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2 DEMOCRATIC DIALOGUE NO 1

Democratic DialogueReport No 1August 1995

Democratic Dialogue5 University StreetBelfast BT7 1FYTel: 01232-232230/232228Fax: 01232-232228/233334

c Democratic Dialogue 1995ISBN 1 900281 00 7

Cover design by Dunbar DesignPhotographs by Lesley DoyleCartoons by Ian FraserPrinted by Regency Press

3DEMOCRATIC DIALOGUE NO 1

Contents

Preface 4

Introduction ROBIN WILSON 5

The new context of politics ANTHONY GIDDENS 8

Modernisation and social partnership RORY O’DONNELL 24

Talking, and listening GERALDINE DONAGHY 34

Debating points KATE FEARON 39

Revising opinions ROBIN WILSON 46

Appendices: DD mission statement 48

DD management committee 49

DD patrons 52


This is the first report from DemocraticDialogue, a new think tank based inBelfast.

Democratic Dialogue gratefully ac-knowledges the generous support of theJoseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, theJoseph Rowntree Reform Trust, and aconfidential Irish philanthropic source.

It also acknowledges the initial helpand advice of Geoff Mulgan of Demos andJames Cornford, former director of theInstitute for Public Policy Research.

Further copies of this report are avail-able from Democratic Dialogue, at theaddress on the inside front cover, price£5 (£10 institutions) plus postage andpacking.

Democratic Dialogue aims to publishsix reports per year—the themes of theinitial substantive reports are indicatedinside. Readers may wish to return theenclosed subscription slip, to avail of re-duced-rate payment for all reports, freecopies of DD’s newsletter and notificationof all DD events.

Preface

DD


making that defence in a traditional way.The Opsahl Commission showed an en-couraging willingness on the part ofmany people in Northern Ireland,whether they held traditional or non-traditional views, to defend them in a ra-tional and serious way.

In the aftermath of the commission in1993, I began to think there might bemerit in taking this process further, via

the formation of a think tank. Then lastautumn the paramilitary ceasefires tookplace, and again what was striking to anyobserver was how public meetings werehappening all over the place—whetherabout specific issues like policing or Ques-

tion Time-type discussions, where mem-bers of the different parties expressedtheir views before a public audience andtook their questions.

Those two experiences encouraged meto believe there could be scope for such a

The Opsahl Commission on ways forward for Northern Ireland—and, inparticular, the process of making

submissions and the public hearings thatfollowed—said something very striking.Whether it had been there all along, andhadn’t been tapped, or whether it wasnewly emerging, what was evident wasa willingness to participate in public de-bate in a way that perhaps hadn’t beenevident before in Northern Ireland. Andnot only to participate—but to be pre-pared, as at the hearings, to present anargument, explain it and defend it.

One of the notions the leading socialtheorist Anthony Giddens develops in hislatest book, Beyond Left and Right

(Polity Press), is what he calls ‘funda-mentalism’, which he defines as not onlythe defence of a traditional view but

Robin Wilson

Introduction


new project in Northern Ireland. In somerespects what we do will be similar tothink tanks in Britain—generate reportson issues and hopefully help elevate dis-cussion. As we say in our mission state-ment1 , “Democratic Dialogue seeks toprovide an independent inspiration forreflective thinking upon the critical is-sues confronting the people of NorthernIreland.”

What we envisage will make us a bitdifferent, however, a bit more attuned tothe regional situation, and that is ourstress on a participatory ethos. We arenot planning to ask individual academ-ics to sit alone in front of their word proc-essors in some ivory tower for two monthsat a time and generate tablets of stone.

We are, certainly, going to rely heav-ily on people who have particular intel-lectual expertise, but we also want to en-sure that our office in Belfast becomes ahive of activity for brainstorming ses-sions, focus groups or meetings. We wantto ensure our work includes public semi-nars, conferences and so on, at which realdebate can take place, with as many peo-ple involved as possible, on the issueswhich are going to be addressed in finalform in published reports. And, afterthese reports are published, we want toensure the widest possible debate around

them, in the media and elsewhere.In line with that aspiration, we de-

cided to make the launch of DemocraticDialogue a conference in itself, ratherthan a media event. Though the noticewas short, the net of invitees was cast aswidely as possible: political parties, in-terested academics, the community andvoluntary sector, women’s organisations,churches, trade unions, business and soon. Around 125 people attended; manymore apologised for their inability to doso but asked to be kept informed.

Our thanks are due to Maggie Beirne,who efficiently helped organise the

event until our assistant director, KateFearon, was appointed; to Kate herself,who hit the ground running when shestarted just a fortnight before theconference; to Breidge Gadd, of ourmanagement committee, who chaired itso ably; and to Geraldine Donaghy, alsoof the committee, who presented itsproposals on a programme of work to theconference.

Indeed, all members of the commit-tee2 , especially our chair, Beverley Jones,deserve praise for the way DemocraticDialogue has got up and running withinthe space of a few months. They haveproved a very efficient team to work with.


We are also mindful of the valuable sup-port of our six respected patrons3 .

The conference heard two stimulatingaddresses, from Prof Giddens, of Cam-bridge University, and Rory O’Donnell,director of the National Economic and So-cial Council in the republic, and these arereproduced inside. Prof Giddens set outa sweeping panorama of the new contextof politics into which Northern Irelandwill blinkingly emerge, should the cur-rent fragile peace be sustained.

Largely unrecognised in the north, therepublic has seen rapid social and eco-nomic progress in recent years. A keyfactor has been the emergence of a régimeof social partnership, whose outlines andsignificance Mr O’Donnell very effectivelycharted.

These speeches were by way of appe-tisers for the discussion, introduced byMs Donaghy, of Democratic Dialogue’sdraft workplan. Her remarks are also re-produced inside, as are highlights ofthe wide-ranging and enlightening de-bate which followed. Many delegatesalso kindly completed the evaluationsheets, which gave further guidance tothe committee.

The report concludes with the revisedworkplan on which, in the light of thisfeedback, Democratic Dialogue is

embarked. In doing so, it sets out ourstall.

What was encouraging about the con-ference was that it suggested there maybe more than a few customers. DD

Footnotes1 See appendix 12 See appendix 23 See appendix 3


Anthony Giddens

W e live, today, in a world full of sur-prises. Who would have foreseen,a few years ago, that communism

in eastern Europe would be peacefullydismantled after 1989? Who would haveforeseen that a vicious war would existalmost in the centre of Europe?

On a more positive note, who wouldhave foreseen that there would be a peaceprocess in the middle east or that mas-sive changes could happen in South Af-rica, without the violence which most peo-ple of all political persuasions expectedthere? And who would have foreseen thatthere could be a peace process in North-ern Ireland, which looks—we all hope—as though it will be successful andlongstanding?

Considering all these changes, one be-gins with a conclusion—that they cannot

The new context of politics

Globalise it—Tony Giddens offered a wider perspective

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be separate from one another. Theseevents going on across the world cannotsurely be understood as independenthappenings, but must, in some way, belinked. How they are linked is the themeI explore here.

We are living in a world undergoingvery, very profound transformations. Notonly do these help us understand whathas happened here over the past threeor four years—and over a longer periodtoo—but also one can’t really work outwhat will happen in the future in Irelandwithout looking at these broader proc-esses of change, transforming the worldas a whole.

There are three sets of massivechanges going on today, in the social, po-litical and economic worlds. There areother changes too, but I’ll concentrate onthese three, which are producing some-thing of a seismic shift in the sorts of so-ciety in which we live, which have causedus to break in some ways with the past,but which also allow us to thinkinnovatively about the future.

F irst of all, we’ve all become dramati-cally conscious over the past few years

that we live in a world undergoing mas-sive ‘globalisation’. Globalisation is theprime agenda of our lives today, though

it is not yet very well understood. Onehas only to pick up the newspapers to seehow a word which no one really men-tioned even 10 years ago is now discussedwith extraordinary frequency.

There are many such discussions inthe economic press. There, one sees glo-balisation identified with competition inworldwide economic markets—the ideabeing that we live in a much more inte-grated global economy than we ever didpreviously, and that this economicglobalisation is accelerating. Now, withreservations, this is true. It is true thatwe can’t carry on our economic lives inthe way we once did.

Think of what’s happened over thepast 30 or 40 years: not only the collapseof communism, the collapse of a certainway of organising the economy throughcentralised direction; but at the sametime, in all western countries, a crisis ofthe welfare state and the crumbling ofwhat seemed the very foundation of eco-nomic theory, Keynesianism. Thesethings are plainly not unrelated: they arebound up with global economic competi-tion, and it’s clear to everybody, whetheron the right or the left, that conditions ofeconomic competitiveness are differentnow from what they were even a quarterof a century ago.


But this is not the most fundamentalsense in which globalisation is changingour lives, so it will not do simply to con-centrate on the importance of global eco-nomic competition, essential though thatnow is. We should rather understand byglobalisation something more profound—a transformation of our personal lives,our local lives, in the context of muchlarger global events.

What has been the leading influencein the globalisation of society over thepast 20 or 30 years? The communicationsmedia. A technological fix on the changein the nature of the global expansion ofthe west across the rest of the world isoffered by the establishment, some 30 or40 years ago, of the first global satellite

communications system. When one hasglobal satellite communications, one canhave instantaneous communicationacross the world.

And when one has instantaneous elec-tronic communication across the world,one doesn’t only shift economic things.Certainly, 24-hour global money marketsweren’t possible before the marriage ofinformation technology and global satel-lite systems. But one doesn’t only haveeconomic transformations: there aretransformations in experience, in nature,the way we lead our lives; there are ma-jor transitions in the nature of the state;and, particularly importantly, we nowlive a new agenda. This links our per-sonal lives much more closely than everbefore with global futures and, in turn,links global events much more directlywith our personal experience.

