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61 3 Peace from the Peo­ ple Iden­ tity Sa­ li­ ence and the North­ ern Irish Peace Pro­ cess Landon E. Han­ cock Of all the at­ tempts made to re­ solve ­ deep-rooted eth­ no- ­ sec­ tar­ ian con­ flicts over the last few ­ decades, only North­ ern Ire­ land has been mod­ er­ ately suc­ cess­ ful in im­ ple­ ment­ ing an agree­ ment that calls for power shar­ ing. The fact that its peace pro­ cess has held, de­ spite many fits and ­ starts, is not­ able and worth study. De­ spite sev­ eral sus­ pen­ sions, the North­ ern Irish As­ sem­ bly shows a level of re­ sil­ ience un­ usual in peace pro­ cesses. If we can iden­ tify what en­ gen­ dered this re­ sil­ ience and why, we may be able to apply our knowl­ edge to other peace pro­ cesses. Sa­ li­ ence, Roles, and Con­ flict Ter­ mi­ na­ tion One of the prob­ lems in­ hib­ it­ ing the peace­ ful res­ o­ lu­ tion of vi­ o­ lent eth­ nic con­ flicts is the te­ nac­ ity of “enemy im­ ages” held by con­ flict­ ing par­ ties. Dur­ ing a ­ conflict’s es­ ca­ la­ tion, these enemy im­ ages be­ come a part of each ­ group’s iden­ tity, po­ lar­ iz­ ing views of the other.1 I argue that the sa­ li­ ence of in­ di­ vid­ ual and group iden­ tities moves from po­ lar­ ized ex­ tremes when the im­ pact of sig­ nif­i­ cant ­ events as­ so­ ciated with the peace pro­ cess al­ lows a wider ­ choice of iden­ tities and en­ gen­ ders a ­ change in dis­ course that pro­ motes the ac­ cept­ abil­ ity and de­ sir­ abil­ ity of these iden­ tities. The wid­ en­ ing of iden­ tity ­ choice, com­ bined with the in­ creased ac­ cept­ abil­ ity of non­ po­ lar­ ized iden­ tities, leads to a re­ or­ der­ ing of iden­ tity sa­ li­ ence hier­ archies for in­ di­ vid­ u­ als.2 This re­ or­ der­ ing de­ creases the sa­ li­ ence of po­ lar­ ized iden­ tities­ vis-à-vis their newer, non­ po­ lar­ ized counter­ parts. The re­ or­ der­ ing of iden­ tity 62 Landon E. Hancock sa­ li­ ence hier­ archies is man­ i­ fested ­ through be­ hav­ ioral ­ change, lead­ ing to at­ ti­ tude ­ changes to­ ward ­ out-groups. Fi­ nally, these be­ hav­ ioral and at­ ti­ tude­ changes may im­ pact at­ ti­ tudes to­ ward the over­ all peace pro­ cess, gen­ er­ at­ ing what has be­ come known as a “grounds­ well ef­ fect” push­ ing for peace. Pre­ vi­ ous re­ search iden­ tified two major ­ events, the 1994 par­ a­ mil­ i­ tary­ cease-fires and the 1998 Agree­ ment, as the most sig­ nif­i­ cant ­ events of the peace pro­ cess.3 This work will con­ cen­ trate on the im­ pact of these ­ events and will cover two sep­ ar­ ate anal­ y­ ses. The first, iden­ tity wid­ en­ ing, il­ lus­ trates how these ­ events al­ lowed and en­ cour­ aged the wid­ en­ ing of iden­ tity ­ choices, lead­ ing to a shift in sa­ li­ ence in the pri­ mar­ ily so­ cial­ ized iden­ tities of many in the gen­ eral pop­ u­ la­ tion. The sec­ ond will ad­ dress the ­ changes in at­ ti­ tudes and be­ hav­ ior ­ between the com­ mu­ nities. Each anal­ y­ sis ­ relies on three data sets: a se­ ries of ­ in-depth, ­ open-ended inter­ views with ­ twenty-five local com­ mu­ nity rep­ re­ sen­ ta­ tives from both sides of the con­ flict;4 1,800 news­ paper ed­ i­ to­ ri­ als drawn from North­ ern­ Ireland’s two morn­ ing dai­ lies, the Bel­ fast News Let­ ter and the Irish News, span­ ning the ­ course of the peace pro­ cess from Au­ gust 1994 ­ through Oc­ to­ ber 2001;5 and the sur­ vey re­ sults from the So­ cial and Com­ mu­ nity Plan­ ning Re­ search group and the North­ ern Ire­ land Life and Times (NILT) from 1989 ­ through 2000.6 The rea­ son­ ing be­ hind the use of three dif­ fer­ ent data sets is to allow the­ strengths of each to help cover the...

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