared with classic accounts of human rights. Robert McCartney, a unionist politician, argues that the concept does not bring anything new to the discussion in Northern Ireland because, as a part of a multicultural and liberal United Kingdom, the possibilities of an individual for self-expression are already guaranteed unless they decrease the right of self-expression by others. If we use Walzer's distinction between liberalism 1 and liberalism 2, McCartney's can be understood as arguing that the Republic of Ireland represents liberalism 2, in which the role of the government is to strongly support one culture and its vitality, whereas a British multicultural state represents liberalism 1. Behind McCartney's rhetoric is the argument that nationalists use the concept politically to shake the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

Gradually I came to realise that what they [nationalists] mean by "parity of esteem" is not parity of esteem for the individual but parity of esteem for the constitutional identity of the state. I don't know of any democracy which says that the minority shall be allowed the same rights as the majority in determining the constitutional and political identity of the state itself, [for] that seems to me to be a concept that has got nothing to do with civil rights, protection of individual rights or protection against majoritarianism.38

Historically it is hard to deny that between 1921 and 1972 Northern Ireland was a unionist and a Protestant "state" that excluded the rights of the Irish nationalist Roman Catholic minority. However, af- terwards there have been numerous attempts to legitimate this policy by, for example, calling it an act of "defending freedom by denying freedom."39 Shane O'Neill argues that behind this unionist policy are oppressive tendencies that constitute an integral part of the collective political identity of unionists. In terms of the peace process, this would require the unionists to overcome their fear of the nationalists, manifested through the will to oppress.40 O'Neill offers Habermasian discourse ethics as a tool to accomplish this. The application of discourse ethics would not mean questioning the unionist identity as a




whole, but challenging those parts of it that prevent the recognition of the nationalists as a part of the same polity. Discourse ethics would give a better normative possibility to remake the mutually exclusive and hostile parts of the unionist and nationalist political identities, so that the universal recognition demanded through parity of esteem could be possible.41 It is important to notice that O'Neill does not see the application of parity of esteem as possible without the remaking of political identities.

A more straightforward and political critique of the parity-of- esteem concept is given by Dr. Dennis Kennedy, a member of a unionist Cadogan Group think tank. Kennedy builds his critique on the reading of two intergovernmental publications constructing the peace- process debate, the so-called Frameworks documents and the Down- ing Street Declaration,42 which both shared the idea of the necessity of parity-of-esteem thinking. Kennedy argues that in both documents, the concept has been applied solely from the nationalist premises. A different interpretation, which would apply the concept only in ref- erence to apolitical culture, was, according to Kennedy, completely discarded. Kennedy argues that the application of parity of esteem has completely broken from its origins, which were to demand equal recognition, individual rights, and responsibilities. In contrast, the concept has been politicized to a nationalist catchword with the un- derlying objective of dismembering the constitutional existence of the Northern Ireland state.43

One of the most striking judgments upon parity of esteem is given by Barbara Finney, who argues that parity of esteem should be earned in a way that Irish nationalism and republicanism are incapable of ac- complishing. Finney argues that because of the exclusive nature of nationalism as a whole, Irish nationalism is not entitled to parity of esteem. Finney judges Irish nationalism to be inferior to her concept of an idealized Britishness. At the same time, Finney also connects unionism to her concept of Britishness without any problems.44

The unionist critique toward parity of esteem is a part of a phe- nomenon in which the language of the peace process with its built-in implication of change and movement made unionist politicians and academic commentators wary. Even the idea of the peace process as a movement from A to B is contrary to unionist thinking, which stresses continuity. In addition to the permanence of the constitutional status, unionists want to hold on to a so-called consent principle, meaning that the status of Northern Ireland is not changed without the acceptance of the majority of the population. This principle has sometimes also been called the unionist veto. Honoring this principle has also been central in the documents constructing the peace-process discourse. The unionists have regarded the nationalist acceptance of this veto as provisional, which has been interpreted by




the unionists as a part of the nationalist political strategy to win over the unionists. The unionists saw the peace process of the mid 1990s heading in a completely wrong direction in terms of the consent principle as well as in regards to constitutional stability.45 The unionist critique argued that the objectives of Irish nationalism were taken for granted in the peace process, while the unionist ideals were over- looked.46