Two sorts of experiments, as it were,are going on in the world. One has agrand experiment on the global level:what will we make of an industrialisingworld with the first global economy that’sever existed, if there is not much priorexperience on which we can build? Butalso our everyday lives, in a certain sense,have become experimental: look at thechanges affecting the relationship be-tween the sexes, at this fantastic debate


globalising processes eat into, attack, lo-cal customs and traditions, local ways ofdoing things. They do so in our personallives at the same time as they do so atthe level of the nation-state, and largersystems too.

For about 150 years, with the adventof modern industrial society, there was acollaboration between modernisation andindustrialisation on the one hand, andtradition on the other. Industrialisationdestroyed a lot of the pre-modern world.But, at the same time, there was an ac-commodation: tradition persisted in the19th century, in the invention of nation-alism, the resurgence of religious move-ments and, especially, in everyday life.There was a retraditionalisation of the

over ‘family values’, now seen through-out the world—in third-world as muchas first-world countries.

What is the reason for this? It is a shiftin how we live our everyday lives, asso-ciated of course with claims of women topower which they didn’t have before, butassociated with many other seismicchanges too. One has to understand theconjunction of change, therefore—linkingpersonal, even emotional, experiencewith much larger global events—and thatelectronic communication plays a centralrole, shifting the texture of how we liveour lives.

This means that when one speaks ofa society—Northern Ireland, Ireland, theUnited Kingdom or the wider Europeansociety—it’s going to mean something dif-ferent from what it used to mean, even acouple of decades ago.

Associated with globalisation—if glo-balisation means shifts in space and

time, transformations in the ways we re-late our experience to larger systems—one sees a second set of changes every-where in the world. These are the sweep-ing effects of what sociologists, if one canforgive the ‘sociologese’, have come to call‘detraditionalisation’.

Detraditionalisation means that


family, of gender, of various aspects ofpersonal life. That’s what made modernsociety stable—a marriage of modernityand tradition.

In a globalising world, with the im-mediate and shattering effects of elec-tronic communication—a much moreurgently cosmopolitan world—this mar-riage of modernity and tradition becomesprised apart.

In our local lives, detraditionalisationmeans, for example, that women are nolonger simply just ‘women’. One has todecide what it is to be a woman. One hasto decide now even what it is to be aman—something which is very unusualand difficult for men to do. But this iscertainly going to occupy our lives in the

future: gender identity is no longer fixed,no longer given; it’s something we haveto achieve. The same applies to familylife: the family is no longer somethinggiven.

We don’t accept our lives any longeras fate. Even a quarter century ago, ifone was a woman it was one’s ‘fate’ prob-ably to have children, to live in the do-mestic milieu, maybe to work part-time.It was one’s ‘fate’ as a man to leave schoolor college, get a job, retire at 65 and spendthe rest of one’s life wondering what todo. We don’t live our lives as fate anymore, so these things no longer hold foreither sex or in family life. One has to-day to construct an emotional life muchmore actively than ever before.

That’s why there’s no sense talkingabout going back to the ‘traditional fam-ily’. We’re stuck with the democratisationof family life, of which we have to makethe best. Again, we don’t know quitewhere it will lead, but there is no turn-ing back from that.

The detraditionalisation of local lifeis much more important than many peo-ple would accept. It intersects with eco-nomic development; it intersects withpolitics; it becomes a meeting-point ofwhat one does in one’s working life, inrespect of the other groups to which one


personal life, in business and in the statewe will depend much more upon activetrust, rather than a passive acceptanceof fixed roles, fixed economic systems—of work for life and all the rest of it. Ac-tive trust entails having to gain the trustof others in an active fashion—having torecognise that one is dependent on them,no matter how much power formally onehas over them. This is one of the reasonswhy the shape of economic organisationand political structures has changed.

Bureaucracy, after all, used to work.It used to work in the period of Keynes-ianism and the dominant theory of or-ganisations, until relatively recently, wasthat the more bureaucratic the industrialorganisation, the more effective it would

belongs and where one casts one’s vote.At the level of the state, we see every-

where that leaders can no longer lead.Why are all leaders suddenly lacklustre?It’s not just because the individuals in-volved have become so; rather, whendetraditionalisation affects the politicalsystem, one simply can’t depend on thesame deference as before. Again, we seethis happening throughout the world, notjust in the west; there are massive prob-lems for political leadership, plainly re-lated to the ‘hollowing out’ of the nation-state both below and above the level ofpolitical action.

What some sociologists, if one canagain forgive the terminology, have called‘the politics of un-politics’ is set to becomemuch more important. This refers to thevery many changes going on in society—such as women’s claims to new au-tonomy in everyday life—which do notemanate from the political sphere, but towhich the political sphere must respond.The state, in some sense, must respondto these claims, even though they are not,by and large, first established within thepolitical system. The political system haslost a good deal of the autonomy it oncehad. It doesn’t follow, however, that itcan’t re-establish it.

What does follows from this is that in


be. Now everyone is escaping from bu-reaucracy. Why? Not just because of theimpact of new technology, but because ofthe impact of this wider set of changes.

If one is going to have the active trustof a workforce, one must give thatworkforce some autonomy. Giving themautonomy means a much more flexibleauthority system and, in a world ofdecentred globalisation—where it’s nolonger true that West is Best—an ‘East-ernisation’ of industry is not surprising.One no longer speaks of Westernisation;there are many aspects of Easternisationgoing on today: bottom-up decision-mak-ing, non-hierarchical systems of author-ity and so forth.

These things all belong together. Theyare not different from what’s going on inthe sphere of the family, and they are notdifferent from what’s going on in thesphere of politics.

In all these cases, therefore, it is pos-sible to retrieve legitimacy. It is possibleto restabilise, for example, the politicalsystem. One isn’t stuck with a societywhere politics no longer counts for any-thing, but we won’t be able to make itcount for something without acknowledg-ing the importance of new systems ofauthority, symbolism and legitimacy,which depend on active trust.

Active trust normally means a muchmore volatile electorate—shifts in politi-cal allegiance, surprises. The sort of sur-prises that have happened in Canadianpolitics or in the United States, whereno one really anticipated the election ofBill Clinton, and very few anticipated thesudden resurgence of the Republicans.Such things will probably become morecommonplace in a detraditionalisedworld, where one has to build trust muchmore actively, where trust and risk be-come central organising notions for us.

Take what happens when one getsmarried, for example. One got married30 or 40 years ago, in most western soci-eties, with some sense that one knewwhat one was doing. Marriage was anestablished role relationship: one knewwhat it was; one knew what expectationsfollowed. If one gets married now, this isno longer true: one does so against a back-drop of a very high divorce rate, in lots ofwestern countries anyway. Anyone whogets married now knows that womenstake much more claim to autonomy thanbefore.

Everyone knows that traditional fam-ily systems are in some sense dissolving.Everyone knows there is a fierce debateabout all these things. These are not justexternal environments to one’s decision:


they are part and parcel of what that de-cision is. There is an important sense inwhich, when one gets married now, onedoesn’t really know what one is doing.One is participating in an experimentalrelationship, both for oneself and thewider society. A lot of our life has becomelike that, producing enormous anxietiesfor all of us, but also producing some veryinteresting new opportunities.

The third set of changes, linked to theothers, is the development of a much

more active, ‘reflexive’, citizenry. Onemay often read in popular accounts ofwhat’s happening in politics, what’s hap-pening in economic life, what’s happen-ing in emotional domains, that we’reparalysed—that people are disempow-ered by living in a global economy, by liv-ing in a globalising society. And this is,to some extent, true. On the other hand,living in such a society means one can-not but be active in relation to it.

The more tradition releases its hold,the more we no longer live our lives asfate, the more it’s true that in some sensewe must actively grasp control of our cir-cumstances—read, acquire knowledgeabout what we do and, through using thatknowledge, reorganise what we do. That’swhat it’s like to live in a reflexive world.

A reflexive world is not an increasinglyself-conscious world: it’s a world whereone must use lots of sources of informa-tion about one’s life.

It doesn’t matter whether one is anindividual, whether one is running a bigcorporation or whether one is running astate; we all live in this information en-vironment today, where one must useinformation about the outside world tolive in the outside world, but where thatinformation may be too much to handle,may be inconsistent, may be change-able—there are many difficulties indealing, reflexively, with an enclosed in-formation environment of the sort wenow have to handle.

Consider, for example, the simple


decision of what to eat for breakfast. Alot of people eat muesli for their break-fast in the belief that muesli is healthy,that it helps one to stave off various ill-nesses from which one might suffer. Lat-est research seems to indicate thatmuesli isn’t very healthy at all, and thatcertain things we used to think werehealthy, such as water, are less healthythan red wine. So if one drinks twoglasses of red wine a day—even one forbreakfast—it thins the blood and helpsone’s heart.

How does one relate to a world likethis? This is a world of elementary scep-ticism: it has changed so much in termsof how we live in it, in terms of the infor-mation we get about it, partly becausethe role of science has changed so much—and it’s science one is talking about here,in that simple decision about what to eatfor breakfast.

Science used to be a sort of tradition:it used to be an authority to which wecould turn, and we believed in the pro-bity of science. But now, we see that sci-ence depends upon scepticism. The es-sence of science is the belief that no be-lief is cherished—one gives up even one’smost cherished belief if empirical re-search shows it to be wrong.

Popper shows us that science is built

on shifting foundations; there is no foun-dation to science. Anything one believesin could be shown to be wrong. That viewis no longer confined to science, but ispart of our everyday lives.

