Recognition politics in Northern Ireland: from cultural recognition to recognition struggle

ABSTRACT

The idea of recognition is often taken to support the notion of ‘pluralist accommodation’ between nationalists and unionists. This relies on a distinctive ‘cultural’ model of recognition as requiring identity affirmation as essential to conflict resolution. It is argued that the cultural model relies on a weak analysis of social recognition and is, consequently, a poor guide to understanding the politics of recognition in Northern Ireland. Firstly, it does not give sufficient weight to struggles for equal recognition. Secondly, the vague notion of ‘affirming’ identities does not capture the way recognition struggles arise over social positioning in wider status hierarchies. An alternative, ‘recognition struggle’ account is developed which focuses on conflicts over authority and which explains why recognition politics in Northern Ireland often centers on defying the other. Finally, the cultural model fails to see that cultural groups are themselves the product of internal struggles for recognition and wrongly assumes the politics of recognition must resist attempts to transform group identities. Taking recognition seriously requires us to move beyond ‘cultural recognition’ and ‘pluralist accommodation’ in Northern Ireland.

KEYWORDS:

• Recognition
• equality
• esteem
• parity
• culture
• conflict
• identities
• accommodation
• minorities
• respect

What role does ‘recognition’ play in the politics of Northern Ireland? One popular view is that achievement of peace and stability requires some form of ‘recognition’ of nationalist and unionist identities and aspirations and that this is reflected in the model of pluralist accommodation embodied in the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) (Little, 2003, p. 27; O’Leary, 1998, p. 1653; O’Neill, 2001; Thompson, 2002, 2003). This takes us to have a fundamental interest in having others affirm our ethnic/cultural identities and sees such public affirmation as essential to the resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Affirming cultural identities is, crucially, conceived in terms of accommodation rather than transformation (Galeotti, 2002, p. 10; Taylor, 1994). Critics of this model, however, argue that there can be no resolution to Northern Ireland’s divisions without identity transformation and that both the institutions established under the GFA and the assumptions underpinning them are ultimately an obstacle to such transformation (Shirlow, 2003; Todd, 2018, p. 39). It will be argued here that the cultural model of social recognition which is taken to ground pluralist accommodation is deeply flawed and that, properly understood, our interests in recognition actually provide support for a politics which supports identity transformation. An alternative model of recognition is outlined which understands it to be centrally concerned with struggles for authority (Pinkard, 1994) and it is argued that taking recognition seriously requires us to reject the cultural model of recognition and the ideal of pluralist accommodation it supports.

The model of recognition as requiring the affirmation of particular, primarily cultural, identities – the ‘cultural model’ in what follows – is enormously influential and is taken by many, including its critics (Fraser, 2003) to represent the canonical account of social recognition. It is derived, however, from a novel interpretation of the notion of social recognition developed by Charles Taylor (1994). In interpreting the interest in recognition as in interest in affirming the value of cultural identities and practices, Taylor revives key themes of the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment, specifically, the critique of universalism as an abstraction from our rich cultural particularity. This revival of Romantic ideas about culture was conceived as a contribution to Canadian debates about the rights of indigenous peoples to protect their traditional cultures (Kymlicka, 1989; Tully, 1995). This ensures that the cultural model frames the politics of recognition as a politics of cultural preservation and affirmation rather than a politics of transformation. By contrast, the author of the most systematic contemporary theory of recognition, Axel Honneth, rejects the whole notion of ‘cultural recognition’ (2003, pp. 120–5) and interprets contemporary struggles for recognition as typically focused on securing equal recognition and recognition of one’s social contribution. The legal order is the primary site of the first type of conflict and the labor market the typical site of the second (1995). Honneth suggests that the interest in social recognition provides the ‘moral grammar’ of contemporary social conflict insofar as these conflicts are articulated in terms of demands that one’s equal standing and social contributions are appropriately recognized by others.

These very different accounts of social recognition agree on this: our relationship to ourselves is shaped by our relationships to others: how we recognize ourselves is always bound up with how others recognize us (Hegel, 1807–1977; Honneth, 1995). Consequently, to be denied appropriate social recognition is to potentially suffer significant harm: ‘a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.’ (Taylor, 1994, p. 25). The perspective adopted endorses the claim that we are fundamentally social in this way and that we have important interests in being recognized appropriately by others. While relying on Honneth’s analysis of the relation between social recognition and self-respect and esteem, it also draws on recent Hegel scholarship which foregrounds the struggle for normative authority (Pinkard, 1994; Pippin, 2008). Where Taylor insists on an interest in cultural recognition and Honneth contribution of recognition to our development of our capacity for freedom (1995), the ‘recognition struggle’ account relied on here understands social interaction in terms of ongoing struggles for social recognition in which parties make and respond to a variety of claims to normative authority (McBride, 2013). This sees individual agents as constantly subject to recognition demands articulated in terms of demands for respect and esteem, rather than having a simple interest in the affirmation of cultural identity. It emphasizes the way in which the act of recognizing others necessarily has implications for how we recognize ourselves with the consequence that we cannot modify our recognition of others without at the same time modifying how we recognize ourselves. Self-reflection and openness to transformation are essential to recognition politics on this view.