Although the majority of unionist commentators objected to the application of parity of esteem, and unionists as a whole did not see the need to change their political thinking, there was at least one commentator who came close to O'Neill's ideas of the application of the discourse ethics. This commentator was Norman Porter, a member of the unionist party (UUP) and a student of Charles Taylor at Ox- ford. Porter argues in his Rethinking Unionism47 that unionists should relinquish their political strategy opposing movement and change and strive toward a more creative and effective argumentation. Porter sees a possibility that through rethinking both nationalism and unionism, a political unity could be found in Northern Ireland, which both unionism and nationalism could share. On the other hand, even Porter does not see the application of parity of esteem working. Porter argues that this is impossible because of the need to overcome con- tradictions between the premises of unionism and nationalism. To replace parity of esteem, Porter offers an idea of "due recognition," which means a politically diluted version of a parity of esteem. This move attaches Porter to other liberal-unionist commentators whose strategy was to downplay the political aspect in parity of esteem.48 Simon Thompson, however, argues that due recognition could serve as a concept complementing parity of esteem because due recognition would better refer to the horizontal relations in Northern Ireland, whereas the emphasis of a parity of esteem is vertical.49 Arthur Aughey remarks dryly that Porter describes a utopia in which unionists have ceased being unionists and nationalists have ceased being nationalists.50

Drumcree

The concept of parity of esteem became completely politicized in debates surrounding the 1995 Drumcree parade. Drumcree also effectively ended the usefulness of the concept as a normative tool in the peace process.51

The parades in Northern Ireland illustrate the territorial aspect of the conflict, and they are a particularly unionist phenomena, although the nationalists also have parades that link to the civil-rights movement or to the Easter Rising commemorations. The recent form of the parades in Northern Ireland has been very antagonistic, and




the parades have understandably been opposed very frequently. The first parades of the Orange Order in 1796 caused violence leading to the prohibition of the parades for forty years. In the late 1960s, the marches of the civil-rights movement met violent resistance from the unionists, to which nationalists responded by opposing the Orange parades more fiercely.52

Parades can be understood positively as acts of collective self- expression of cultural and religious freedom, and the prevention of parading can be understood as an act violating those freedoms. This has been the central unionist argument about why Protestant parades should not be prohibited or rerouted. Obviously the parades have their negative aspect as well. In a territorial conflict, parades manifest superiority. Protestant parades marching through Roman Catholic neighborhoods remind residents of the bygone battles, thereby representing the past in the present. As the territory in Northern Ireland is limited and the parties of the conflict live physically near each other, territorial superiority is easily manifested. The Orange Order claims that it is a religious organization without political motives, but in the North- ern Irish conflict this claim has little plausibility and the Order can be taken as an example of an inability or unwillingness to separate cultural and political practices. One must, however, remember that parading is not accepted by all Protestants and unionists and that the role of the Orange Order has long been the object of critique within unionism. Still, for unionists, the parading tradition represents (selective) historical evidence for tradition and continuity in support of the conservative core of unionist politics.53

Drumcree has long had a special place among the Orange Order parades. The first time the men of the order marched was after a church service from Drumcree in the outskirts of Portadown to the town center on July 12,1807, and the event has remained virtually un- changed ever since. For a long period, the parades were an activity of the upper classes, while the working classes served as spectators. Now most marchers come from the working classes, which have strong rep- resentation in the loyalist strand of unionism.54

Portadown has sometimes been known as the Vatican of Orange- ism and holds a central place in the cultural core of unionism. The Orange Order has particularly strong support in Portadown; the membership of the order is about twelve hundred out of a population of twenty thousand. The parade is held to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne, in which Dutch King William defeated the Roman Catholic James. The commemoration by parade started more than a hundred years after the battle as an act of bringing the past into the politics of the present.55