There is, therefore, a new debate inthe modern world, between scepticismand fundamentalism. Fundamentalismis not something which has always beenaround: it is a creation of a world wherewe exist in a new relationship to all sortsof potential information around us. Sci-ence declares that nothing is sacred,whereas fundamentalism asserts thatone cannot live in a world where nothingis sacred. There’s a sophisticated dialoguehere, not just a dialogue of violence—though there are connections, in a morereflexive world, between fundamentalismand violence.

In a more reflexive world, in whichactive trust has an important role, thecitizenry increasingly live in the sameinformation environment as those, likepolitical leaders, who are empoweredto take decisions which affect them.This has many consequences, again, forpolitics.

The same is roughly true of the eco-nomic world. In Brazil, there are a lot ofvery poor people, and until recently therewas a very high rate of inflation. What


one finds in the very poorest parts ofthe cities, where people are living inindescribable conditions, is that verypoor people have learned to use theirminimal resources to stave off the worsteffects of inflation, by playing the glo-bal money markets in a sophisticatedfashion.

There is no one outside a world of highreflexivity any more: we all tend to livein the same information environments,and we all have access to various kindsof expertise within those information en-vironments. Recently, the press reporteda comparison between finance ministersand dustmen, in terms of predictionsabout inflation, economic developmentand so on. The dustmen were definitelysuperior to the finance ministers in thepredictions they made.

We live in a world where we all dis-cuss the same things—it is an extraordi-nary change. In my years of going roundthe world and participating in academicdialogues, there has been a tremendousglobalisation of information: one finds thesame debates, the same discussions, thesame ideas wherever one goes now, achange which has taken place in a veryshort time. There is some sense in whichwe all live in the same reflexive environ-ment now, whatever we make of it. There

are, however, many possible reactions tothat.

In a world marked by these concentratedand fundamental changes, a lot of con-

sequences arise. These can be comparedto a settling out after a large earth-quake—a massive ripple-effect across theworld. Some of them are bound up withdemocratisation.

If one asks what happened in the So-viet Union, what happened in South Af-rica, what’s happening in Northern Ire-land; if one sees these things as part of aglobal communications system, one getssome purchase upon the fairly rapidspread of democratisation across theworld today. And one arrives at a differ-ent theory about democratisation thanthe orthodox one.

There are ‘catching-up’ and ‘leapfrog’theories of democratisation—I prefer thesecond. A catching-up theory of democ-ratisation looks at what went on in SouthAfrica, in eastern Europe, and says: thesecountries were authoritarian, they laggedbehind western liberal democracies; whatthey have to do is catch them up. Theyhave to catch up by a joint process of eco-nomic development and political liberali-sation, so that they establish stable,multi-party political systems of the sort


long found in western Europe, Australa-sia and north America.

Now, that view has some substance:it’s plainly true that these were authori-tarian systems, unacceptable to largechunks of the people ruled by them. Butthe theory doesn’t make enough sense ofthe double fate of democracy in contem-porary times: although we see the spreadof democracy across the world, at thesame time surely, we see democracy introuble.

We see trouble all around us in west-ern countries. At the high point of itsapparent global success, western, liberal,multi-party democracy seems to be un-der enormous strain. If one has a differ-ent view of democratisation, however, onecan explain both the attractions of democ-ratisation and the strain to which liberaldemocracy is subject.

The spread of democratisation acrossthe world is bound up with the verychanges I have described: global commu-nication, detraditionalisation and a morereflexive citizenry create urgent pres-sures towards democratisation, towardsinvolvement. If people start to live in asimilar information environment, ofcourse they are clued in to what’s goingon, and of course they make claims asto their interests in respect of what’s

going on.But if these things explain the spread

of democratisation, at the same time theyshow why the older models of democrati-sation are likely to come under pressureand to be inadequate. With all these otherchanges going on, there is a great resur-gence of discussion about other forms ofdemocracy today, in addition to—not asa substitute for—liberal, multi-party de-mocracy. There is a sudden interest againin participatory democracy, which, for along time, was written off as of no rel-evance to anyone living in a large indus-trial society. Why? Because of this shake-out, where new forms of democratisationbecome not only possible, but necessary.

We look now for forms of democrati-sation which stretch right through fromour personal lives, through the nation-state, to larger global systems. We lookto forms of democratisation which reflectthese fantastic changes affecting the glo-bal society.

The United Nations has designated 1995as the UN Year of Tolerance. How, if

one looks at these changes, might oneapply them to this country? How wouldone orient oneself to the problems ofbuilding a liberal, pluralistic, peacefulsociety in Northern Ireland, in a united


Ireland or in a different form of Ireland,and in a wider European system? I offerthree reflections in conclusion.

First, when we look at Ireland now,in the light of the changes I’ve described,we see that it is neither so unusual, norso alone, as it used to appear. For a longwhile, to many commentators—and thiswould still be true if one applied a ‘catch-ing up’ theory of democracy—there wasan atavistic interpretation of NorthernIreland. In Northern Ireland, so it went,one has archaic conflicts which have notyet been quelled; a civil society has notyet, for various reasons, been fully estab-lished along the same lines as in otherwestern societies; and one has a situa-tion approximating to a civil war in aworld in which, at least in the west, civilwar has been largely forgotten.

One cannot any longer follow that in-terpretation. If one looks at Northern Ire-land today—and one must look at it in aglobalising context—one can see thatboth the problems and the opportunitieswhich face it, or Ireland as a whole, arenot different from those faced by therest of the world. Elsewhere, now, onesees a new relationship between radicaldemocratisation, on the one hand, andresurgent fundamentalisms, includingreligious, nationalistic and ethnic

fundamentalisms, on the other.These things are part of the global

shake-out I’m describing; in this contextNorthern Ireland looks, in a certainsense, typical, rather than unusual. Andthe sort of institutional building blocksthat one would seek to create here are

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surely the same as those we would lookto construct in other European countriesand in other contexts, in which we mustall now deal with this new intersectionbetween fundamentalism and democ-racy—forms of fundamentalism ringedwith violence, but in some sense in dia-logue with democratisation and withmodernisation, in the form of economicdevelopment.

Not just here, but everywhere, if hereparticularly, there is a question of whatCharles Taylor has called the ‘politics ofrecognition’. The politics of recognitionmust be accommodated in a pluralisticsociety. It entails recognising the authen-ticity, the identity of different culturalgroups who have different views—whether these be religious or of otherkinds—these views having a right to bestated, to be heard and to be organisedaround.

The politics of recognition comes upagainst the politics of solidarity: how doesone build a multi-cultural society, a soci-ety in which there is an effective politicsof recognition but which still has mecha-nisms of social cohesion? The simple an-swer is that we don’t yet know, but there’snothing very distinctive about NorthernIreland, as compared to many other partsof the world where we must seek to

resolve the same problem.What we’re dealing with here is a

genuinely global issue. In a world wherethe nation-state won’t look the same anymore, we can’t confine problems of eth-nicity, of religious pluralism, of otherkinds of claims to recognition within thenation-state’s sphere; we have to look forother ways of accommodating these twoforms of politics. I would see this as the

struggle for the early part of the 21st cen-tury—the struggle between the two, butthe possibility of accommodating themalso.

When one thinks of the state, one nolonger thinks of what one used to thinkof. What is the United Kingdom? Whatis Northern Ireland? What is Ireland?What is France? What is Canada? Theydon’t have the same resonance as theyused to do, largely because of the trans-formations I’ve mentioned. Nowadays, ifone is in one country, one is linked toother countries in a new fashion. One islinked to the European Union, and manydifferent forms of accommodation—offederalism, of local autonomy—seem tobe possible; we’re all pioneering these.

Look at what happened in Spain.Spain is still a country, but with extraor-dinary autonomy for the regions. Cata-lonia, for example, is more strongly


linked, economically and culturally, toother parts of the European Union thanit is to Castille. Will this be a pattern forthe future?

Secondly, there is an intrinsic connec-tion between democratisation, pluralismand economic development, and this willapply in Northern Ireland as elsewhere.

The relationship between democracyand economic development is more com-plex than one might imagine. There’s anew discussion, for example, of the im-pact of authoritarianism on economic de-velopment, when one considers the de-bate about Easternisation and the ratherunusual accommodation that seems toexist between fairly authoritarian sys-tems of political power in some of the‘eastern tigers’ and their very rapid eco-nomic development. Some people areagain saying: we don’t need democracy,we don’t need pluralism for economicdevelopment; one needs an authoritarianoutlook—maybe even what the Chinesecommunists provided, and the Russiancommunists wrongly eschewed withperestroika.

That’s what some are saying, but Idon’t think it is true. There is a closeconnection between democratisationand economic development. Econom-ic development is the condition for

democratisation; therefore discussion ofeconomic partnership is crucial to the fu-ture of this country1 . But that partner-ship is bound to entail new forms of demo-cratic association—not just the old rela-tionship between markets, liberal democ-racy and the nation-state. These thingswill no longer hold, here as elsewhere.

Thirdly, and finally, I was very pleasedto see that the name of the new think

tank is Democratic Dialogue, becauseamong the new forms of democratisationwhich will be particularly important forus, not just here but elsewhere, is what Icall ‘dialogic democracy’.

Democracy means two things, really.On the one hand, it means recognition ofdiversity of interests, so that one can formpolitical parties and other associations.On the other, democracy always alsomeans dialogue. It means the possibilityof substituting discussion for violence.And one of the main threads of demo-cratic theory in the west—and now acrossthe world—has been the substitution ofdialogue for violence, of talk for bullets.The substitution of talk for bullets issurely one of the great civilising contri-butions of western, liberal-democratictheory.

Dialogic democratisation, however, is


unlikely to be limited any longer to thesphere of parliaments. Parliamentplainly is a dialogic system—it’s a placewhere one debates things and, hopefully,one reaches conclusions without the useof force. But in a world with these newconnections and disjunctions betweenlocal life and global systems, one mustlook for forms of dialogic democratisationwhich will run through from personal andfamily life to large institutional systems.

