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3. Peace from the People: Identity Salience and the Northern Irish Peace Process
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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...