When unionists mention the Roman Catholics as their ancient en- emies, their memory is selective since it leaves out those parts of history in which Protestants and Catholics have lived together in peace and cooperation in Northern Ireland. 56The traditional route of the parade goes through the Roman Catholic neighborhoods, which the Catholic inhabitants consider insulting. The situation was aggravated in the summer of 1995 when officials banned the parade from using its traditional route. As a countermove, the marchers camped in front of a roadblock to await permission to march on. Orange members from all around Northern Ireland started to arrive with the local MP, David Trimble of the UUP, and Ian Paisley, the leader of the DUP, thereby transferring the conflict into party-political strife as well. In essence, the Drumcree manifested the question what to do when the right of self-expression conflicts with the right of not being under provocation. Drumcree was portrayed among loyalists as an event in which the Protestants finally were united in resistance for their rights.57 The unionists were protesting against the stamping out of their cultural rights and they argued that their collective identity was under threat, or that there was a political conspiracy in which, because of the influence of a concept of parity of esteem, the Northern Ireland police service was forced to take its orders from the Dublin government.58

Finally the marchers were allowed to enter the Catholic neigh- borhood and proceed with the march, while the local population stood along the streets in silent protest. In front of the parade were Trimble and Paisley, holding hands, which sparked the nationalists to name the action as provocative "dancing."

The events of Drumcree were to become a central context in which the parity-of-esteem debate effectively switched from Jürgen Habermas to Carl Schmitt.59 Schmitt was invoked by Arthur Aughey, who argued that after Drumcree, at the latest, it was impossible to imagine that the division between unionists and nationalists could de- velop into a discursive relation that would allow the surpassing of pro- found disagreements. In events like Drumcree, parity of esteem could work only to aggravate tensions, creating a perception for the parties in the conflict that their rights were being denied. Aughey therefore argued that in Northern Ireland the political, in the Schmittian sense, is formed through the antagonism of unionism and nationalism. Keeping this in mind, it would be totally unrealistic to assume that the peace negotiations would come to a conclusion in which one or both of the parties would vanish. Aughey's point was that parity of esteem had started to ignite the kind of behavior that it was designed to prevent. Instead of repeating the concepts that were, according to Aughey, failing, it would be more useful analytically to study the real political ac-




tion of unionists and nationalists. From this perspective this relation is to be seen as a Schmittian relation of the friend and the enemy. Aughey continued by arguing that the state of exception present in Northern Ireland unveiled the true nature of the two political ideologies of unionism and nationalism. The picture forming would not make possible a shared polity reached through the discursive method.60

Aughey argued that three different readings could be applied to the Northern Ireland peace process. According to the first reading, which is closest to the discourse ethical thinking of Porter and O'Neill, the peace process is about applying the principle of the best argument to assure the people in Northern Ireland of the possibility of mutual reconciliation. Aughey called this reading naïve. Second, a more realistic reading held that the peace talks have value in themselves because as long as the parties engaged were willing to talk, things would probably not get worse. The cease-fires by the loyalists and the IRA in 1994 are examples supporting this reading. Further, for the inclusion of Sinn Féin into the peace negotiations, these cease-fires were essen- tial. Nevertheless, Aughey stated that only the third reading captured the essence of the peace process in which the political objectives were shown bare in the state of exception. This third reading argued that the negotiations were all about maneuvering and forming strategic al- liances, and that it was therefore not realistic to think that the peace process would change either of the negotiating parties or to conclude that one or both of them would disappear. Unionists want to uphold the constitutional connection to Britain, as the nationalists strive for a united Ireland. Aughey did not see the likelihood of the negotiations bringing any change to these premises.61 Real political objectives are revealed in the events such as Drumcree, in which the survival of one's political tradition and not negotiations are at stake. From these premises, Aughey found that ideas like parity of esteem, denoting recognition and fair play between strongly contradicting political projects, were not realistic. Aughey saw it more probable that a struggle for mastery would continue, if not by weapons, then by intellectual means.62

Although the arguments that Aughey raised are necessary to put his commitment to unionism into some context, they nevertheless reveal interesting questions about not only the nature of the Northern Irish peace process in particular, but also of the nature of the universal peace processes. At the moment, the DUP and Sinn Féin, the more extreme parts of the Northern Irish political spectrum, sit together in a devolved executive. Is this a sign of a true détente or just strategic maneuvering within the two respective party blocs? And does this question matter, or is it the practical outcome of the situation, the dis- appearance of political violence, the only thing that counts?