I’d like to conclude by arguing thatthere is an inherent connection betweendialogue, violence and the possibility ofliving along with others, both in genderrelationships and in larger systems. Inboth cases, one depends upon the possi-bility of what I call a ‘positive spiral ofcommunication’. A positive spiral of com-munication substitutes dialogue for vio-lence and substitutes discussion—publicpolicy discussion—for the use of force toachieve one’s ends.

We know that in violent marriages,where men are violent towards women,such men can change. They can changethrough inner communication and outercommunication. We have many cases ofsuccessful therapeutic intervention,where violent men do manage to sub-stitute talk for violence. When that oc-curs, it can produce a positive spiral of

communication: the more one gets toknow oneself, the more one gets to knowthe other; the more one gets to know theother, the more one understands oneself.

This is a positive politics of recogni-tion, where difference with the other is ameans to get to know oneself better,which in turn is a means of getting toknow the other better, in a positive spi-ral. There are many cases across theworld of interaction between religiousgroups, ethnic groups, cultural groups,where one does see positive spirals ofcommunication. I take it this will be oneof the meanings of Democratic Dia-logue—the furthering of such spirals ofpositive communication.

The question for us is how to avoid arelapse into negative spirals of commu-nication. If, in a positive spiral, in an emo-tional relationship, love feeds on love, likefeeds on like, tolerance feeds on tolerance;in a deteriorating cycle of communica-tion, hatred feeds on hatred. What hap-pened in Bosnia can’t be understood interms of what I earlier called an atavis-tic view of history. What happened inBosnia wasn’t just that centuries-oldhatreds existed which had never been ac-commodated, in an awkward corner ofEurope which had never modernised.

One certainly has to understand what


happened in Bosnia in relation to thepast, but in relation to how that past isused in a globalising context, where onehas a new encounter—a global encoun-ter—between Islam and Christianity, anencounter between different modes ofmodernisation. One doesn’t simply havea reservoir of hatred lying around forhundreds of years, ready to fuel conflicts.That isn’t really how hatreds work, inIreland any more than anywhere else.

What one has is certain situationswhich can accentuate, can draw upon,pre-existing antagonisms. Once thesebecome communicated as hatreds, thenone can get a negative spiral of commu-nication, so that people who were previ-ously neighbours, and had got along quitewell, can end up hating one another, tothe degree they are prepared to visitthe most horrific brutalities upon oneanother.

Managing the global society of the fu-ture is not going to be a matter of send-ing in UN forces to clear up areas of con-flict—of which there will be many—such as Bosnia. It’s going to be a ques-tion of somehow producing democratic in-stitutions and creating interventionswhich avoid negative spirals of culturalcommunication.

As with all I have been describing,

this is an open future for us. Wecan’t really, any longer, use our past tra-ditions of thinking to understand it. Inconfronting this open future, whilewe certainly see many difficulties,many uncertainties, we see many newpossibilities too.

Footnotes1 See next chapter

DD


Modernisation and social partnership

Rory O’Donnell

In recent years, the Republic of Irelandhas been undertaking an importantexperiment in policy-making, at both

national and local level.The background to this experiment,

which began in 1987, was a combinationof crises.

The economic crisis stemmed from therecessions of the 70s, adjustment to mem-bership of the European Community—which involved an enormous change inthe structure of the Irish economy, in-cluding the loss of many traditional in-dustries—and, in the early 80s, a fiscalcrisis, pushing the country almost to-wards insolvency.

That was combined with a politicalcrisis. With no party able to commandanything like a majority, intensified po-litical competition lowered the quality of

political behaviour, rather than improv-ing it. Political decision-making becameworse—more expedient, more short-term—exacerbating the fiscal crisis.

At the same time, in the early 80s,there was a social crisis. There was deepdespair in the face of an economy stag-nant for six or seven years in a row, fall-ing real consumption, a doubling of un-employment and intractable debatesaround fundamentally divisive issues,like abortion and divorce.

T he National Economic and SocialCouncil is roughly similar to the

Northern Ireland Economic Council.Funded by the state, it comprises the ‘so-cial partners’—representatives of tradeunions, business and farmers (in the NESC

case, civil servants are also included.) In1986, the social partners, acting in theNESC, put together a package to get out of


this vicious, downward spiral.It was a package to avoid insolvency,

while protecting welfare recipients andthe unemployed, and envisaging funda-mental changes in public expenditureand policy. This programme, put togethervoluntarily by the social partners—by atwist of fate, perhaps—was adopted bygovernment in 1987 and formalised in athree-year agreement between it and thebusiness, trade union and agriculturalinterests.

An aspect of the agreement—exploredin more detail below—was the republic’sadherence to the European ExchangeRate Mechanism (ERM). Indeed, the ini-tiative reflected an emerging perspectiveon the republic’s experience in the Euro-pean Community.

Four main policy areas in the Euro-pean Community influenced the repub-lic dramatically: the internal market, thecommon agricultural policy, the mon-etary policy and structural (regional andsocial) policies. Yet, after 10 to 15 yearsof experiencing these policies, we discov-ered that the way they influenced therepublic was dependent on our ap-proaches to them—on domestic economicstructures, political structures and firmstructures.

This was quite surprising. The

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was al-ways the most centralised and commonpolicy of the European Community, andyet the way it affected the republic wasvery much influenced by elements ofagricultural policy over which we stillhad control, but had forgotten we had.

Take your partners—Rory O’Donnell explored an aspect of the republic’s modernisationL

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For example, there were fundamentalstructural problems in agriculture, whichcouldn’t have been addressed by the CAP,but we had neglected making policy onthem during those years. Similar com-ments could apply to the other Euro-policy areas: the internal market, themonetary policy and so on.

Borrowing from an American writer,I would describe this new understandingas an ‘interactive outlook’. We discoveredthat the way European Communitymembership and, perforce, globalisationinfluenced the republic was, in fact, via

an interaction between that globalisationand those larger European forces, on theone hand, and the domestic structuresand policies, procedures and norms, onthe other.

That interaction is much strongerthan we first understood, having as-sumed—perhaps reflecting a long line ofIrish thinking—that much in the repub-lic was determined by some larger exter-nal force. There are two versions of thatview—that it is benign and that it is ma-lign; either way, it’s a well-entrenchedline of thought.

We had to abandon that view, thatthings were definitively externally deter-mined. Likewise, we had to abandon theopposite view—equally mistaken—that

the republic is an organic entity and thatone can apply principles to it on its own,without taking account of its opennessand its interactions. (Although these twoviews are clearly faulty, it’s very hard toavoid them when one starts to generatepolicy advice.)

What emerged, after a dozen or soyears of European Community member-ship, was a quite different understand-ing of the scope of domestic policy andinstitutions, in shaping the way member-ship worked for and against the society.It’s impossible to understand what hashappened to the republic, without seeingthe enormous impact of EC membership—not only through the state and high-levelpolicy makers but also upon the society,through autonomous activity: people join-ing environmental groups, women’sgroups, local authority groups, at Euro-pean level, and involving themselves inthe numerous networks which really arewhat comprise the European Union.

There is also an interactive under-standing of what happens at home in therepublic. In looking at those policy ar-eas—the internal market, the commonagricultural policy, the monetary policyand the EU structural funds—one needsnew ideas to understand how, in the Eu-ropean economy, a small region like the


republic fares. One has to draw on arange of ideas, from regional studies,business studies, geography and so on,all of which are moving in the same di-rection: they’re all saying that the out-come is not as predetermined as we oncethought.

An earlier body of geography and re-gional theory would have said that, in theface of globalisation, the periphery ofEurope would definitely go in a negativedirection. That deterministic view has tobe qualified now, and that same qualifi-cation has occurred across a range of ar-eas of expertise.

All this says to us that policy-makinghas to be different from in the past, whenexpert knowledge and bureaucratic tech-niques could put together a functioningpolicy fairly well. Whether policy willwork or won’t work now is much moredependent on engaging the main playersin the society.

In sum, then, the notion of interaction—an interactive framework between the

republic and international events andforces, and a more interactive view ofwhat happens domestically—are impor-tant backgrounds to the new experimentin social partnership.

Now to the experiment itself. The

Programme for National Recovery (PNR),agreed in 1987, was a three-year dealdetermining the evolution of pay in boththe public and private sectors, but it wasmuch more than a wage bargain. It in-volved an agreement on the state’s partas to the broad evolution of the tax sys-tem, and of health and social welfarespending. The social partners and gov-ernment also committed themselves toadhere to the ERM: if the punt came un-der pressure, neither employers, nor un-ions nor farm interests would immedi-ately call for devaluation, but would stickto the policy for the medium or long term.

The PNR was successful and it was fol-lowed, in 1990, with a second three-yearprogramme, the Programme for Eco-nomic and Social Progress. The PESP con-tained many of the same elements, butthere was a new focus on the long-termunemployed and an experimental, area-based approach to addressing it.

In 1994, a third three-year agreementfollowed, the Programme for Competi-tiveness and Work (PCW). That, again, hadthe same key elements: wages, tax re-form, expenditure on social welfare andhealth, adherence to the Maastricht cri-teria for transition to monetary union, aswell as a further focus on employmentand unemployment, training and local


international environment and reducetensions in the workplace and elsewhere,so that distributional conflict does notdisrupt the economy. And it needs anability to make structural changes—infirms, in the state, in the health systemand so on—because it has to compete ina very volatile international environmentwhich it can’t influence that much; thiscalls for flexibility and continuous adjust-ment of the economy, the society and thepublic sector. It needs to achieve thosethree things.

The development, through variousforums—like the NESC—of a shared analy-sis of some of the key problems was thusa fundamental, second element in thisexperiment.