The paper develops this account of recognition politics in three stages. Firstly, it challenges the way that the cultural model insists that contemporary recognition politics is concerned with ‘identity’ and not equality, arguing that the interest in having one’s standing as an equal recognized is of central importance and provides a better ground for the power sharing and parity of esteem provisions of the GFA. In the second part, it argues that recognition conflicts in Northern Ireland must be understood as conflicts centered on status hierarchies and hence as reflecting struggles about defending and advancing one’s position within this hierarchy. Once we understand the role of status and authority in recognition struggles it becomes apparent that not only are requests for cultural affirmation largely absent in the Northern Ireland context, the logic of recognition explains this and the prominence of demands that others recognize one’s defiance of them. In the final part of the paper, the model of identity formation through recognition struggle is extended to the construction of ethnic/cultural identities themselves. The cultural model’s failure to take this step results in a depoliticized model of collective identity which is consistently weighted against identity transformation. A genuine appreciation of the importance of social recognition does not support this resistance to projects of identity transformation.

Recognition: identity or equality?

For many there is only one form of recognition – the positive affirmation of particular cultural identities (Galeotti, 2002) but most accounts distinguish at least two main modes of recognition, respect, i.e. recognition of equal standing, and appraisal or esteem recognition.¹ The first of these focuses on our common personhood, while the second focuses on those features which distinguish us from one another. The first of these, respect recognition, is an unconditional entitlement of all persons in sharp contrast to pre-modern notions of dignity or honor which varied according to one’s social rank (Appiah, 2010; Rosen, 2012; Waldron, 2012). The second of these, esteem recognition, is equally important but conditional upon our actions and traits being deemed esteem-worthy (Darwall, 1977, p. 38; Honneth, 1995, p. 122). In Taylor’s canonical account of cultural recognition, the first of these recognizes our ‘equal dignity’ and the second our ‘difference’ (Taylor, 1994, pp. 38–9). While there continues to be significant tensions between recognition of equality and recognition of social distinction (McBride, 2013) the cultural recognition model assumes that there has been a historical shift away from the politics of equal dignity and towards a ‘politics of difference’ and that the former is fundamentally hostile to the latter because it privileges abstract personhood over rich cultural particularities and promotes the pursuit of cultural uniformity (Taylor, 1994, p. 41).² This assumption essentially revives the Romantic critique of the abstract universalism of the Enlightenment (Herder, 1774–2002, p. 348) and is fundamental to the cultural account of recognition. It has two implications: on the one hand it consistently underestimates the importance of our interest in being recognized as equals and the centrality of equality to concrete recognition struggles such as those in Northern Ireland. On the other hand, it misreads the place of culture in struggles for social distinction by detaching ‘identity’ from conflicts over status inequality. The aim here is not to vindicate ‘universal’ against ‘particular’ recognition but to reject the dualist assumption that we must choose between these in the first place.

One problem with this account is that, as Honneth suggests, it relies on a familiar caricature of egalitarianism as simply demanding uniformity (2003, pp. 120–5). As egalitarians have long argued, however, equal, or uniform, treatment is not fundamental to egalitarianism, rather, the central commitment is to ‘equal concern and respect’ for others (Dworkin, 1977). This may mandate equal treatment but it may also mandate departures from it when this is demanded by a fair consideration of differential needs, for example. What matters is that everyone’s claims must get a fair hearing – that we recognize everyone’s entitlement to make moral claims on others and to have them consider them with due concern rather than simply dismissing them out of hand (Darwall, 1977; Feinberg, 1980). In reducing equal dignity to a demand for cultural uniformity, the cultural account in effect denies that demands for particular equalities, e.g. with respect to resources such as rights and opportunities and shares of wealth, income or social and political power, fundamentally rely on a form of recognition – recognition of our equal standing – from which these derive their moral force. The thought that concerns with equality are distinct from concerns with recognition is a basic mistake and one that has played a significant role in debates about the meaning of parity of esteem for example.³

Another problem is that, in treating the interest in equal respect as a mere abstraction in contrast to the supposedly thicker, richer, recognition of particular identities, it falls into the trap of supposing that the interest in being recognized as an equal is correspondingly weaker (Goodin, 1988). This is a very dubious assumption however – the most extreme injustices such as slavery and genocide embody precisely this denial (McBride, 2013, pp. 59–62). The denial of one’s equal standing cuts much deeper than disesteem for one’s traits or achievements. One can accept that it may be appropriate that others do not always esteem one’s traits or actions but one cannot accept that one is not entitled to equal moral standing without undermining one’s basic self-respect (Honneth, 1992). The demand for this form of recognition is in fact central to most actual recognition struggles and has been central to the Northern Ireland conflict.

