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Abstract
This paper draws connections between the lived experiences of community-based stakeholders in the Northern Ireland peace process and dominant discourses and practices of political leaders to identify (de)legitimation processes and the concomitant reproduction of ethnopolitical identities. Findings reveal ontological planes animated by narratives about the so-called political policing of public disorder and disputes over the past which align the identities of otherwise quite different and conflicted intra-ethnic constituencies. Policing processes which become disputed, due to their historically central role in constituting and reflecting the contested logic of the state provide events or social and organizational ‘fields’ in which opportunistic actors can effectively reconstruct ethnopolitical boundaries, in ways which provide both rational (for political and organizational leaders) outcomes, and, inexplicable phenomenological or cultural ends of ‘groupness’. The implications of such processes on intercommunal and internecine conflict are discussed.
Notes
1 Though oversimplified, civic nationalism has historically been distinguished from ethnic nationalism by the degree to which it is ‘liberal, voluntarist, universalist, and inclusive’. On the contrary, ethnic nationalism is typically ‘glossed as illiberal, ascriptive, particularist, and exclusive’ (Brubaker Citation1999, 56). Polling data shows that approximately a third of Northern Ireland residents identify strongly with neither Unionism nor Nationalism (Lowry Citation2019) and there has been an increase of people applying for passports who identify as ‘Northern Irish’ (Gray et al. Citation2018). Still, a strong majority (about two-thirds) of residents identify as either British or Irish, and vote for ethno-national parties accordingly.
2 See Bourdieu (Citation1991) for the original formulation of the theory of symbolic power.
3 Most in the PUL community are Protestants who support Northern Ireland's membership in the UK, and from working-class communities in which Loyalist paramilitaries operated during the Troubles. Loyalists are sympathetic to the use of extra-state violence in times of threat, unlike middle-class Unionism, but both align in their support for the constitutional status-quo and identification with evangelical Protestantism (Bruce Citation2007). The differences between nationalism and republicanism is a bit subtler, and the terms are often used interchangeably. Irish Republicanism historically followed a socialist trajectory, has been more concentrated in working-class communities, and has been more open to the use of political violence than Irish nationalism, though both have historically aligned in support of Irish reunification. Almost all republicans and nationalists in Northern Ireland are Catholic, but not all Catholics are republican or nationalist.
4 Ethnic outbidding refers to the process under consociational systems of government in which parties compete for co-ethnic supporters by attempts to depict themselves as the best equipped to defend against outgroup threats (Horowitz Citation2000). In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ascended to a hegemonic position in Unionist politics largely by resisting all concessions to Irish Nationalists during peace negotiations in the late 1990s and early 2000s and criticizing other Unionist parties, who offered concessions during peace negotiations before Nationalists did, of betraying Unionist interests. Somewhat ironically, this strategy put the DUP ‘in an ideal position to increase its popularity within the consociational settlement it had opposed’ (McGlynn, Tonge, and McAuley Citation2014, 280; see also McAuley Citation2005).
5 The ‘loyal order’, inextricably linked with the Orange Order – named in commemoration of the Protestant William of Orange, whose forces successfully defeated Catholic armies in the Seventeenth Century – refers to a fraternal, Protestant-only organization committed to British Unionism, and considered sectarian by Catholics.
6 Here I refer to Brubaker’s (Citation2002, 167) plea to think of ‘groupness as a contextually fluctuating conceptual variable’, as a process identifiable in ‘cultural idioms, cognitive schemas, discursive frames, organizational routines, institutional forms, political projects and contingent events’.
7 Police oversight procedures regarding the use of force and due process in Northern Ireland have been hailed as among the strongest in the world (author conversations with Neil Jarman and Brian Gormally, 2014, Belfast). For example, officers must file a report whenever they take out their batons, even if they are not used.