Thirdly, there were institutional de-velopments. A Central Review Commit-tee was established, to manage theseagreements. Every few weeks, the rel-evant ministers or senior civil servantsmeet the unions, business representa-tives and agricultural interests and moni-tor the programme, thus involving them-selves in a continuous dialogue on keymatters of policy as they arise.

Another institutional innovation,again unlike previous wage bargains—which were really put together by unionsand business with each then settling

Adopting an interactive outlook

economic and social development.What is significant about those three

agreements—which differ from previouscentralised wage agreements and otherpolicy-making—was the shared analysisof many elements of the economic andsocial problem. That analysis was that,in a very volatile international economy,a country which is small and extremelyopen—in terms of its economic interac-tions—has to have three elements to itspolicy, all of them consistent.

It needs a macro-policy which ensuresthe growth of demand and low inflation.It needs distributional arrangements,which maintain competitiveness in the

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separately with the state—has been themuch more collective character of thisexperiment. In many ways, the state hasplayed a key role as a co-ordinator of theprocess.

Given this broad outline of the na-tional programmes, which made up thisexperiment, we must now consider a sec-ond strand of social partnership, whichhas operated locally.

When the PESP was being negotiated,the unions pushed very hard for a newinitiative on long-term unemployment.The response was 12 pilot partnerships—local boards consisting of communitygroups, unemployed representatives, thesocial partners themselves in a givenarea, key state agencies (such as thetraining agencies and the touristboard)—with links to government. Thesewere to attempt new ways of tacklinglong-term unemployment and reintro-ducing the long-term jobless into the la-bour market.

Secondly, a set of initiatives comingfrom the European Community were verysignificant. The Leader programme forrural development had a very similarstructure—local boards on a partnershipmodel, bringing together the key agents.(There, the focus was less on social ex-clusion and unemployment than on

business development.) And there wasPoverty 3, which operated in NorthernIreland as well: the European Commis-sion’s input was very significant inprompting the republic to experimentwith local partnership in that sense.

Also, in managing the large transfersunder the regional fund and the socialfund, the republic—a very centralisedstate—was pushed by the EuropeanCommission towards some region-alisation of the monitoring of those ex-penditures. There’s debate about howgreat and how genuine that region-alisation is, but it certainly has beenthere.

Finally, the PCW embraces a more ar-ticulated approach to local economic de-velopment—with partnerships estab-lished not only to address long-term un-employment, but also commercial andemployment development, at a local level.

How should one assess and interpretthis experiment? In terms of economic

performance, it has undoubtedly been ex-tremely successful. Between 1987 and1993-4, the republic achieved one of thehighest rates of output growth in the OECD

countries and the second highest growthin employment.

The programmes played a key role in


making the republic’s macro-economicstrategy work. The early 80s saw a vi-cious circle, in which the fiscal crisis wasdealt with by raising taxes; workers thensought those taxes back in pay bargain-ing. Business was squeezed, between thestate on one side and the unions on theother; this, in turn, compounded the fis-cal problem.

What these agreements have done—as against previous centralised wage bar-gains—is to embrace in a common accordall the necessary elements to break outof this vicious circle, including taxationand the ‘social wage’, health and welfareexpenditure. Only if all these are man-aged in a consistent way, in a way thatis essentially agreed, can the policy holdtogether. In effect, inflation is takenout of industrial relations and domesticpolitics.

After the first experiment, the NESC

saw a connection between the agreedunderstanding of some of the key prob-lems, the consensual approach to distri-bution—in terms of both pay and publicexpenditure—and, interestingly, a dis-tinct improvement in the quality of pub-lic policy-making. The ability of govern-ment to take strategic, non-pragmaticdecisions seemed dramatically to in-crease under this régime.

It may or may not be connected, butthe coincidence is striking, and indeed ithas continued. In a still very competitivepolitical environment—indeed, the insta-bility of party support is even greaterthan in the late 70s and early 80s—thequality of policy-making is much morestrategic, with hard decision-makingwhere decisions need to be made.

So, in terms of economic performance,the assessment has to be very positive.

There is also a renewed focus on de-velopment. One of the striking featuresof a fiscal crisis is that it bleaches outany developmental thinking. There wasa strong strand of developmental think-ing in public policy in the republic, fromthe late 50s through to the early 70s, butthis was wiped out as policy-makers be-came preoccupied with public expendi-ture. We have managed to reintroduce—again, very much prompted by the Euro-pean Commission—a developmental el-ement into policy-making and debate, atnational and local level.

Thirdly, there has been a regenera-tion of local development and involve-ment. The republic is not only central-ised, but has a strong tendency to per-petuate that centralisation. We haveseen, under this régime, a renewed rec-ognition, both in society and in policy-


making, that local involvement is one ofthe wellsprings of both prosperity andsocial solidarity. Local partnership hasbeen a very distinct achievement of thisexperiment.

There are, needless to say, severe dif-ficulties in developing partnerships atlocal level. The success of local social andeconomic development, under this part-nership model, seems to depend on a verystrong ‘vertical’ relationship with highlevels of state agencies, such as thoseresponsible for training and industrialdevelopment. So it isn’t ‘bottom-up’ de-velopment in any simple sense: it in-volves a strange mixture of bottom-upand top-down.

This experiment in policy-making is appropriate to a very internationalised

economy, partly because it allows us tofocus on those areas where a very smallcountry—or, indeed, region—can stillhave some influence on its economic pros-perity. To some degree, in the republic,it is a matter of getting clear what lim-ited autonomy we have in areas of macro-policy.

But, more and more around theworld, there is a concentration on theimportance of ‘supply-side’ policies—education, training, technology, science,

infrastructure and developing a flexibleeconomy—to the prosperity of givencountries and regions. All such policies,which influence prosperity much morenow than in the past—and in ways whichmacro-economic policy or, indeed, large-scale industrial policy simply can’t anymore—are dispensed with great diffi-culty, and quite ineffectively, by statestructures on their own, particularly bybureaucratic administrative structures.

What they depend upon is the collabo-ration of all the parties who are relevantto the policies. So it’s impossible to im-agine a successful training policy whichdoesn’t engage the involvement, the will-ingness, of those whose skills are sup-posed to be improved. And the same ap-plies across the board—to technologypolicy, infrastructure, communicationsand so on.

There is a lot of debate, internation-ally—and a little bit in the republic—about how to understand this model ofsocial partnership. It’s more than consul-tation: it’s not a process whereby the statesimply consults the social partners, or lo-cal community groups or whatever. It’smore like negotiation or, indeed, sharedauthority. Government shares its author-ity—its right to pass law and spend pub-lic money—with those partners. It is


addressing the limits of legal regulationand bureaucratic administration to solveproblems, not only by consulting butalso by sharing authority in a genuinepartnership.

What are the challenges that remain?Two major challenges confront this ex-periment in the republic. It has succeededin getting the macro-economy and macro-social issues into some balance, but ithasn’t successfully addressed the core,long-run problem of the republic—weakindigenous economic development. So thequestion is: can this process be pushedinto industrial policy, training policy,technology policy, finance for industryand so on?

Secondly, there is a challenge of long-term unemployment and social exclusion.This has not been utterly ignored in theseprogrammes, but clearly it’s an enormouschallenge which requires continuouschange.

A third challenge is that there is achallenge: there is opposition to this ex-periment. Opposition comes very stronglyfrom liberal economists and from thoseat national level who are quite unhappywith the notion of the economy beingregulated in a continuous dialogue be-tween the state and the social partners.

At local level, too, there is a challenge

to the notion of partnership, from thosewith a more traditional notion of democ-racy—who say it is quite inappropriatethat public money be handled by volun-tary associations of community groupsand so on, and who wish to see all theseprogrammes brought back firmly withinthe local authority or central governmentstructure. The NESC looked at this issuevery recently, and was not persuaded bysuch suggestions.

I am very reluctant to be prescriptiveabout what this model might imply for

Northern Ireland, except to say twothings. In thinking about this experimentin the republic, I’ve found it useful to for-get, temporarily at least, one question:how much autonomy does the republicstill have in a global economy, or in theEU? (Because when you look at it, theanswer seems, on many fronts, to be re-ally very little.)

Putting to one side the amount of au-tonomy at national level—and this mightapply at regional level as well—allows usto look, instead, at policy-making and im-plementation. This means not focusingon the quantity of power to be mediatedor the money to be spent, but rather onthe patterns of policy-making. That wayof thinking seems to be useful in the


republic, at least up to a point, and it mayhave some parallel in Northern Ireland.

A second parallel is the involvementof the EU. Its impact on these processesmay be very indirect, but it is very strong.The republic has been thrown open toEuropeanisation of everything, and thatseems to open up networks for ideas—finance, of course, as well—which can beused in a variety of ways. These networksare not determined entirely by high poli-tics, by the Council of Ministers, and in-deed are simply not recognised in the con-ventional debate about Euro-sovereigntyversus national sovereignty: that debatelooks right over all the networks of influ-ence and misses much of what is relevant.

Globalisation is occurring world-wide, and with devastating and some-times beneficial effects. But the EU isthe most remarkable attempt to manageglobal-isation in the world: two years af-ter the North American Free TradeAgreement, by comparison, both Mexicoand Canada are in severe crisis. TheEU model of internationalisation involvesfar more accompanying policies, farbroader and deeper management ofinternationalisation.

It’s to that process that the republichas been exposed. It did not cope too wellfor a while, but it has begun to get a

handle on it. And, in diverse ways, it haslet that influence the way people makepolicy and implement it. DD


Geraldine Donaghy

O nly in being challenged and confronted about our thinking will barriers and mindsets be broken.