Consider, for example, struggles for civil rights in Northern Ireland and the US, the struggles of feminists for abortion rights among others, and LGBT struggles for equality including equal marriage. These are struggles for equal respect, and equal rights. Even where political mobilization has involved the rejection of negative stereotypes and the affirmation of black or gay ‘pride’, for example, the exhortation to adopt a more positive self-conception is directed inwards, at group members and accompanies the outward-directed demands that others recognize their equal standing. Similarly, the traditional complaints of nationalists within Northern Ireland have centered on employment rights, equal opportunities to avail of public housing, and equal political rights. While conflicts over cultural symbols do feature prominently in the politics of Northern Ireland, these are typically not motivated by a desire to have the other ‘recognise’ one’s identity, culture, or tradition in the sense of directly affirming its value. Indeed, the politics of culture in Northern Ireland is best understood not as motivated by a desire for ‘cultural recognition’ but rather as another aspect of struggles over equality.

While Taylor’s model suggests that the lack of social approval of one’s culture entails a humiliating misrecognition, the misrecognition involved may not actually be focused on the cultural practice or artifact in question. Negative characterization of another’s culture in many cases follows from a prior rejection of their equal standing. Negative cultural ‘evaluation’ may often be little more than a pretext, rationalizing a more fundamental refusal to recognize the equal standing of the other. This may explain why calculated insults, such as Gregory Campbell’s notorious ‘curry my yoghurt’ remark (BBC NI, 2014a), strike home with those who have little interest in speaking the Irish language themselves – rather, the problem lies with his assumption that he has the power to insult others with impunity that is the problem.⁴ To this extent, then, the cultural recognition model underestimates the centrality of demands for equal respect within recognition struggles in Northern Ireland and beyond.

With respect to the power-sharing institutions established under the GFA, these depart from majoritarian forms of democracy and this is sometimes assumed to be justified in terms of recognition as the affirmation British and Irish identities (McEvoy, 2011; O’Leary, 1998). In fact, while the cultural model encourages us to see political institutions as vehicles for the proper expression of cultural identities, we need not interpret them in this way from a recognition perspective. It is true that the configuration of political institutions does and should serve to recognize citizens, but the recognition involved is that of their equal standing, expressed in the system of equal rights (Honneth, 1995, p. 120). Once we set aside the assumption that equality is fundamentally committed to uniformity, we can see how recognition of equal standing can justify the departure from majoritarianism – this is arguably still necessary to ensure that both nationalists and unionists enjoy political equality – a share in collective self-determination and protection from political domination. The cultural model must be deaf to the claims of ‘others’ that this unfairly disadvantages them relative to nationalists and unionists as it privileges the affirmation of traditional ‘cultural’ identities and insists on their symbolic recognition (McEvoy, 2011, p. 69). By contrast, the interest in equal recognition justifies the departure from majoritarianism but must always remain open to modifying institutions, where possible, to the extent that equality requires it. Furthermore, It does not require that the ‘others’ must develop a recognizable cultural identity in order to qualify for ‘inclusion’.

Parity of esteem as equal recognition

Parity of esteem has interpreted by some commentators as a direct application of the notion of cultural recognition (Ruohomäki, 2010; Thompson, 2002, p. 205). This interpretation is strengthened by the way that the Agreement refers to:

the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities. (Agreement, Article 1, paragraph v)

Should the Agreement (1998) be interpreted as expressing a basic commitment to cultural recognition. There are good reasons to reject this interpretation in favor of one that reads both power-sharing and parity of esteem as answering to the interest in respect recognition, i.e. equal standing. This alternative reading of the relationship between recognition and the Agreement suggests that recognition may entail more transformation than the cultural account would allow.

For some this may look like an attempt to rob the notion of ‘parity of esteem’ of its ‘original meaning’ (Ruohomäki, 2010; Thompson, 2002) but in fact the term actually dates back to the Norwood Report where it appeared in a discussion of establishing equality between technical, grammar, and secondary modern schools (1943, p. 14). Later on, it figured in similar debates about the relative status of third level institutions (Eustace, 1974).⁵ It was not originally constructed to suggest a contrast between equality and cultural or esteem recognition but rather to suggest that the institutions concerned by granted the same rank within the educational hierarchy. If we took this literally, it would mean that parity of esteem established parity between nationalists and unionists while ranking them above and/or below others. Critics have often suggested that this is precisely what has happened in practice. That said, there is less agreement on the meaning of parity of esteem in Northern Ireland than cultural recognition theorists suppose. When it was introduced into the Northern Ireland context by Andy Pollak, it was contrasted with ‘equal treatment’ (Opsahl, 1993, p. 27), while others have interpreted it rather as demanding that the state simply practice ‘evenhandedness’ towards nationalists and unionists (Porter, 1996). The preceding 1995 Framework document produced by the British and Irish governments that paved the way for the GFA is itself ambiguous, referring to ‘parity of esteem and treatment’.⁶

There are, however, significant obstacles to interpreting it in line with the cultural recognition account. The idea that nationalists ought to esteem unionism and vice versa looks extremely far-fetched. As Porter observes, to interpret it in this way would be both ‘practically impossible’ and intellectually unacceptable as it would exempt both from ‘serious critical scrutiny’ (Porter, 1996, p. 188). Both nationalists and unionists have good reasons to withhold their esteem from the other. Even those who argue for cultural recognition acknowledge that no-one can have a right to such recognition, equal or otherwise (Taylor, 1994, p. 66) as there may well be features of culture which are not worthy of esteem and should perhaps even be condemned such as attachments to xenophobia, sectarianism, or violence. The conditional quality of esteem recognition means that it must be earned not assumed as an entitlement. At most, one may have an entitlement to a fair hearing for one’s claim to esteem. As there can be no right to esteem there can be no right to ‘parity of esteem’.