The merit of Aughey's analysis is that he acknowledges the political nature of concepts such as parity of esteem, as well as their potential to reveal the political objectives that surface in the debates around these concepts. For Aughey, Northern Ireland is in a situation in which the old lexicon constructing the debate is changing yet again as the concepts used by the unionists and the nationalist have become outdated.63 Words and concepts are weapons in a political struggle and this is well shown in the case of parity of esteem. The mastery over the definition of such a key concept is paramount to all.64

The key question of the usefulness of the concept of a parity of esteem, as of similar concepts, is found through the question of whether a divided society like Northern Ireland can be seen to form one true polity in which dialogue would be possible. Without a dialogue between the political aspirations, which parity of esteem should embrace, the whole concept is empty. In this respect, the critique of people like Aughey or English is justified, although their arguments can be weakened by sometimes obvious political commitments. Aughey especially seems to think that true dialogue is impossible, and that the peace talks, or even sharing an executive, only represent maneuvering into a better position in a Schmittian politics. On the other hand, ideas advanced by commentators such as O'Neill or Thomson about the possibility of forming such a unitary polity are perhaps too optimistic. O'Neill's argument, which has its context in Drumcree, is that mutual recognition can be found through Habermasian discourse ethics, and it is not clear that this argument counts for very much in a conflict in which the two prime political projects are on a collision course. However, O'Neill is right to argue that by applying concepts like the parity of esteem, both of these traditions open themselves to external criticism.65

Although O'Neill's intention is to bring normative tools from theory, especially in relation to the parades, the discussion among political scientists has been reduced to the question whether O'Neill is applying the theory coherently, bypassing the real question of the value of raising the parades issue on a theoretical level.66 Thus Alan Finlayson takes an interesting stand when he questions the arguments of those who see value in a dialogue between the two political traditions and of those who do not. Finlayson argues that the problem is not that Northern Ireland would be in a state of exception as described by Aughey, in which the sovereign should step in and take control, but that the situation is too ingrained. Unionism and nationalism have been allowed to grow into ideas totally constructing the political system, so that they have become hegemonic without a sovereign transcending them. The use of concepts like parity of esteem has led to a situation in which the debate on unionism or nationalism is al-




ways a debate about the reconciliation between these two. This is present in the thinking of Patrick Mayhew, for instance, when he argues that parity of esteem is a prime objective in ending the conflict.67 Fin- layson also claims that the intellectuals who have taken part in the debate have limited themselves only to discussion about the collective political identities of the two traditions and of how ready the people representing these traditions are to talk and to compromise. The prem- ise of all discussion is the juxtaposition of unionism and nationalism and the discussants are not even trying to transcend these premises.68

According to Finlayson, a solution to the conflict cannot be found by seeking the middle ground or a compromise that both nationalism and unionism could accept. Finlayson is even ready to replace the parity of esteem with the concept of a parity of contempt in order to show the weaknesses of both unionism and nationalism. Finlayson therefore points out that it is the two traditions in Northern Ireland that constitute the conflict and instead of legitimizing them through concepts like parity of esteem, one should expose them to criticism and break them down because these concepts work only to construct a discourse supporting the idea that there are only two options available in Northern Ireland and that the peace process is dependent upon a dialogue between these two hegemonic traditions. Therefore, parity of esteem creates and sustains the conflict instead of helping to solve it. In a way Finlayson comes close to Aughey through Schmitt, as they both see unionism and nationalism as the division constitut- ing the political. Only their conclusions differ.69

Finally I will take a brief look at how parity of esteem influenced the culmination point of the 1990s debate, the Belfast Agreement of 1998. The concept is found in the paragraph of the agreement that defines the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The Belfast Agreement states that the people in Northern Ireland can choose whether they want to be a part of the United Kingdom or the Re- public of Ireland. The agreement also states that at the moment the wish of the people is that the present status would remain. Not de- pending of the constitutional status, the governments of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland affirm that

whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos, and aspirations of both communities.70




The text of the Belfast Agreement gives a lot of room to interpret the concept of parity of esteem. The concept does not refer only to cultural equality, seen by the unionists as primal. Parity of esteem is given to aspirations of both communities, immediately evoking the question of what is meant by aspiration. When parity is not tied solely to cultural attributes, or explicitly said to refer to the recognition of the equality of the political projects, a new struggle of conceptual con- testation is opened. Caution in defining parity of esteem also illus- trates the weight that the concept carries and of the struggles around it. However, the implications of the concept do not have a significant role in the practicalities of the agreement, as the institutions paramount in the power-sharing structures are outlined elsewhere in the treaty.

