Policing post-war transitions: Insecurity, legitimacy and reform in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article explores the critical role of the police in addressing the fundamental challenges that a peace process presents: the demobilization of armed groups and the local security vacuums that emerge as a result. Policing is centrally important but deeply political in divided societies; it is often one of the most difficult aspects of a peace deal to reach agreement on. The article draws on a study of Northern Ireland, a relatively successful case of post-war police reform, to highlight the political challenges that emerge even in a best-case scenario where the basic resource and training needs of the police are met. Northern Ireland demonstrates that whether, and to what degree, people view the police as legitimate is linked to their perceptions about the legitimacy of the state. This has important implications for cases of asymmetric conflict, because improving the perceived legitimacy of the police presents distinct challenges in communities that are traditionally pro-state versus hostile to it. Persistent intercommunal enmity, or the context of a “hostile peace”, poses additional challenges, making it nearly impossible for the police to adjudicate intercommunal disputes in a manner regarded as fair or impartial by all sides.

Keywords::

• barriers to conflict resolution
• asymmetric conflict
• policing
• police reform
• security sector reform
• post-conflict transition
• peacebuilding
• civil war
• Northern Ireland

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Eric Morris, Chana Teeger, Grant Gordon, and the other contributors to this special issue for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

^1. UN Security Council S/RES/2151 (2014). Available online at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol = S/RES/2151(2014)&referer = http://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/resolutions/2014.shtml&Lang = E

^2. The civil conflict literature points to various other factors that support or impede parties in reaching and successfully implementing a peace deal. Scholars have argued that the greater the number of warring parties, and the greater the hostility that exists between them, the more challenging the peace-building environment will be (Doyle & Sambanis, 2006). Conflicts that take place in unstable regions (Sambanis, 2001), and conflicts over indivisible goods such as territory are less amenable to resolution (Toft, 2002). The presence of lootable resources or easy means of enrichment for combatant groups and spoilers to enrich themselves (Collier & Hoeffler, 2004) makes ending war and building peace more difficult. To the extent that the country is less economically developed and has fewer financial resources available to support new institutions and provide incentives for parties to engage, war–peace transitions are further less likely to be successful (Doyle & Sambanis, 2000; Hoddie & Hartzell, 2003). Other scholars emphasize the importance of institutional factors such as the structure of peace deals, or the institutions they establish, for resolving civil conflict. In the post-Cold War period, negotiated settlement has become the most common way that civil conflicts have ended. It is also the least stable (Doyle & Sambanis 2000; Toft, 2010). However, some scholars find that the specific features of a given peace agreement can be critical for overcoming the most significant challenges (Doyle & Sambanis, 2006; Glassmyer & Sambanis, 2008; Hoddie & Hartzell, 2005). Rather than simply “scraps of paper”, the contents of peace agreements matter and have consequences for the durability of peace (Fortna, 2003). Others emphasize the political institutions peace deals establish, debating whether liberal, competitive institutions or centralized institutions lead to more stable post conflict societies (Paris, 2004).

^3. Much of the literature points to externally provided guarantees of security to solve commitment problems (Boyle, 2009; Walter, 1997, 1999). External actors can play a critical role in ensuring that no party takes advantage of a ceasefire to attack a vulnerable adversary, but they cannot create the conditions for full disarmament and demobilization unilaterally.

^4. In many cases where third-party actors have provided nominal security guarantees, full disarmament and demobilization does not occur. Indeed, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs run by the United Nations are incentivized but not compulsory, and may not even attempt to incorporate all combatants (Humphreys & Weinstein, 2007). Armed groups re-arm to defend and pursue their interests through military means when their interests are threatened, or external actors' commitment to providing security guarantees is shown to be weak or short-lived. Even when external security guarantees are provided by the state and not by outside actors, demobilization may be temporary if it is not enforceable. Evidence from Colombia suggests that demobilized paramilitary factions were more likely to return to arms where their territorial control and linkages to the local population was strongest (Daly, 2011).

^5. Most of what we know about the implementation of security sector reform comes from case studies. The existing literature tends to emphasize the role of international actors in leading security sector reform efforts, and the kinds of solutions that are likely to be at international actors' disposal, such as training, capacity-building and resources. Existing studies tend to understand the dilemmas of security sector reform as a state-building task led by outsiders – asking what works and what does not work with international community-led efforts, and what are the limits of international actors' ability to engineer change from the outside (e.g. Call, 2007; Call & Wyeth, 2008; Doyle & Sambanis, 2006; Stromseth et al., 2006).

^6. Moreover, new research suggests feedback loops between perceptions of police legitimacy and engagement with the state more broadly. When people question the legitimacy of the police, they are not only less likely to cooperate with the police but also are more likely disengage with the state more generally (Lerman & Weaver, 2014).