The more plausible interpretation of parity of esteem focuses on ‘parity’ rather than on ‘esteem’ and reads it is an application of equality rather than a distinct principle.⁷ The Framework document refers to ‘validity’ but recognizing the validity of the other ‘tradition’ can mean no more than that one recognizes that others have a right to express and pursue that tradition or project without implying endorsement or approval per se. This is validity in the sense of toleration rather than approval: recognizing the validity of the nationalist or unionist project (or projects) would simply mean that one recognizes room for reasonable disagreement on this area and a right of others to take a different view, even if it is a view one regards as fundamentally wrong-headed (Rawls, 1996). This falls well short of cultural recognition but it does allow for citizens to openly seek to earn esteem for their projects and traditions without fear of sanction and is, in any case, the only sort of recognition that can reasonably be demanded.⁸ While the term ‘parity of esteem’ is firmly established in the lexicon of Northern Irish politics, it does not, at the end of the day, genuinely represent a departure from the principle of equality in the name of ‘cultural recognition’. To suggest that one can demand more than this as of right, however, can only lead to frustrated expectations.⁹

How, then, are we to interpret the role of ‘parity of esteem’ in that arena in which it is most commonly invoked – disputes over the place of ‘cultural’ symbols in public buildings and institutions? The cultural account interprets these cases as, first and foremost, disputes about cultural recognition rooted in the importance of having one’s identity expressed in public institutions. This treats these institutions as a mirror in which different groups may see themselves. Power-sharing itself is commonly thought of as expressive in this way. What matters from this perspective is that groups are afforded the opportunity to see themselves reflected in public institutions (Porter, 1996, p. 199). It is not clear that the expressive view really captures what is at issue in such cases. The key objection is to the way that freighting institutions with the symbols of the dominant group symbolizes that dominance. This symbolic order effectively treats public institutions as the private domain of the dominant group. It is the symbolism of dominance that poses the problem, not the absence of opportunities for identity expression as such.

If the purely expressive interpretation were correct, then an additive strategy of supplementing existing symbols with those of marginalized groups would always suffice. Instead, it is common to see groups insisting on the removal of the symbols of the hitherto dominant group even without the addition of their own symbols. In the words of Jim Gibney (Sinn Féin),

We believe you should seek neutral symbols, [so] there shouldn't be ‘Royal’ Courts of Justice, the ‘Royal’ Ulster Constabulary, the ‘Royal’ Mail; all of these [symbols] … need to be removed and [in] this process of removing them, what you are in fact doing is … legitimizing a tradition, an identity which has been delegitimized since 1920, since this state was formed. (Hennessy & Wilson, 1997)

Naturally, Unionists understand this to be a threat to the Britishness of Northern Ireland but this is not to say that they understand it as a simple refusal to value unionist culture appropriately or that they would welcome warm words about it from Sinn Féin. It is understood instead as a move in a culture war – a struggle for recognition – and in such a struggle even claims phrased in the language of equality may not always be taken at face value.¹⁰

Identity or social distinction?

The idea of recognition as ‘affirming’ identities is unhelpfully vague and detaches ‘recognition’ from discussions of concrete processes of social distinction (Lamont & Bail, 2008, p. 6). In Taylor’s narrative it appears that struggles associated with status hierarchies belong to the earlier, egalitarian, phase of recognition struggles but Honneth, however, is clear that recognition of our particular traits and contributions is, in practice, usually a matter of the asymmetrical, i.e. unequal distribution of social esteem (1995, p. 129). The reason for this should be immediately apparent: esteem recognition serves social distinction, distinguishing individuals and collectives from others (Bourdieu, 1984). This serves to explain the combination of defensiveness and antagonism which characterizes recognition politics in Northern Ireland: this politics is centrally concerned with social positioning and social authority, i.e. with advancing and defending one’s relative position.

While it is tempting to focus purely on the psychological or emotional dimensions of disesteem and stigma, if we are to understand the role of esteem in social and political conflict we need to focus also on its role in regulating behavior. While some of this regulation may be socially useful, encouraging virtuous behavior through the application of what Burke called ‘the soft collar of social esteem’ (1969, p. 1700; Brennan & Pettit, 2006) it also plays a vital role in sustaining status inequalities and through them, wider social, political, and economic inequalities, demanding deference to the claims of dominant social actors and justifying their superior position as a consequence of their superior virtues.