What distinguishes Democratic Dia-logue in this regard is the philosophicalbasis its participants share, as to the ex-tent that people, and their beliefs, arecapable of changing. Change is possible,through challenge, and one fundamentalmeans of challenge is to question ideasand beliefs—and, in particular, the lan-guage we use to convey them.

Over the past 25 years, Northern Ire-land has developed a considerable glos-sary, rich in concepts and clichés. Onesthat spring to mind are ‘democratic defi-cit’, ‘parity of esteem’, the ‘peace process’and so on. But too often language, if isn’tanalysed in itself, acts as a barrier tounderstanding instead of enhancing it.

Talking, and listening

Going local—Geraldine Donaghy outlined DD’s draft plan

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We in Democratic Dialogue challengeourselves, and others, to adopt a new andtransparent approach to reconstructingdebate around key issues in NorthernIreland, as we start out on what we hopeto be a peaceful and new future.

The last thing, however, that Demo-cratic Dialogue needs to do is to reinventthe wheel. So before indicating what themanagement committee of DemocraticDialogue thought might be useful for thisnew think tank to do, let me set out somecriteria we have discussed as to what,perhaps, it should not do.

The first of these is that we don’t wantto tread insensitively on anyone’s toes

or clumsily nudge anyone aside. We don’twant to duplicate what others are doing.That is to say, we want what DemocraticDialogue does to be distinctive. That isnot to say, however, that we are afraidto stamp old or currently researched top-ics with our own brand of inquiry andconsultation.

Secondly, and importantly, we do notwant to operate in a remote or overly aca-demic manner. This isn’t to downplaythe impact and importance of ideas or in-tellectuals: ideas are, after all, what weare about, and intellectuals will play acrucial role in putting their finger on

the pulse.But we would stress the participatory

and inclusive nature of the process uponwhich Democratic Dialogue is embarked.There is a role, of course, for academics—as there is for politicians and church rep-resentatives—but there also has to be arole for the excluded groups in our soci-ety, such as the community and volun-tary sectors, trade unions and even in-terested individuals.

Whether the format, in future, isbrainstorming sessions, seminars, focusgroups or whatever, we mustengagewider interests and grassroots voices inthe preparation of our publications, as weaddress the substantive issues that con-front us. We hope that our round tablein our offices in University Street in Bel-fast will quickly become worn throughthe discussions around it.

But, thirdly, Democratic Dialogue isnot just a debating society. If the work itgenerates does not appear relevant oruseful, then it will have failed to hit thetarget. It has, in other words, to makean impact. It is not, nor can it be, a cam-paigning organisation. But it does not in-tend to produce publications that willsimply gather dust on the shelf.

Nevertheless, if Democratic Dialogueshould not reinvent the wheel, at the risk


of mixing metaphors, it must be preparedto grasp the nettle—and focus on the key,critical issues that face us.

The first category is those issueswhich are widely recognised as crunchpolitical concerns, but are often deemedtoo difficult for polite conversation. What-ever other things Democratic Dialoguecan promise to be, polite is certainly notgoing to be one of them.

The second is those issues which havebeen historically neglected because of thenarrow focus of the ‘troubles’ politicalagenda, or because of the marginalisedcharacter of those groups who have ar-ticulated them. Whatever the rights andwrongs of that—mostly wrongs in ourview—in neither case is such negligenceappropriate to the new context and thedemands it places upon us all.

This leads me on to what the manage-ment committee thought would be a use-ful programme of work for the comingmonths.

Beginning later in the year, we envisage a report emerging every two

months or so on a substantive theme.Suggested topics which we have flaggedup initially include social exclusion, ‘cre-ating positive cultures’, women in North-ern Ireland life, ‘reconstituting politics’

and the fair employment review. Let meexplain the basis of our selection.

• Social exclusion has become a criticalissue which hasn’t really been addressedby any of the political parties—or indeed,at a conceptual level, by any of the vol-untary sector groups. Particularly in thecontext of the new European peace-and-reconciliation funding package for North-ern Ireland—since the socially excludedare a target group within that measure—it is incumbent on Democratic Dialogueto address this and look at who exactlyis excluded, and how they are affected.This is going to be a very challengingsubject.

• Identity politics are another key con-cern, which are never far removed fromthe reality of life in Northern Ireland.This summer’s clashes in Belfast have re-minded us of the power of identity poli-tics, and its ability to sustain tension andthreat. Parity of esteem has become thebuzz phrase, but we have a long way togo to determine how we create positive

cultures—how, in practice, we addressthese deeply felt perceptions of identityin a time of rapid and, for many, unset-tling change.


role for everyone.

• Finally, fair employment. The ideaseems to have become widely accepted,yet recent debate in the United Statesreminds us how very fraught the associ-ated issues remain. The 1989 NorthernIreland legislation is under review by theStanley Advisory Commission on HumanRights. It is certain to raise difficultchallenges.

These were some of our ideas for a programme of work for the coming year,

stemming from the criteria I outlinedearlier. In such a rolling programme,there would be room for adjustment overtime, as well as the incorporation ofsmaller or perhaps less public pieces ofwork. In particular, there would be scopefor specifically contracted work, which,if Democratic Dialogue is to have a fu-ture beyond its initial two-year span, willhave to loom larger over time.

The process is important too: Demo-cratic Dialogue will continue to be grate-ful for comments as to how it does thingsand what it does. We hope that will be acontinuing conversation.

Prof Giddens talked about how, insome global hotspots, bullets have beensubstituted by talk. It called to mind an

The position of women in Northern Ire-

land is another neglected area. NorthernIreland’s biggest oppressed minority—itsfemale majority—has a very big claim toa portion of the peace dividend. It hasbeen women who have, to a large extent,borne the brunt of keeping the sunny sideup in the hot spots of Northern Ireland.And it is to the key issues of addressinghow we engage women in the politicalprocess, how we engage women in publiclife in Northern Ireland, that DemocraticDialogue feels we need to turn.

• Fourthly, reconstituting politics. Mustpost-ceasefire politics be the same as pre-ceasefire politics? The obvious answer isno. But to talk of reconstituting politicsraises far more questions than readyanswers. What sort of principles shoulda new politics be based on? How shouldthese be written down and translatedinto reality, and what new roles emergefor political parties and the wider pub-lic? The whole arena of participatory poli-tics engages people right across thespectrum of life in Northern Ireland. Oneof the emerging themes is: how does oneinvolve everyone in the political process?Long since has gone the 19th-centurynotion of the parliamentarian who holdsthe key to public life. There has to be a


expression of Winston Churchill: “Jaw -jaw is much better than war-war.” A morecontemporary illustration is perhaps thecurrent BT advertisement, with BobHoskins: “It’s good to talk.”

Democratic Dialogue believes it is

good to talk. But we don’t just want totalk: we want to listen too. DD


Debating points

comments, suggestions and questions theparticipants offered, together with someof the answers from the invited speak-ers, grouped according to the majorthemes which emerged.

A lthough young people had been iden-tified by Democratic Dialogue as key

contributors to the conference, variousfactors—not least that it was examina-tion season—led to their being under-represented on the day. However, thosewho were there had no hesitation in ex-pressing typical youth perspectives:

I am a 23-year-old woman in North-

ern Ireland who is very, very interested

in politics, but currently there is no po-

litical party in this state that I could

vote for. That means I’ve no stake in

my future. There is a group of people

in Northern Ireland that have been

Kate Fearon

‘You are being too ambitious’; ‘you are

not being ambitious enough’. ‘You

must stay at grassroots level’; ‘you

must involve the middle classes’.

‘You must work with politicians,

not against them’; ’you must seek

an alternative to the political party

structure’.

This section records the issues whichthe conference participants identifiedas important, in both the plenary ses-

sion and their completed evaluationsheets: what they said on the proposedagenda of Democratic Dialogue, the roleof young people, the basic principles ofdemocracy itself and—overarching allthese—the absolute need for dialogue atany and all levels.

Below, we highlight some of the


totally excluded from politics or any-

thing else that has happened in the

last 25 years: young people. I want to

know what Democratic Dialogue are

going to do for the young people in

Northern Ireland. Are they going to

consult them?

This viewpoint was echoed by older par-ticipants, who spoke of a different kindof agenda young people might have:

The existing political agenda, not only

in Northern Ireland but in large parts

of the world, is perceived by young peo-

ple as being of very limited relevance

to their experience, for example be-

cause they live in a more global world,

they don’t accept traditional structures

and so on. We need to find ways of spe-

cifically trying to encourage dialogue

amongst young people around issues

that young people themselves identify

as being crucial. The question of the

different kind of agenda young people

will tend to present, and how Demo-

cratic Dialogue can best create a fo-

rum which could address that issue,

is something that we need to explore.

Other delegates prioritised the role ofyoung people to an even greater degree:

Our young people are our future. The

young people are the people that we

want to work for, to ensure that they

don’t have to go through the same

agony and horrors, and terrorism and

tragedy, that we have had to go

through. I can sympathise with theYoung, gifted and ... hacked off with local politics

LE

SL

EY D

OY

LE


young people when they say that no

political party is paying attention to

the bread-and-butter issues.

The idea of a changing world-view, forboth older and younger generations, wasdeveloped further: we are moving awayfrom traditional thinking, and in thisyounger people are taking the lead. It issomething Democratic Dialogue shouldmaintain and develop. As one attendeeput it,

I want to say that older people would

have no difficulty in subscribing to a

youthful agenda, and in that sense I

would like to congratulate Democratic

Dialogue on taking the first steps to

establishing a youthful and new

agenda. I took on board the remarks

that were made about the changing

position and the changing global at-

mosphere that we live in and the fact

that greater and greater numbers of

people are not seeing the world—and

this goes for older people as well—in

the same traditional terms as it was

seen hitherto.

