Hybrid Civil Society: Northern Ireland

Abstract

Prominent among the pillars of liberal peace interventions is civil society. Proponents of the liberal peace believe that if properly constituted, civil society can assist in the creation of a sustainable peace environment. As a result, enormous international peace assistance resources have been invested into civil society capacity-building over the past two decades. Civil society, it is believed, can act as a bulwark against nationalist governments, deliver peacebuilding services more efficiently than international actors or the state, and help with conflict transformation and democratisation projects. Civil society is congruent with the liberal and neo-liberal agenda in that it offers routes for greater participation in the polity, and makes clear that the state must face competition from other actors. This chapter presents a critical examination of civil society capacity-building efforts. In keeping with the overall themes of the book — hybridity and the liberal peace — it is interested in the processes whereby civil society dynamics, actors, and institutions come to reflect the complexity of peace implementation contexts. These contexts are hybridised, with actors rarely able to implement their policy aims unilaterally. Instead, they are compelled to compromise and take account of other actors.

There is no finer man in the British Empire than the Ulster Protestant, but there is no more persistent tyrant than the Orange Lodge.

C. J. O’Donnell (1932: 16)

How can one tell, from one minute to another, what is going to happen in an area like that? If war did break out it would probably be a war of extinction. We have the Nationalists sandwiched between our forces, and they only have a few old guns to rely upon. They could not possibly have a chance. Our men are well-armed, and guns and ammunition are constantly being ‘run’ into Ulster. We have the province in the hollow of our hand, and our Volunteers would mobilise in a few hours, if called upon.

The Earl of Clanwilliam, February 1914 (cited in Johnson 1918: 27–8)