We cannot talk meaningfully about social recognition in isolation from these structures. If we are concerned with the freedom of people to form and express collective identities without being disadvantaged for doing so, we are in effect concerned with their equal standing within society. At the same time, we must recognize that demands for the ‘affirmation’ of particular identities can also amount to demands for the recognition of their superior status. To this extent, respect recognition serves to reign in efforts to convert valuable forms of esteem recognition into social dominance.

Once we see that the politics of recognition reflects struggles between those seeking to improve or equalize their standing and those seeking to resist these moves and assert superiority then we can make sense of the reality of recognition politics in Northern Ireland. These do not reflect simple requests that others esteem their cultural identities and practices but a conflict over status and authority. While we can hope to earn social esteem through our social contributions, status hierarchies, by contrast, distribute positive and negative esteem to social groups, including but not limited to ‘cultural’ groups, independently of their members’ actions.¹¹ Status hierarchies are the site of continual struggles for recognition, with higher status groups seeking to defend their position while others adopt various strategies involving claims to equal respect and/or differential esteem to improve theirs and or defend it against challenges from below. In the Northern Ireland context, Unionist recognition politics historically focused on defence of their dominant social and political position (Todd, 1987). The cultural model misreads these struggles for recognition both by sidelining the concern with equality and by failing to come to terms with this darker, antagonistic, side of recognition politics. We need to understand the politics of recognition less as a request for cultural affirmation and more in terms of a struggle over status and authority. Only by doing so can we make sense of the reality of recognition politics in Northern Ireland.

The struggle for recognition

That the ‘dark’ side of social recognition is normally overlooked is surprising given that Hegel’s famous account of the struggle for recognition between ‘master’ and ‘slave’ starts not with the slave’s feelings of humiliation at the master’s failure to esteem or respect him, but rather with the master and his desire to have the slave recognize his authority over him (Hegel, 1807–1977, pp. 111–119). The desire to dominate and, crucially, to have this dominance recognized by the other is central to recognition struggles. Either one seeks equal normative authority, as in struggles for equal standing, or one seeks unequal authority – the authority to judge others without being exposed to their judgement in turn. Recognition struggles are essentially concerned with authority claims (Pinkard, 1994, pp. 52–3; Pippin, 2008) and it is unfortunate that this insight has been overlooked in discussions of ‘cultural’ recognition. This turns out to explain the striking fact that demands for recognition in Northern Ireland so often take the form of seeking to have one’s defiance of the other recognized, rather than requests to have one’s culture esteemed.

In mutual recognition, as Hegel’s discussion reveals, there is always a double movement: To recognize another as an equal, or as worthy of esteem is at the same time to assert one’s authority to recognize them and to claim that they recognize this authority in turn. The master must recognize the slave as a subject if the slave’s recognition of him as the master is to count for anything. If one were to claim esteem for oneself or one’s culture one would, necessarily, have to recognize the authority of the other to make those judgements and provide that recognition. Fanon (2008, pp. 171–2) notices that in the case of colonialism, the desire to be esteemed by one’s colonial masters and, when this fails, to have one’s defiance of them recognized, both fail to break this relationship of dependency. In each case, one still recognizes the authority of the master to grant or withhold recognition.¹² Discussions of cultural recognition focus on the apparent need of the marginalized for the recognition of the dominant party but do not question the appropriateness of any such desire and whether it might itself be a product of unequal relations of recognition. They also fail to place in question the authority of the dominant party to grant or withhold recognition. This is a serious shortcoming in a theory purporting to illuminate the nature of social identities and social and political conflicts.

As is commonly recognized, Unionist cultural displays have historically served the function of asserting superiority on the one hand and dominance on the other, with the aim of having both of these recognized by nationalists (McAuley & Tonge, 2007, p. 34; Todd, 1987, pp. 9–10). Even ‘liberal’ unionists, who distance themselves from the ‘cultural’ unionism, are often deeply attached to the superiority of British institutions (Porter, 1996, pp. 62–3). Against this backdrop, the language of simple cultural expression may be actively misleading and may also involve a degree of self-deception. One loyalist leader, for example, sought to present the flag protests somewhat disingenuously as ‘ordinary people simply expressing their cultural identity’ (Nolan et al., 2014, p. 73).

If dominant groups engage in cultural displays in order to secure recognition of their dominance and are extremely sensitive to refusals to provide the recognition which they understand to be their entitlement, the weaker party can, in turn, adopt a strategy of defiance. This is an attractive strategy for both nationalists and unionists, loyalists and republicans. While defiance may have been combined with demands for recognition of dominance in the past – reflecting Unionist dominance within Northern Ireland but also their the minority status on the island and within the UK – it has arguably become the primary form of unionist recognition politics with the loss of their dominant position within Northern Ireland (Gardner, 2020; Halliday & Ferguson, 2016, p. 536; Hearty, 2015, p. 158; McAuley, 2010, pp. 142–3; Shirlow, 2003).¹³ Burning tricolors on an eleventh night bonfire is not a request for cultural esteem, but simply a gesture of defiance – a symbolic expression of resolve not to surrender (Leonard, 2014).