G lobalisation, touched on by AnthonyGiddens, was the subject of further

discussion during the ensuing debate.

Both the positive and negative offshootsof this new, yet inescapable, phenomenonwere illustrated by Prof Giddens—for ex-ample, global co-operation as evidencedby the economic ties of a structure suchas the European Union, and, conversely,the ignorance, alienation and sometimesviolence of fundamentalism:

Globalisation doesn’t mean, of course,

the development of big systems. It

means a shake-out of local systems. If

you get demands for, say, local au-

tonomy, local nationalism, what do

they represent? Localisation. An em-

phasis on the significance of local ini-

tiative, the resurgence of various

forms, anyway, of local organisation—

these are made possible precisely by

globalisation. One shouldn’t exagger-

ate, but as for the idea of partnership

as has been described—a sort of net-

work of authority—some of the most

successful sites of economic develop-

ment in the European Union are those

that precisely apply such a model.

In previous times you got along with

other people, often just from being

separate from them. Geographical

separation was the condition of a glo-

bally cosmopolitan world. It can no


longer be so when everyone is in touch

with one another, especially through

electronic media. It’s a very different

situation for us, and consideration of

fundamentalism is really very impor-

tant. It has application in any domain.

It doesn’t have to be religious funda-

mentalism, it doesn’t have to be eth-

nic fundamentalism; it can invade

any domain where there’s a refusal of

dialogue.

In response to a question on social ex-clusion—particularly in terms of the

long-term unemployed, Rory O’Donnellargued that the notion that all the un-employed were excluded, and not repre-sented in dialogues between employersand government (in the republic), wasdebatable. He felt the trade unions couldargue, with some merit, that many un-employed people were representedthrough the unemployed centres theyran. He argued that the difficult issuewas that unemployed people were ex-cluded much more from access to every-day things than from these bargainingprocesses.

Mr O’Donnell suggested that therewas a “functional logic to this kind ofpartnership” between the employers,trade unions and the state, even if at that

level the unemployed remained excluded.In local partnerships, however, represen-tation was quite different, with commu-nity groups, unemployed groups and soon represented, as was entirely appropri-ate. He felt the challenge was to find waysof representing the socially excluded thatwere meaningful and effective.

Expanding on his notion of dialogic de-mocracy—which he distinguished

from participatory democracy—ProfGiddens again referred to how thelife-plan systems of today “aren’t thesame as they used to be”. In many do-mains, there was a renegotiation ofauthority, in which it was recognisedthat both sides had contributions to bemade. This not only applied in business,but in the family and gender relation-ships, and in many other domains of themodern world—where in essence whatwas at stake was a negotiated system ofauthority. The distinction between par-ticipatory democracy and dialogic democ-racy was that the latter required insti-tutionalised fora in which people not onlyparticipated but discussed with one an-other and reached decisions—by the forceof better argument, rather than by forceitself.


The core of the discussion, however, fo-cused firmly on the need for dialogue—

with, in particular, the idea that Demo-cratic Dialogue should pioneer a regularforum for discussion. Contributions wereextensive, yet self-explanatory. Peoplewere, contrary to common opinion, verysure of what they wanted, as the excerptsbelow demonstrate:

• I think it goes without saying that

in the last ten months big and small

initiatives have been very useful in un-

derpinning the peace process. I think

that there’s an obvious need for more

dialogue at this level. At this particu-

lar time, there’s an imbalance in the

process of dialogue that is actually

taking place in the country. There is

an absence of seriousness on the part

of the British government in terms of

their contribution to the process of dia-

logue, which is absolutely essential if

we’re going to go forward to find a po-

litical settlement to this long-standing

conflict. I thought it was very interest-

ing the way Prof Giddens linked to-

gether the global, the local and the

personal. What has happened in the

past 10 months, arising out of 25 years

of conflict, is that expectations have

arisen that the opportunities provided

by the two ceasefires will indeed bring

more dialogue—bring more people out

to discuss, in a more serious way,

institutions which do reflect the diver-

sity of the Irish people, and can, actu-

ally, help ensure that we don’t find

ourselves slipping back to events prior

to August of last year.

• We welcome dialogue and we wel-

come the fact that Democratic Dia-

logue is going to promote it. There isn’t

enough of it. Very few people are in-

volved in dialogue: political party

membership, for example, is very low.

We should let people practise dialogue,

work out different ways of facing pro-

cedures, different ways of making de-

cisions and also look at the political

parties—how they are structured, the

membership—because people have

wanted to get involved for a long time.

At the same time they haven’t heard

anybody offer a satisfactory alterna-

tive to political parties.

• As a coalface community worker, one

who has lived and worked in north

Belfast over some of the most hectic

times, witnessing the violence at first

hand, I would refer you to a statement

in the Frameworks document, which


belief in the people of Northern Ireland

that they can make the change.

• The main constitutional parties

don’t want to get involved in dialogue,

particularly with community workers

and the smaller parties. Is there any

possibility that Democratic Dialogue

could set up an alternative forum for

so-called round-table talks and any

future Northern Ireland assembly?

There is a difference between repre-

sentative democracy and participatory

democracy, and elected representatives

have never represented the people of

Northern Ireland.

Democratic Dialogue did mean this asa genuinely consultative conference,

and we took careful note of what peoplesaid. We have by no means presented anexhaustive account of the day’s proceed-ings in this rather eclectic sample ofquotes, themes, suggestions and ques-tions—even some answers—in this sec-tion. We hope, however, that it reflectsthe experience of those present, and thatit conveys, to those who were not, a fla-vour, not only of the day but also of theorganisation.

Democratic Dialogue certainly ac-quired a definite taste of what people

states that the British government will

act as facilitator in conjunction with

the Irish government, the Americans

and Europe to allow the people from

here to establish a system for them-

selves. Regarding what delegates

said when they stated that dialogue

was not being allowed, I would ask

Democratic Dialogue to urge the gov-

ernment, to make representations to

the government to please start getting

their act together and please let peo-

ple talk because, if we don’t talk, we’re

going to go back to where we were be-

fore. No preconditions. We don’t need

them.

• There are some people who are in-

terested in the academic world-view.

Some people will be very interested in

the practicalities at local level. If you

try and bring these two together in

discussion, it won’t work. You’ll be

working at two different levels. So we

have to get together and think intelli-

gently about who we get together and

talk about different aspects, and also

at what levels they will be discussing

it. Then you should bring those to-

gether to get the true direction that we

should be taking. In order for this to

work, we will have to encourage a self-


in Northern Ireland might want fromit. It will continue to identify and cre-ate platforms for the promotion ofdialogue. DD


Revising opinions

report. Such a forum could give thesmaller parties more of a say—anothertheme raised, by the ‘fringe’ parties, atthe conference—as well as providing avoice for interested citizens. It could lookat cross-party concerns, like the lack ofattraction of young people and womeninto Northern Ireland politics. And, bynot being structured as a negotiating ta-ble, it might generate broader multi-party involvement more quickly than theconventional talks-table structure mightpermit. Views on this idea—from partyand non-party sources—would be verywelcome.

Secondly, no doubt in part because ofthe Standing Advisory Commission re-view of the issue, fair employment wasnot seen as a priority for DD. But, as theconference debate highlighted, issuesaround young people and distinct youthagendas were a common concern. So the

Robin Wilson

On the strength of the foregoing feed-back, Democratic Dialogue’s man-agement committee revised its

workplan in two ways.First, the most popular theme re-

corded on conference participants’ evalu-ation sheets—where they could prioritisethe proposals Ms Donaghy advanced onbehalf of the committee, or nominatetheir own—turned out to be ‘reconstitut-ing politics’. This, plus the strong callsfor political dialogue at the conference,led the committee to push this theme upits agenda, following only the social ex-clusion report (the latter having suchstrong topicality in the context of the Eu-ropean Union peace package).

The idea of a parallel political forum,suggested at the conference, may gelneatly with preparatory work on this


Updates on these reports, and associated opportunities for participation,

will be available in the DD newsletter.Subscription details, including for the re-ports themselves, are included in theenclosed form.

Early forthcoming events include aseminar in September to discuss the draftelements of the social exclusion report,and a public event in Derry on the ‘re-constituting politics’ theme.

Anyone who would like to take partin any of these events, or who would likemore information, or who has furthercomment on DD’s plans, should contactKate Fearon or myself at the DD office(details on inside front cover).

committee decided to substitute a reportin that broad area, with the precisethemes to be worked out through estab-lishing a discussion group of young peo-ple themselves and those involved in

education. Anyone interested in takingpart in that group should contact the DD

office.Thus the revised DD programme, with

provisional publication dates, is:

1. Social Exclusion, Social Inclusion End September 1995

2. Reconstituting Politics November 1995

3. Creating Positive Cultures January 1996

4. Women in Public Life March 1996

5. Youth and Education May 1996

DD


Appendix 1: DD mission statement

The mission statement of Democratic Dialogue is as follows:

The formation of Democratic Dialogue, using the model of a

think tank, coincides with the emergence of a potentially

new social, political, economic and cultural order in

Northern Ireland. Realising the fullest potential of this new

era will require a fully engaged citizenry and an inventive

approach by government. Democratic Dialogue seeks to

provide an independent inspiration for reflective thinking

upon the critical issues confronting the people of Northern

Ireland. Adopting an interdisciplinary, intersectoral

approach, it seeks to contribute a distinctive and informed

perspective on contentious issues, generate new ideas and

sketch challenging but achievable scenarios. Its style will

be variously catalytic and inclusive, and proactive and

change-setting; its success will be measured by its ability to

make an impact. DD


Appendix 2: DD management committee

Geraldine Donaghy—director, Confederation of Community Groups in Newry

Employed as director of the Confederation of Community Groups in Newry, Geraldine Donaghyhas wide experience in the community and voluntary sector and is currently involved in a majorproject to develop a centralised multi-purpose resource centre in the town centre. She has anumber of regional commitments, which include acting as an independent assessor for the Chil-dren in Need appeal, as advisor to the Voluntary Action Studies Unit at the University of Ulster,and as a non-executive director of the Southern Health and Social Services Board.