^7. The foundational literature understands police legitimacy to be the degree to which people understand “the decisions made and rules enacted” by the police to be “in some way ‘right’ or ‘proper’ and ought to be followed” (Tyler et al., 2007, p. 10). Moreover, the legitimacy of the police to some extent supplants the need for police coercion and surveillance of the population: “when authorities are viewed as legitimate, the decisions they make and the rules they create are to a greater extent deferred to voluntarily” (Tyler et al., 2007, p. 10).

^8. Byrne and Monaghan write: “There was a fragmentation within Loyalist communities during the conflict with those supporting paramilitaries disengaging with the formal criminal justice system. Those that remained but did not support Loyalist paramilitaries were encouraged not to engage with the police or develop any meaningful forms of relationships” (2008, p. 6).

^9. Some debate exists as to how truly consociational the Belfast Agreement is, see e.g. Dixon (2005).

^10. The Commission was chaired by Chris Patten, a former Conservative Member of Parliament who served as the Governor and Commander in Chief of Hong Kong during the transition to Chinese rule.

^11. Prior to the 2002–2007 suspension, the Assembly was suspended for several months in 2000, and for two 24-hour periods in 2001.

^12. During the post-ceasefire period, sectarian murders most often took the form of loyal attacks on Catholic civilians. Thirty-six of the conflict-related deaths after the ceasefires involved Loyalist killings of Catholic civilians.

^13. A sectarian interface is an area in which Protestant and Catholic housing or commercial space abut one another. They have been associated with a great deal of violence during the Troubles.

^14. An additional form of intracommunal violence has been paramilitary feuding taking place within Loyalist or Republican communities. Loyalism experienced three particularly violent episodes of feuding in the years after the Belfast Agreement, resulting in 23 deaths and more attempted killings. The scale of Loyalist feuding violence after the Agreement is striking because it far outstrips intra-Loyalist feuding that took place during the conflict. Just 12 men died between 1974 and 1977 as a result of Loyalist feuds during the conflict. In contrast, 42 died as a result of Republican feuding over a longer period of time, 1971–1992. Internal disputes within Loyalist paramilitaries led to another 13 deaths on top of those that resulted from the feuds between organizations. On the Republican side, conflict within the movement was often violent during the war, but was managed without widespread feuding after the ceasefires. Internal disputes within Republican organizations led to 11 deaths after the ceasefires, with the bulk of these tied to the INLA. (Sutton Index of Deaths, see http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/feudkillc.htm.)

^15. The number of injuries was 825 in 1994, rising to 937 in 1995. That figure peaked at 1598 in 2001 (Police Service of Northern Ireland official statistics, accessed in 2011).

^16. As Coogan describes, these events were foundational to the emergence of the modern IRA (Coogan, 1996, p. 78).

^17. See Barry McCaffery, “Authorities accused of turning back on threatened police officers” published online February 3, 2014 and available at: http://www.thedetail.tv/issues/304/displaced-policing-story-for-legacy-series/authorities-accused-of-turning-back-on-threatened-police-officers.

^18. The St Andrews Agreement was a negotiated agreement between the main political parties in Northern Ireland and the British and Irish governments. It agreed the terms on which devolved power would be returned to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and effectively brought the Democratic Unionist Party into the peace process (they had not been signatories to the Good Friday Agreement, but had become the largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland following the Agreement).

^19. Quoted in Smith (2010, p. 68).

^20. Quoted in “Loyalists withdraw support for police and political bodies”, published in the Londonderry Sentinel on July 8, 2009 and available online at: http://www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk/news/Loyalists-withdraw-support-for-police.5439545.jpIn a reflection of the political acrimony of the time, Sinn Féin's Martina Anderson, MLA for the region, dismissed the move as “a pathetic whinge on behalf of a discredited criminal gang.” Quoted in “Cops dismiss ‘green agenda’ claims”, published in the Derry Journal on July 10, 2009 and available online at: http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Cops-dismiss-39green-agenda39-claims.5448240.jp.

^21. See: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/05/northern-ireland-policing-Loyalist-flag.

^22. See http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20917786.

^23. See http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-21706714 and http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20972438, respectively.

^24. A hostile peace is characterized by a number of features: persistent overlapping cleavages (political ideology, cultural identity, residential segregation); rivalry between the sides that manifests itself in practical contestation over political power, as well as contestation over control of public space and other symbolic spaces; fear of what “they” would do to us and our way of life if they could, and a persistent sense of existential threat; and contempt towards the other side, their history and cultural traditions. Most importantly, these characteristics do not need to be present in a majority of the population on either side, a vocal minority is sufficient to set the tone and establish a sufficient sense of threat. Northern Ireland has a functional devolved government and is no longer embroiled in the scale of violence that characterized the Troubles, but the conflict is not over.

^25.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-21663450.

^26.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10802128/Martin-McGuinness-The-dark-side-of-police-behind-Gerry-Adams-arrest.html.