Parity of esteem was mentioned also elsewhere in the agreement: in strand 1 , defining the political institutions; in strand 3 defining the cooperation of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland; and in the summary of the agreement. In all of these cases the usage of the concept was uniform. It was used to refer to the recognition between the ethos and the aspiration of the two traditions. In practice, the political recognition of nationalism was obvious, as both the SDLP and Sinn Féin were an integral part of the negotiation process and their inclusion in the process showed that the conflicting political aspirations of unionism and nationalism are going to be recognized.

The possibility of reading the political aspect of parity of esteem out of the agreement was a clear defeat to unionism. As early as 1984, a UUP pamphlet states that "Only rights can be guaranteed, not aspirations."71 The sentence referred to the idea that although the human rights of the nationalists as individuals in Northern Ireland must be recognized, a political doctrine that is hostile to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland cannot be given the same recognition. This idea was in line with Arthur Aughey's position that the aspiration for united Ireland is a demand that can never win the acceptance of the unionist population and therefore the two political doctrines cannot be included in one polity.72 Aughey concluded that this nationalist aspiration is hostile toward the unionists and is designed to marginalize and destroy them, if only in the sense of a Schmittian public enemy.73 From the point of view of Aughey and other unionist commentators, the inclusion of parity of esteem in the Belfast Agreement is an act increasing instability and fear.

To the daily politics, the conflict and struggle around parity of esteem has had little effect after the Belfast Agreement. The revision of the Belfast Agreement in St. Andrews, 2006, does not mention the concept, although taking it out of the treaty was not seen as necessary either.




# * *

In this article I have shown, through a conceptual analysis, how pro- found fears, hopes, wishes, and political aspirations can be read from the vocabulary structuring a conflict or a peace process. By analyzing this kind of struggle, we gain information of the intentions of the parties involved in these struggles more directly than by merely analyzing the daily political texts or interviewing the people involved, for example. Parity of esteem was one of the central concepts constructing the peace process leading up to the Belfast Agreement, and it was politicized rapidly from a nonpartisan normative tool into a partisan political concept that was subject to struggles for definition. First, both the unionists and nationalists saw possibilities that they could use the concept to bring forward their own political objectives, but unionist commentators soon began to see the application of the concept as a daily political threat.

The example of parity of esteem is interesting also because of the leading role that academic commentators played in it. Giving normative advice from a position of scholarship can be problematic. There- fore my aim is not to take a stand about how the vocabulary and concepts of the peace process should be constructed. The usefulness of parity of esteem can be evaluated by concluding that the discussion around the concept raised important questions that might otherwise have remained unasked. Although the concept itself has left the center of the political debate and it could not hold its position as a nonpartisan tool for conflict resolution, the questions raised in the parity-of-esteem debate are still central in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Notes

1. Simon Thompson, "The Politics of Culture in Northern Ireland," Con- stellations 10, no. 1 (2003): 53-74, at 54-55.

2. Ibid. 3. Jennifer Todd, "Two Traditions of Unionist Political Culture," Irish Po-

litical Studies 2 (1987): 1-26. 4. On loyalism, see David W. Miller, Queen's Rebels. Ulster Loyalism in His-

torical Perspective (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1978); Steve Bruce, The Edge of the Union: The Ulster Loyalist Political Vision (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). On Paisleyism, see Steve Bruce, God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1986).

5. On nationalism, see Richard Kearney, Post Nationalist Ireland: Politics, Literature, Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1996); Richard English, Irish Free- dom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2006) .

6. Dominic Bryan, Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition, and Control (London: Pluto Press, 2000), p. 15.




7. Kate Fearon and Rachel Rebouche, "What Happened to Women? Promises, Reality, and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition," in Michael Cox, Adrian Guelke, and Fiona Stephen, eds., A Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006), pp. 280-302.

8. Alan Finlayson, Discourse and Contemporary Loyalist Identity, in Peter Shirlow and Mark McGovern, eds., Who Are the People? Unionism, Protes- tantism, and Loyalism in Northern Ireland (London: Pluto Press, 1997), pp. 72-95.