Sammy Douglas—team leader, East Belfast Development Agency

Sammy Douglas has been involved in community and economic development since the 1970s,beginning in the Sandy Row area of Belfast where he was born and reared. He worked for thefirst workers’ co-operative on the Shankill Road. He was a founding member of East BelfastDevelopment Agency, of which he is now team leader, and was deeply involved in the publicationof two major reports, Community Development in Protestant Areas and Poverty Amongst Plenty.He is a lifelong Linfield supporter and is married with four children.

Breidge Gadd—chief probation officer, Probation Board Northern Ireland

Breidge Gadd has been chief probation officer for Northern Ireland since 1986. She joined theprobation service in 1969, and has extensive experience of the criminal justice system in North-ern Ireland and Britain, including working in prisons. She has served on the board of the Euro-pean Conference on Probation, and is currently an expert advisor to a Council of Europe commit-tee looking at the future role of prison and probation in Europe. She was educated at Queen’sUniversity and the University of Ulster at Coleraine. She has three children, and lives in Belfast.

Ann Hope—Advisory Services Officer, Irish Congress of Trade Unions

A founder member of the first women’s centre in Northern Ireland, Ann Hope is now chair ofthe Women’s Training Group. She has been employed by the Irish Congress of Trade Unionssince March 1992, as advisory services officer with responsibility for gender equality. She was


previously employed by the Workers’ Educational Association as a tutor/organiser for women’sstudies and trade union studies. Since 1993 she has been a commissioner with the Equal Oppor-tunities Commission, before which she served as a member of the board of the Health and SafetyAgency, as well on the board of governors of the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Educa-tion. She has also been a volunteer with the AIDS Helpline.

Beverley Jones—solicitor

Beverley Jones is partner in the solicitors’ practice of Jones and Cassidy. This Belfast-based lawfirm specialises in discrimination law. She was previously chief legal officer of the Equal Oppor-tunities Commission for Northern Ireland, where she participated in the formulation of policyand litigation strategies in the area of sex discrimination. She holds a masters in human rightsand discrimination law from Queen’s University. She has acted as chair of DD since its inception.

Dr Paula Kilbane—chief executive, Eastern Health and Social Services Board

Paula Kilbane qualified in medicine at Queen’s University. She undertook postgraduate trainingin public health medicine in London, working there for 10 years in academic and service appoint-ments. She returned to Northern Ireland in 1986, and worked in the Eastern Health and SocialServices Board as a consultant. She became director of public health in the Southern Health andSocial Services Board in 1990. She was appointed chief executive in 1993, moving to the sameposition in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board in 1995.

Declan McGonagle—director, Irish Museum of Modern Art

Declan McGonagle was born and grew up in Derry. He studied painting at the College of Art inBelfast in the 1970s, lectured in the Regional Technical College in Letterkenny and was a found-ing member of the Orchard Gallery in Derry in 1978. In 1984, he went to the Institute of Contem-porary Arts in London as director of exhibitions. On his return to Derry, he developed a visualarts programme for the city, including education, community and public arts initiatives. In 1987,he was shortlisted for the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize for “making Derry an international centrefor the artist”. He was appointed first director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin in1990. He lectures regularly on contemporary visual arts.

Elizabeth Meehan—professor, Department of Politics, Queen’s University

Elizabeth Meehan has been a professor in the Politics Department at Queen’s since 1991. She isalso the holder of QUB’s Jean Monnet chair in European social policy. Before moving to Belfast,she lectured at Bath University and was a Hallsworth Fellow at Manchester University. Her


main publications are in the fields of equal opportunity policies, women and politics, and citizen-ship, in the contexts of the United States, the UK and the European Union. She is chair of thePolitical Studies Association of the UK, a member of the research programmes board of the Eco-nomic and Social Research Council, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a trustee of Charter 88Trust, and a commissioner on the Northern Ireland Fair Employment Commission.

Michael Morrissey—senior lecturer, social policy and administration, University of Ulster

In his work, Mike Morrissey is involved with local trade unions, particularly the AmalgamatedTransport and General Workers’ Union, and sits on the management committees of the BelfastUnemployed Centre, the Community Information Technology Unit, Community Training andResearch Services, and Charities Evaluation Services. His principal research interests includepoverty, unemployment in local labour markets and local area regeneration.

Eilish Rooney—lecturer, adult education and community development, UU

Eilish Rooney has been a lecturer in the School of Social and Community Development Scienceat the University of Ulster since 1985, where she has developed the Diploma in CommunityDevelopment and Education. Her recent research has focused on community, women andpolitics in Northern Ireland.

Paul Sweeney—Department of Environment advisor on community development and urban regeneration

Paul Sweeney is a social administration graduate from the University of Ulster. Before moving toBelfast in 1983, to take up an appointment with the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust, he workedin the voluntary sector in his native Derry. He served as director of NIVT from 1987 to 1994, and iscurrently on secondment to the Department of Environment, acting as an advisor on communitydevelopment and urban regeneration programmes.

Paul Teague—professor of economics, UU

Paul Teague taught at the London School of Economics, Cranfield School of Economics and theUniversity of Massachusetts before taking a post at the University of Ulster, where he now holdsa chair in economics. His main research interests are European integration and labour marketsand the two Irish economies. His publications include The Big Market: 1992 and The Futureof the European Community: European integration and national labour market sys-tems. He is completing a book on labour markets and economic performance in Ireland. DD


Appendix 3: DD patrons

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield was secretary to the power-sharing Executive in 1974, permanent secre-tary of the Department of Environment and of Economic Development, and head of the NorthernIreland Civil Service from 1984 until 1991. He is BBC national governor for Northern Ireland,chair of the Northern Ireland Higher Education Council, and a board member of Green ParkHealthcare Trust and the Bank of Ireland (Northern Ireland). He also sits on the Law ReformAdvisory Committee, and is a member of the advisory committee for the (UK) inquiry into theimplementation of constitutional reform. His Stormont in Crisis: a memoir was published in1994.

Eilis Gallagher

Eilis Gallagher was assistant director of social services in the Western Health and Social Serv-ices Board. She was chair of the advisory committee set up by the Department of the Environ-ment in 1986 to examine issues of concern to the travelling community, and remains an activemember of that committee. In 1984 she received an MBE for her work for people with disabilities,and in 1991 an OBE for her work on the travelling community. She is a past president and currentmember of the Londonderry Soroptomist Club, and is vice-chair of the Family Centre in Gobnascale.

Dr Maurice Hayes

Maurice Hayes was town clerk of Downpatrick from 1955 to 1973, and in 1969 was appointedfirst chair of the Community Relations Commission. He is a former Northern Ireland ombuds-man, was assistant secretary to the power-sharing Executive in 1974, advisor to the chair of theConstitutional Convention in 1975, and permanent secretary of the Department of Health andSocial Services. He has been involved with numerous public and academic bodies, including theBBC, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Linen Hall Library. He recently publishedthe second part of his autobiography, Minority Verdict: experiences of a Catholic publicservant.


Jennifer Johnston

The daughter of the writer Denis Johnston and the actor/director Shelah Richards, JenniferJohnston was born in Dublin in 1930. After early education at Parkhouse School, and TrinityCollege in Dublin, she went on to become a prizewinnng novelist. Perhaps best recognised for herHow Many Miles to Babylon, she has also written short stories and plays. Her tenth novel isdue in September.

Eilis McDermott QC

Eilis McDermott was born in Derry City in 1950, becoming a student at Queen’s University in1968, from where she graduated in 1972. Since 1974 she has been a barrister, working in North-ern Ireland, where she became the first woman QC. She has three children.

Sir George Quigley

After graduating from Queen’s in history, and submitting a thesis in mediaeval history, Sir GeorgeQuigley was successively permanent secretary to four Northern Ireland departments: ManpowerServices, Commerce, Finance, and Finance and Personnel. He now works as chief executive andchair of the Ulster Bank. He is also chair of the Northern Ireland Economic Council. DD


Contributors

Anthony Giddens

One of the most prominent British social thinkers of the last quarter century, Anthony Giddens isprofessor of sociology at Cambridge University and head of King’s College. A prolific writer, hismore recent publications include The Nation-state and Violence (1985), Modernity and Self-identity (1991), The Transformation of Intimacy (1992) and, most recently, Beyond Leftand Right (1994).

Rory O’Donnell

After studying in Dublin, London and Cambridge, Rory O’Donnell became a lecturer in econom-ics at University College, Galway, before taking up a post as senior research officer at the Eco-nomic and Social Research Institute. He moved from there to being an economist at the NationalEconomic and Social Council, of which he is now director.

Geraldine Donaghy—see p 49.

Robin Wilson—DD director

Robin Wilson was for eight years editor of Fortnight magazine. He was co-founder of Initiative’92, which established the Opsahl Commission. He was initial Northern Ireland correspondent ofthe Independent on Sunday and has provided freelance commentary on Northern Ireland fornumerous British, Irish and international media. He is a member of the executive of the BritishIrish Association and the northern committee of the Irish Association.

Kate Fearon—DD assistant director

A former president of Queen’s Student Union, Kate Fearon worked as women’s rights officer forthe Union of Students in Ireland before taking up her position at Democratic Dialogue. Herinterests include equal opportunities, health and education. She is a member of the managementcommittees of the Brook Advisory Centre in Belfast and the first Higher Education AuthorityEquality Unit in the republic. DD

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