We should not be entirely surprised, then, to find the refusal to seek the esteem recognition of the other is as common in Northern Ireland as refusals to grant recognition claims. This refusal is entirely logical once one takes the connection between recognition and authority into account. To seek the esteem of the other would be to concede the very thing that one does not wish to concede, that one recognizes the other as a competent judge and that one is prepared to submit oneself to their judgment, i.e. to approach them as a petitioner rather than an equal, given the conditionality of esteem recognition.¹⁴ Claims for positive esteem are, accordingly, not normally directed at the other side in Northern Ireland, but rather to others on one’s own side. Examples of this include recognition struggles between different loyalist paramilitary groups and their supporters (Reed, 2012) and loyalist attempts to have other unionists recognize their contribution to maintaining the Union.¹⁵

While there is a logic to the strategy of defiance and while it may be emotionally satisfying, it poses a problem for nationalism and unionism as political projects. It is attractive because of the apparent value of defiance for signaling ongoing resolve to resist assimilation by the other (Todd, 2018, p. 75). This may cause problems with other important actors, however, from whom recognition is also sought – loyalist defiance potentially rendering them less recognizable to other Britons, for example (Porter, 1996, p. 90). For those who have no goal beyond defiance, or who seek domination there may be no downside to seeking this form of recognition – provoking, or humiliating the other side is the aim. It poses a severe problem for civic versions of nationalism and unionism, however. A politics driven by the determination to express defiance of the other and to read moves in the direction of compromise and accommodation as a form of surrender are in conflict with any attempt to integrate the other side on terms of equality into a United Ireland, or into its UK equivalent (McAuley, 2016, p. 132). Defiance may serve to resist assimilation but it can only be an obstacle to building equal citizenship in either context, as this cannot be done without reinterpreting and revising existing Irish and British identities. The republican movement’s insistence on commemorating its members’ contribution to the armed struggle privileges recognition of their members and defiance of the enemy over the sort of self-reflection and revision that would support their ostensible aim of achieving a united Ireland, for example. As such, there is a basic conflict involving different ways to recognize oneself and others built into the politics of both nationalism and unionism. Attempts to manage the tensions caused by different recognition claims can, however, prompt identity transformation.

Group identity as a site of recognition conflict

The cultural model limits the role of recognition to relations between ethnic or cultural groups and suggests that the normative goal of the politics of recognition must be limited to affirming and accommodating identities rather than transforming them. As noted above, this reflects the influence of Herderian Romanticism on the political theory of multiculturalism. In a divided society like Northern Ireland just and stable conflict resolution appears instead to require the transformation of antagonistic identities. The cultural model assumes that group identities lie beyond the reach of the struggle for recognition and it takes the interest in recognition to be a simple interest in preserving and expressing these identities. From the recognition-struggle perspective, however, this represents an arbitrary limitation on the scope of recognition politics and it is mistaken in supposing that there can be a resolution to any struggle for recognition that does not require identity transformation.

The cultural model invites us to view groups as internally homogeneous and with clear boundaries between the groups concerned (Benhabib, 2002; Segal & Handler, 1995). They exist alongside one another, in parallel as it were, without significant interaction between them. This sort of view is reflected in ‘two traditions’ discourse within Northern Ireland (Finlayson, 1997; Rolston, 1998, p. 270) and it underwrites a view of mutual recognition which is limited to coming to appreciate the virtues of the other without requiring any corresponding self-reflection or transformation of personal or collective identities. On this view, cultural recognition and political ‘accommodation’ can be provided relatively easily with no cost to either side. As Appiah puts it, however, cultures are ‘constituted not only by what they affirm and revere, but also by what they exclude, reject, scorn, despise, ridicule.’ (2005, p. 139). Collective identities are themselves the products of recognition struggles and resolving these conflicts necessarily entails that these identities must themselves be placed in question and undergo a measure of revision.

Instead of seeing the recognition of the other as requiring a revision to one’s own self-conception, they see it rather as a simple process of being educated about the other. We come to esteem them and/or feel empathy for them, but we are not required to engage in any serious self-reflection or self-transformation, least of all on our authority to grant or withhold recognition from them (Allan & Keller, 2006; Strömbom, 2014; Taylor, 1994). Overcoming misconceptions must play a role in resolving conflicts – consider the value of reflecting on the range of motivations one might have for becoming a member of one of the Loyal Orders – religious, familial, etc. – but neither can we assume that conflicts are simply the product of ignorance and lack of empathy. Rather, where identities have been shaped by struggles for or against dominance, there can be no transformation of relations with others without reflecting on and revising those aspects one’s own identity that contribute to antagonism, including one’s expectations of an entitlement to social recognition. To suppose that we can alter how we recognize others without altering how we recognize ourselves is, in effect, to reject the recognitive perspective on the construction of personal and social identities.