9. As an example of the legitimizing use of the concept of the state, see Arthur Aughey, "A State of Exception: The Concept of the Political in North- ern Ireland," Irish Political Studies 12 (1997): 1-12. As an example of its negative use in a sense of arguing for the dismemberment of the Northern Ireland state, see Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State (London: Pluto Press, 1976). See also Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon, and Henry Patterson, The State in Northern Ireland: Political Classes and Social Forces (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1979), in which the "state" refers to the UK state.

10. Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," in Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, expanded ed. (Princeton, NI: Princeton University Press 1994), p. 25.

1 1 . See Nancy Fraser, "From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a 'Postsocialist' Age," New Left Review 212 (1995): 68-93; Jürgen Habermas, "Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State," in Gutmann, Multiculturalism; Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recogni- tion: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity, 1995); James Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

12. Taylor, "Politics of Recognition," pp. 56-61. lo. Michael Walzer, Comment, in Lrutmann, Multiculturalism. 14. Ibid., pp. 99-100. 15. Andy Pollak, A Citizen's Inquiry: The Opsahl Report on Northern Ireland

(Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1993). 16. Adrian Guelke, "Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Pro-

cess," Voluntas 14, no. 1 (2003): 69-60. 17. On the so-called Brooke/Mayhew talks, see Feargal Cochrane, Union-

ist Politics and the Politics of Unionism Since the Anglo-Irish Agreement (Cork: Cork University Press, 1997), pp. 278-281; and Graham Walker, A History of the Ul- ster Unionist Party: Protest, Pragmatism, and Pessimism (Manchester, UK: Man- chester Universtity Press, 2004), pp. 242-245.

18. Pollak, A Citizen's Inquiry. 19. Patrick Mayhew, A Framework for a Just Settlement (London: Her Majesty's

Stationery Office, 1993). 20. British and Irish Governments, The Frameworks Documents: A New Frame-

work for Agreement (London: Prime Minister's Office, 1995). 21. Adrian Guelke, "Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Pro-

cess," Voluntas 14, no. 1 (2003): 70-71. 22. See John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1990). It is analytically wise to separate the Northern Irish strand from traditional Irish nationalism as these traditions have diverged. On these diver- gences, see English, Irish Freedom; and Richard Kearney, Post Nationalist Ireland.

23. New Ireland Forum, Report of Proceedings, nos. 1-13 (Dublin: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1984).




24. Ibid., nos. 4, 13. 25. Democratic Dialogue, With All Due Respect: Pluralism and Parity of Es-

teem (Belfast: Democratic Dialogue, 1997). 26. Ibid., p. 4. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., p. 5. 29. Ibid. 30. These include people like Arthur Aughey, John Wilson Foster, Den-

nis Kennedy, Edna Longley, and Norman Porter. 31. Richard English, "Unionism and Nationalism: The Notion of Sym-

metry," in John Wilson Foster, ed., Idea of the Union: Statements and Critiques in Support of the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Vancouver: Belcouver Press, 1995).

32. Ibid. 33. Arthur Aughey, 'The Constitutional Challenge," in Foster, Idea of the

Union, p. 51. 34. Foster, ed., Idea oj the Union; Ulster Young Unionist Council, Selling

Unionism Home and Away (Belfast: Ulster Young Unionist Council, 1995). 35. Shane O'Neill, "Pluralist Justice and Its Limits: The Case of Northern

Ireland ," Political Studies 42 (1994): 363-377. 36. See, e.g., Dennis Kennedy, "The Realism of the Union," in Foster,

Idea of the Union. 37. See, e.g., Arthur Aughey, Under Siege: Ulster Unionism and the Anglo-

Irish Agreement (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1989); Robert McCartney, What Must Be Done: A Program for Normalising Politics in Northern Ireland (Belfast: Athol Books, 1986).

38. Democratic Dialogue, With All Due Respect, p. 5. 39. Robert McCartney, Liberty and Authority in Ireland: A Field Day Pam-

phlet (Belfast: Field Day Theatre Company, 1985), p. 6. 40. O'Neill, "Pluralist Justice," p. 371. 41. Ibid., pp. 372-377. 42. British and Irish Governments, Joint Declaration on Peace: The Downing

Street Declaration (London: Prime Minister's Office, 1993); British and Irish Governments, The Frameworks Documents: A New Framework for Agreement (Lon- don: Prime Minister's Office, 1995).