8 Loyalists in Belfast, for example, share a normative historical interpretation of extra-state political violence against Nationalist communities during the Troubles as legitimate acts of war. On the contrary, rural Protestant Unionists near the border with the Irish Republic, who experienced some of the worst IRA atrocities in the 1970s and 1980s, rejected Loyalist paramilitarism, preferring ‘to support the legitimate security forces … of law and order’ (McDonald Citation2015, 28). The rejection of Belfast Loyalists by ‘law and order’ Unionism more generally underscores the former's more mistrusting relation with the state, making them more vulnerable to feeling under siege by official agents of the peace process (see, Rolston Citation2006; Shirlow Citation2012; Holland and Rabrenovic Citation2018). Moreover, signs of greater embedding of Nationalist interests in the police and justice systems evident in Belfast (discussed below) are rarer in some rural areas of Tyrone, Armagh, Lurgan, and Fermanagh, where there are significant ‘family linkages’ to hardline Republicanism ‘stretching back for generations’. Support for anti-peace agreement dissident Republicans who reject the PSNI and continue to orchestrate (mostly) low-level violence against the state in these rural parts of the North are ‘often underestimated’ (Reinisch Citation2019). Open Republican hostility to the police is also relatively common in the Creggan area of Derry, a city with a definitive Catholic majority. Thus, PUL claims of the penetration of the ‘Republican agenda’ into state bodies – an important theme in this research – are less relevant in these areas.
9 Belfast contains at least two dozen ‘interface areas’ physically adjoining segregated Protestant and Catholic communities. These interfaces are predominantly located in the most deprived districts and experience a disproportionate share of sectarian violence in the city. Insular ethnopolitical identities are territorialized by the marking of space via murals, flags and parades, which provoke sectarian tensions on neighborhood levels (Shirlow Citation2008, 81). Conflicts between local residents and the police often revolve around tensions resulting from inter-communal disputes over the right to such contested spaces – a dynamic that influences policing in Belfast to an extent unparalleled in other parts of the country.
10 The general differences between urban and rural policing in Northern Ireland mirror those in the UK more broadly. Due to combined factors such as perceptions of less crime in rural areas, less police funding and personnel, greater physical distance between residents and officers (Yarwood Citation2001), and the tendency of residents in rural areas to ‘know each other's business, [and] come into regular contact with each other’ more frequently than urban residents (Websdale Citation1995, 102), the nature of policing in Belfast will, again, produce different experiences than policing in rural areas.
11 The Parades Commission is a public body in Northern Ireland comprised of seven members appointed by the British Secretary of State. It is responsible for deciding whether to place restrictions on contentious political parades.
12 Christian Science Monitor (July 16, 2013). https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0716/New-protests-same-troubles-as-riots-roil-Belfast
13 Ibid.
14 The Irish Times (July 15, 2013). https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/dup-rioters-are-wrong-but-so-is-the-parades-commission-1.1464015
15 The Guardian (January 12, 2013). https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/13/belfast-protest-flag-young-loyalists
16 For more information on the incident described here, see The Belfast Telegraph (July 13, 2010).
17 It is important to note that survey data on public attitudes about the police and official data on citizen complaints in Northern Ireland have always been hotly contested politically, and should be interpreted with caution. Some would argue, for example, that declines in the number of complaints about ‘oppressive’ police behavior is not indicative of an actual decline in such behavior but the result of people not reporting because they have no confidence in oversight bodies.
18 The Guardian (January 12, 2013). https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/13/belfast-protest-flag-young-loyalists
19 Due to laws protecting employers from accusations of discrimination against them by those with convictions for political violence, former paramilitary prisoners have unprecedented rates of unemployment; they are also typically unable to obtain visas, access insurance, or adopt children. These policies have been strongly supported by DUP and UUP. See, Shirlow (Citation2012).
20 As argued elsewhere, the inherent insecurity and suspicion of state betrayal is not coincidental to the particular importance given to ethno-cultural or ethno-political symbols (flags, murals) and rituals (parades) in the reproduction of Loyalist threat mentalities and corresponding PUL identities (Jarman Citation1997; Holland and Rabrenovic Citation2017).