The cultural model assumes that recognition relations are exclusively inter-group relations. This is often seen as a useful corrective to liberal individualism (Galeotti, 2002, p. 86) but the theory of recognition is a theory about the social nature of the subject, not a theory of group relations (Honneth, 1995). It conceives our relationship to ourselves as shaped by our relations with others. In contrast to determinist accounts on which we simply internalize social norms, this is an interactive account on which our conception of ourselves is constructed through making and responding to recognition claims. Within any social group, there will be different views about what is required to be recognized as a genuine member of the group and these are expressed in recognition claims. The authority of some claims and claimants will be recognized, while others may be rejected or deprioritized.

The cultural model frames things this way not because the theory of social recognition demands that it do so, but rather because it embodies certain assumptions about the value of cultural identities which align it with essentialist notions of group identity. This tends to obscure the presence of internal recognition struggles and the way that group identification requires the adjudication of normative demands. This is neglected by the cultural model which assumes these identities to express our authentic selves in contrast to universalist abstractions like personhood.¹⁶ This assumption not only oversimplifies our relationship to social identities but is itself just another abstraction. For the ‘others’ – a growing number in Northern Ireland – to be identified as nationalist or unionist is itself oppressive – a demand which they reject.

Taking the recognitive account of the subject seriously requires us, by contrast, to see group identities as constructed through processes of intersubjective recognition, processes that are at once highly political and deeply personal (Brubaker, 2004; Todd, 2018). In contrast to the assumption that cultures primarily express visions of a good life (Patten, 2016), the recognitive account focuses on the distinctively moralized quality of identity construction. Political actors claim the authority to articulate and interpret the norms determining how group members ought to act and how they should relate to themselves and others. Members are called on to resist and defy the other, to ‘do their bit’, to remain committed, and to see themselves as entitled to relevant forms of recognition by others. For those who do not respond appropriately there is always the risk of being stigmatized as a ‘Lundy’ or a ‘West-Brit’. Our sensitivity to social recognition facilitates the policing of group boundaries in this way – esteem recognition, positive and negative is a tool for social regulation not simply a contribution to our sense of wellbeing. The reproduction of hegemonic versions of nationalism, unionism, loyalism, republicanism, etc. is neither natural nor automatic but requires constant pressure to recognize oneself and others in the desired ways. This process, however, creates tensions not only within groups, but also potentially within persons themselves as they struggle to manage sometimes irreconcilable demands for recognition (Smyth & McKnight, 2013). The nature of these identities as ‘composites’ (Todd, 2018) of different religious, political, ‘ethnic’ identities as well as the fact that individuals must also cope with personal and role-related recognition places individuals at the intersection of multiple recognition claims at any point in time. The struggle to maintain hegemonic identities cannot be wholly secure against the possibility of their transformation as those involved adopt different strategies for managing these demands, reconfiguring their self-relations in doing so.

This is reflected in the micro-politics of recognition in which personal relations and emotional attachments are bound up with one’s relationship to oneself and the normative claims one takes to be authoritative. Refusing to see oneself in the prescribed ways risks the loss of the esteem of friends, neighbors, and family – the recognition of those one values. This raises the costs of self-reflection and reinterpretation and yet, to the degree that one becomes subject to conflicting demands, individuals are prompted to engage in such reflection in order to manage these demands. In doing so, they may adopt different coping strategies. In the Northern Ireland context, Todd discusses how ‘privatizers’ reject the pull of communal recognition entirely (2018, p. 126), while others continue to recognize themselves as, in some sense, a nationalist or unionist, Republican, or loyalist while refusing to endorse key features of the traditional, hegemonic account of group identity, such as sectarian antagonism towards others (2018, p. 31). For some this may be driven by the demands of role recognition: the demand that one be a ‘good’ mother may prompt a desire to shield one’s children not only from the sectarianism of others, but also from the risk of developing sectarian attitudes themselves. For these people in particular, the struggle for recognition may involve deep personal tensions. Todd, for example, recounts the story of ‘Ellie’ who has left Belfast, distancing herself from her loyalist background, so that her children can grow up in a mixed environment. Nonetheless, she also feels the pull of her last self, able to participate unselfconsciously in loyalist parade culture (Todd, 2018, pp. 138–9). As Todd points out, this holds out the ever-present possibility that positive identity transformations can be reversed should conditions change (2018, p. 230). This is a particular risk if we opt to pursue the sort of one-sided notion of recognition as pluralist accommodation (Todd, 2018, p. 22) extolled by the cultural model.

In contrast to the recognition struggle view, the cultural model offers a fundamentally depoliticized, one-sided, account of group identity. The recognition struggle account requires us to extend the recognition analysis to the construction of group identities and requires us to see that the recognition of others cannot be severed from reflection on oneself, even if this reflection and any self-transformation that results turn out to be a potentially risky and painful endeavor. The one-sided quality of the cultural model is unfairly weighted in favor of the most traditionalist, transformation resistant, voices participating in these struggles for recognition as only their claims register as genuine recognition claims from its perspective. The cultural recognition model is not, in the end, promoting a more even-handed, inclusive model of citizenship, nor a stable resolution to social divisions, but simply has the effect of shoring up the social and political authority of traditionalists within the ‘communities’ it identifies as in need of recognition. A more nuanced appreciation of the effect of public interventions in these recognition struggles is needed – starting with seeing them as recognition struggles and forcing us to pose questions about which parties are likely to benefit from these interventions.