43. Dennis Kennedy, "The Realism of the Union," in Foster, Idea of the Union, p. 34.

44. Barbara Finney, "An Englishwoman on the Union," in Foster, Idea of the Union.

45. Patrick J. Roche, "Northern Ireland and Irish Nationalism - A Unionist Perspective," Irish Review 15 (1994): 70-78.

46. See, e.g., Aughey, "The Constitutional Challenge," in Foster, Idea of the Union, p. 48.

47. Norman Porter, Rethinking Unionism: An Alternative Vision for Northern Ireland (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1995).

48. Porter himself denies being a liberal unionist, like Aughey or Mc- Cartney, and puts forward a rival concept of civic unionism to distinguish himself from other unionist commentators.

49. Simon Thompson, "Parity of Esteem and the Politics of Recogni- tion," Contemporary Political Theory 1 (2002): 203-220.

50. Arthur Aughey, book review of Norman Porter, Rethinking Unionism: An Alternative Vision for Northern Ireland, Irish Political Studies 13 (1997): 129-130.

51. Guelke, "Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Process," p. 71. 52. Neiljarmen, "Not an Inch," Peace Review 13, no. 1 (2001): 35-41.




53. See Dominic Bryan, Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition, and Control (London: Pluto Press, 2000) ; Edna Longley, "Northern Ireland: Commemoration, Elegy, Forgetting," in Ian McBride, ed., History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Tarmen, "Not an Inch," dd. 37-38.

54. Bryan, Orange Parades, p. 31. 55. Brian Walker, Past and Present: History, Identity, and Politics in Ireland

(Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University of Belfast, 2000). 56. Ibid. 57. Bryan, Orange Parades, p. 3. 58. James McAuley, "Flying the One-Winged Bird: Ulster Unionism and

the Peace Process," in Shirlow and McGovern, Who Are the People? 59. Dean Godson, Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism

(London: Harper Collins, 2004), pp. 129-146. 60. Aughey, "A State of Exception," p. 5; Arthur Aughey, "Reconceptual-

ising the Political in Northern Ireland: Reply to Finlayson," Irish Political Stud- ies 13 (1998): 123-124; Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen [1932] (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963).

bl. Arthur Aughey, The Character of Ulster Unionism, m Shirlow and McGovern, Who Are the People? p. 19.

62. Aughey, 'The Idea of the Union," in Foster, Idea of the Union, p. 12; Aufifhev, "A State of Exception," p. 8.

63. This kind of change has happened numerous times in Northern Ire- land as well as other conflict areas that have the necessary timespan. For example, in Northern Ireland much of the academic debate upon the conflict was done through a Marxist vocabulary, with concepts such as the "Labour aristocracy."

64. Aughey, A State of Exception, pp. 11-12. 65. Shane O'Neill, "Liberty, Equality, and the Rights of Cultures: The

Marching Controversy at Drumcree," British fournal of Politics and Interna- tional Relations 2, no. 1 (2000): 26-45.

66. Glen Newey, "Discourse Rights and the Drumcree Marches: A Reply to O'Neill," British Journal of Politics and International Relations 4, no. 1 (2002) : 75-97, and ibid., Shane O'Neill, "Democratic Theory with Critical Intent: Reply to Newey"; Adrian Little, "The Problem of Antagonism: Applying Lib- eral Political Theory to Conflict in Northern Ireland," British Journal of Poli- tics and International Relations 5, no. 3 (2002): 373-392.

67. Patrick Mayhew, A Framework for a Just Settlement (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1993).

68. Finlayson, "Discourse and Contemporary Loyalist Identity," p. 72; Finlayson, "Re-conceptualising the Political in Northern Ireland," Irish Politi- cal Studies 13 (1998): 115-122, at 120.

69. Finlayson, "Discourse and Contemporary Loyalist Identity," pp. 74-75; Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen.

70. Belfast Agreement 1998, http://www.nio.gov.uk/agreement.pdf, sec- tion 2; constitutional issues, v.

71. Ulster Unionist Party, The Way Forward (Belfast: Ulster Unionist Party, 1984).

72. Arthur Aughey, The Politics of Northern Ireland: Beyond the Belfast Agree- ment (London: Routledge, 2005).

73. Ibid.

