Stephen Ryan

Cox, M., Guelke, A. and Stephen, F. (eds) A Farewell to Arms? From 'Long War' to Long Peace in Northern Ireland

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0719057965 (hbk)/0719057973 £16.99 (pbk)

The Northern Ireland peace process has gone on a roller-coaster ride since the signing of the Belfast Agreement at Easter 1998. This makes informed analysis of developments difficult and tentative. However, this rich series of essays, written by leading academics and active participants, provides one of the best guides to date on the complex nature of the politics of peace on the island of Ireland. Given that the chapters were written against a background of uncertainty, mellow reflection and definitive conclusions were never realistic options. Instead the reader is presented with a series of relatively short, punchy observations from a number of angles - the overall impression analogous to a cubist painting by Picasso or Braque.

The multi-faceted approach is used to good effect, and a lot is packed into just over three hundred and fifty pages. The volume is organised into a number of parts. The first deals with the historical context. Part two focuses on the nature of the Belfast Agreement and perspectives on it from the SDLP and Unionist camps. In part three there are chapters on key issues raised by the Agreement which have complicated the search for peace: decommissioning, the release of politically motivated prisoners, and policing and human rights. Part four explores social and economic aspects of post-Troubles Northern Ireland with chapters on the human consequences and the construction of 'victimhood', the economy, gender and education.

The final part, which deals with the international and comparative dimensions of the Northern Ireland conflict is by far the largest part of the book, containing eight of the twenty chapters. Here there are discussions of the changing international context (the end of the cold war and an analysis of peace processes in the late twentieth century), analyses of various aspects of international involvement in the peace process (Anglo-Irish relations, the European Union, the US) and comparative analyses involving Israel/Palestine and South Africa and Corsica and the Basque country). There is also an interesting discussion on the effects of violence on the peace process in Northern Ireland. Though because it contains little comparative analysis this might have been better placed earlier in the volume.

The editors, as well as contributing individual chapters of their own, have written a brief introduction and conclusion to the collection. They have also included sixteen appendices that incorporate a chronology and significant documents from the past eight years. These include the full text of the Belfast Agreement, the Downing Street Declaration, the 1995 Framework Agreement, the 1999 Hillsborough Statement and extracts from statements by paramilitary groups, most notably the Provisional IRA..

Whilst it would be hard to criticise any individual chapter it is a shame that not all perspectives and interpretations have been addressed in the volume as a whole. Remarkably, perhaps, there is no separate chapter on republican attitudes to balance the views from the SDLP and the Unionist camp that are included. This reviewer also regretted the lack of engagement with the attitudes and positions of the paramilitary groups, who, after all, are the actors who have sustained the 'long war' of the title. There is some discussion of them, especially in the chapters by Aughey, Cox and Darby, but a more sustained analysis of what motivated them to turn away from inter-communal violence would have been a valuable addition to this excellent book.

There is another sense in which the full gamut of responses has not been covered. The general tone of the volume is supportive of the Belfast Agreement. Because it has always been a fragile thing, debates about it have tended to focus on whether it should survive or not. This may have diverted attention from certain weaknesses or problems with a process that is often sold as the only alternative to the return to the long war. In fact the editors do argue that it 'presents the only foreseeable alternative to Irish unity which is capable of bringing about the closure of the Irish question' (p. 296). Yet does this mean we have to give it our uncritical support? A chapter written from this perspective might have revealed that that there are worries about political developments that cannot be dismissed as rejectionist or sectarian. Should we be concerned by an observation by Robin Wilson of Democratic Dialogue, who has asked if all the major parties are now included in the power-sharing Executive where is the effective democratic opposition in the Assembly? Does the construction of political institutions around existing ethnic identities help to solve the inter-communal conflict or will the long-term consequence be a sharpening and deepening of ethnic divisions? In this context it could be argued that Cyprus and Lebanon, both cases of failed consociational engineering, could offer better pointers to the future than South Africa..

The collection ends with two chapters that caution us against over-optimism. Darby points out that no generation in Ireland since the Plantation of Ulster has escaped a heritage of violence, whilst Halliday notes that comparative analysis must concede that the international context is not one in which peace has 'overwhelmingly prevailed' (p.284). He would place the Northern Ireland case into the 'stalled' category, but argues that this is better than the alternatives of 'paralysed' or 'collapsed'. Yet there are grounds for optimism. Many of the authors point out why the Belfast Agreement can be seen as a positive development. The chapters on international dimensions show how the regional and global context within which the Northern Ireland conflict has been played out have changed significantly. The 'there is no alternative' defence may have become something of a cliché, but it still carries considerable force. Taboos have been broken. New political institutions have started to work. The pace of change might invite disappointment or cynicism, but as W.B. Yeats once put it, 'peace comes dropping slow'.

Stephen Ryan teaches at the University of Ulster