Identity in Northern Ireland

By focusing on the possibilities for change created by the dynamics of European integration and the Anglo-Irish political process, this book provides a refreshing account of communal identity in Northern Ireland. The book argues that such a shift in conditions has major implications for Northern Irish Nationalist and Ulster Unionist identities.

Autorentext

CATHAL McCALL is Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Ulster (Centre for Voluntary Action Studies). He has previously published an article Postmodern Europe and Communal Identities in Northern Ireland in the European Journal of Political Research.

Zusammenfassung
This book gives an innovative account of communal identity in Northern Ireland and its relationship with a changing political landscape. It argues that the development of a multi-level polity in the European Union (EU) and the sustained Anglo-Irish commitment to political process in Northern Ireland are twin dynamics shifting the political context for Ulster Unionist and northern Irish Nationalist identities. In this changing context, the modern emphasis on objectivity and territorial parameters delimited by the nation-state are beginning to be displaced by a postmodern concern for the representation of difference and transterritorial networking. As a result, northern Irish Nationalists and Ulster Unionists are being forced to re-examine the (premodern) cultural and (modern) territorial resources of their respective identities. The book provides a forum (through dialogues) for the representatives of these identities to consider changing conditions and concepts and attempt to evaluate their implications for future structures of government and for communal identities themselves.

Inhalt

Introduction PART ONE: INTIMATIONS OF POSTMODERNITY A Postmodernist Approach to Communal Identities in Northern Ireland? Interpreting the Development of the Nation, Irish Nationalism and Ulster Unionism The Governance of Northern Ireland: From Modernity to Postmodernity? Intimations of Postmodernity in the Development of the European Union The European Union and the Resources of Communal Identities in Northern Ireland PART TWO: DIALOGUES Dialogue with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Dialogue with Sinn Féin Dialogue with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Dialogue with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Dialogue with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) Conclusion Bibliography Index