21 At the least, Unionist and Loyalist complaints about police responses to their protests are noted and incorporated into politicians’ and grassroots leaders’ public rhetoric. Equally likely, such rhetoric is constructed by politicians and subsequently adopted by constituents.
22 Quoted in Nolan (Citation2014, 58).
23 See, Nolan et al. (Citation2014, 109).
24 Belfast Telegraph (May 13, 2014), 6.
25 The Irish News (May 17, 2014).
26 North Belfast News (May 10, 2014), 14.
27 The Irish News (May 15, 2014), 21; North Belfast News (May 10, 2014), 12.
28 For example, see Niall O’Dowd (2014), “Boston college tapes was a ‘get Adams’ project from the beginning.” Irish Central, May 3. https://www.irishcentral.com/news/boston-college-tapes-was-a-get-adams-project-from-the-beginning
29 Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, claimed “that a ‘dark side’ of the PSNI was behind [Adams’] detention.” See, Belfast Telegraph (May 13, 2014), 12.
30 Belfast Telegraph (May 13, 2014), 12.
31 The Telegraph (May 3, 2014) www.telegraph.co.news/uknews/northernireland/10805252/Northern-Ireland-tensions-at-boiling-point-over-Gerry-Adams-arrest.html
32 DUP First Minister at the time, Peter Robinson, accused Sinn Fein of blackmailing the police over the arrest of Gerry Adams. See, Telegraph (May 4, 2014). https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/10807446/Gerry-Adams-arrested-Sinn-Fein-are-trying-to-blackmail-police-says-Peter-Robinson.html
33 Interview with author, June 2014.
34 This mural of Gerry Adams, created by artist Danny DeVenny, was erected while the Sinn Fein leader was in police custody. It was taken down shortly thereafter, at Adams’ request. The mural was located on the Falls Road, not far from the home of Jean McConville, the mother of ten who was murdered by the IRA in 1972. See, Belfast Telegraph (May 3, 2014). https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/new-gerry-adams-mural-is-painted-in-west-belfast-as-sinn-fein-president-remains-held-over-jean-mcconville-murder-30239341.html
35 See, BBC News (May 4, 2014). https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-27272696
36 Author's personal conversation with representative from the Committee on the Administration of Justice, 2014, Belfast.
37 ‘Supergrass trials’ refer to trials based on the testimony of informers from within the organization under investigation.
38 Interview with the author, June 2014.
39 Belfast Telegraph (September 3, 2014).
40 My conversations with young people in Nationalist parts of west and north Belfast suggest that there is some sympathy with dissident views, but that many also display loyalty to Sinn Fein.
41 For example, Sinn Fein leadership attended a PSNI recruitment campaign launch for the first time ever in February 2020. In an effort to reverse the trend of falling Catholic recruitment in the preceding years due largely to their intimidation by armed dissident republican groups, 50% of the new recruits hired in this 2020 PSNI campaign will be Catholic – the first time such a policy was in place since 2011. The campaign has also been supported quite publicly by the Catholic Church and the Gaelic Athletic Association (O’Neill Citation2020). (It may be worth noting that although working-class Loyalists are also under-represented in the PSNI, there have been no systematic attempts to recruit them.) Interestingly, although DUP First Minister Arlene Foster had previously criticized the proposed 50–50 recruitment plan as a ‘return to [anti-Protestant] discrimination’ (McClements Citation2019) she attended the recruitment launch (O’Neill Citation2020). In terms of the ‘greening’ of the courts, moreover, Loyalist activists continue to fuel PUL discontent with the justice system. The Unionist Voice blog, for example, emphasizes that at least 72% of the 14 High Court judges in Northern Ireland ‘come exclusively from a Catholic and Nationalist background’. This statistic is posited as ‘evidence of a justice system that is disproportionately weighed in favour of one community’, echoing the sentiments of some Loyalist respondents quoted above (Bryson Citation2019).