Conclusion

I have argued that the cultural model offers an inaccurate picture of the recognition politics of Northern Ireland. It overlooks the centrality of demands for recognition of equal standing and misinterprets cultural politics in terms as requests for cultural esteem rather than as moves in struggles for social status and authority. Finally, it arbitrarily limits the application of recognition analysis to inter-group relations rather than understanding ethnic/cultural identities as the product of recognition struggles. The alternative recognition-struggle account offers a greatly expanded account of the scope and complexity of recognition struggles in Northern Ireland. It also suggests that while there is a recognition-based case for power-sharing, this is at odds with the assumption that taking the interest in recognition seriously requires a politics of pluralist accommodation rather than some more thoroughgoing politics of identity transformation. Taking recognition seriously in the Northern Ireland context requires us to move beyond the cultural recognition model and to embrace the possibility of transforming rather than simply affirming cultural-political identities.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the participants in the Political Theory/Philosophy workshop, QUB for their extremely helpful comments on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cillian McBride

Cillian McBride teaches political theory at Queen’s University Belfast. He works on the ethics and politics of recognition and on contemporary republican political theory. He is the author of Recognition (Cambridge: Polity, 2013).

Notes

1 Honneth (1995, p. 129) distinguishes love, respect and esteem. His account of particular recognition is focused on individuals rather than on ethnic/cultural groups. Darwall prefers a contrast between ‘recognition respect’ and ‘appraisal respect’ (1977, p. 38).

2 Allan and Keller (2006) distinguish between ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ recognition but, surprisingly, include particularizing features in both.

3 Fraser’s categorical distinction between recognition and redistribution overlooks the way that recognition claims ground claims to economic redistribution (2003).

4 The unequal power to take and give insult is a key form of social power (Patterson, 1982; Appiah).

5 ‘Accordingly we would advocate that there should be three types of education, which we think of as the secondary Grammar, the secondary Technical, the secondary Modern, that each type should have such parity as amenities and conditions can bestow; parity of esteem in our view cannot be conferred by administrative decree nor by equality of cost per pupil; it can only be won by the school itself.’ Norwood Report (1943, p. 14).

6 ‘That any new political arrangements must be based on full respect for, and protection and expression of, the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland and even-handedly afford both communities in Northern Ireland parity of esteem and treatment, including equality of opportunity and advantage.’ ‘Parity’ here is simply a synonym for equality but Paragraph 38 suggests something more like ‘cultural’ recognition: ‘Both Governments envisage that this new framework should serve to help heal the divisions among the communities on the island of Ireland; provide a forum for acknowledging the respective identities and requirements of the two major traditions; express and enlarge the mutual acceptance of the validity of those traditions; and promote understanding and agreement among the people and institutions in both parts of the island. A New Framework (1995), 10.iv.

7 Porter talks about parity of esteem as expressing a demand for rectification, and distinguishes individual, cultural, and political applications (1996, pp. 45–8). Group based patterns of discrimination and disadvantage are, however, evident across all three spheres, economic, cultural, and political.

8 Consider the civil rights era demand that it should not be illegal to ‘advocate or work within the law for the establishment of one Parliament for the whole of Ireland.’ (NICRA, 1973, p. 16). Others have suggested that recognition of legitimacy may suggest the recognition of substantive validity (English, 1995, p. 138). One may affirm the former while denying the latter, however.

9 The notion of parity esteem lends itself to being employed as a political weapon in struggles in which ethnic honor are at stake (Aughey, 1997, p. 10; MacGinty & du Toit, 2007, p. 15).

10 See Adams’ reference to using equality to ‘break the bastards’ (BBCNI, 2014b).

11 According to Honneth contemporary struggles for social esteem typically focus on the labor market as the chief arena in which social contributions are gauged (1995, 2003). Denying access to employment also denies people the opportunity to earn esteem.

12 In the case of equal respect, we are equally dependent on the recognition of one another and claim only the same authority that everyone else has. It is otherwise with esteem recognition however.

13 Gardner interprets the Ulster Scots movement as a response to this loss of status aimed at shoring up ‘ethnic dignity’ (2020). Weber notes the significance of compensatory strategies for ‘pariah’ groups (1978, p. 934).

14 Long discusses how loyalists stung by the attacks of the Loyalists Against Democracy (LAD) group responded not by appealing to the wider community to act as an impartial judge of their positive social contributions (2018).

15 Mervyn Gibson praises the flag protestors in this vein, for example, in language reminiscent of Burke’s view of intergenerational obligation (McAuley, 2016, p. 132).

16 The Romantic critique of simply abstracts in a different way. The way out of this dualism is to reject the idea that we must choose one or the other.