Building peace across borders – by Katy Hayward

Last June, I participated in a joint analysis workshop the University of Cambridge that had been organised by Conciliation Resources, a charity working internationally to prevent and resolve violent conflict. The event brought together 30 international practitioners, policymakers and academics to identify key challenges and opportunities for cross-border peacebuilding. The product of this workshop was a themed issue of the journal Accord published by Conciliation Resources and edited by Alexander Ramsbotham and I William Zartman. Titled Paix sans frontières: building peace across borders, it features 20 case studies of cross-border peacebuilding from around the world.

The All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Conflict Issues hosted an event in Westminster on 19 January to present the findings and policy brief arising from this issue. Below is a portion of my presentation at the event, which focused on what the Irish case study can tell us about regional initiatives in cross-border peacebuilding.

Strategically linking peacebuilding initiatives

The primary policy point drawn from this issue of Accord is one that unites all cases and circumstances: To function effectively, it argues, peacebuilding initiatives beyond and below the state need to be strategically linked. Such supra-state/grassroots connections are perhaps particularly difficult in a situation of border conflict given that, by definition, a border conflict is about states, between states, across states. Indeed, when it first directly addressed the issue of the Troubles in 1984, even the EU (then EEC) defined it as: a ‘problem of conflicting national identities’, and suggested that the clue to any lasting improvement must be ‘comprehensive Irish-British understanding’. But fast forward ten years, the IRA and Combined Loyalist Military Command are on ceasefire, Irish nationalists John Hume and Gerry Adams are in talks with the British and Irish governments, just as Prime Minister John Major and Taoiseach Albert Reynolds are in talks with each other. The EU Commission’s response at this time was a special funding programme for Peace and Reconciliation (PEACE) which was to be, in effect, a ‘carrot’ to help actors at all levels in Northern Ireland and the Border Region of Ireland realise the tangible benefits of peace.

Systems not states

The second core action point in the Accord brief asserts: Policy that refers to systems rather than states can shape more flexible and appropriate responses to cross-border conflicts. It is worth acknowledging here that what might be for some a cross-border conflict is to others a domestic issue. This is, of course, a difference of opinion that blocked understanding between the British and Irish governments for the first 15 years of the Troubles. The European Union played a significant part in overcoming this division, partly through normalising collaboration between the two. Arguably, through this experience of elite-level cooperation, a precedent was set for stretching policy visions beyond the border. This has begun to happen at sub-national and local level in Ireland, albeit in a manner wholly dependent on national-level facilitation. States not only have to allow cross-border peacebuilding initiatives: they must also recognise that a systemic, border transcending approach is needed to cement peace. Yet, as we’ve seen in the case of Franco-Spanish approaches to the Basque country, this is often a step too far for some states, even with encouragement from the regional level.

Think local, Act local

The third of Accord’s action points is to: Adjust regional policy according to local contexts, interests and institutions. A most crucial element of the EU’s peacebuilding legacy for Ireland will have been one of the least visible and least possible to quantify. This ‘hidden’ legacy will have been in the conditions EU funding has engendered and required for multilevel partnership. This is not merely a nice idea from European integration theory, it is working in practice in Northern Ireland and the Border Region on a day-to-day basis. Whether such multilevel, multiactor partnerships ultimately stimulate an adjustment of regional policy according to local interests is debatable. But it does help ensure that the influence of the European Union can change practice and norms at the mezzo, if not the macro, level.

Prioritise conflict resolution

I will conclude with a brief note on the fourth of the policy points drawn from this issue of Accord, this being to: Prioritise regional conflict prevention and resolution. Conflict resolution is, of course, a learning process as much as an objective – and perhaps one of the core lessons from the EU’s peacebuilding experience in Ireland is that conflict resolution may be conceived very differently by different local actors. Indeed, even the EU’s very involvement might be seen as highly problematic by some actors. Such actors in Northern Ireland have included no less than the First and Deputy First Ministers, each of whom are from political parties with a history of Euroscepticism.

But EU Commission President Barroso’s strategy to metaphorically embrace the two of them (e.g. through the EU Task Force on Northern Ireland) has been a tremendous example of the personal power of a regional institution. In building a good relationship with Ian Paisley, his successor Peter Robinson, and Martin McGuinness, Barroso may also help grant legitimacy at a different level to, say, a local loyalist youth group seeking PEACE funding or a group of former republican prisoners going for European Social Funded vocational skills training. It is a good illustration of the argument made in this issue of Accord that regional institutions need to work with governments and civil society networks to facilitate local participation and buy-in to peace processes.

Only with such visionary engagement and sustained commitment to conflict resolution from the European Commission might the EU’s legacy endure long after the well of PEACE money runs dry.

For more details on the work of Conciliation Resources and for the Accord issue in full, please see www.c-r.org.

Research in Changing Times

The context that social research is operating within is rapidly changing, not least due to extensive cuts and changes in the funding of higher education and research.  For example, one of the major funders of social research in the UK ‑ the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) ‑ has just published its Delivery Plan for 2011-15, which reflects the reduction in real-terms of 12% over four years to its budget.  As part of its streamlining measures, there will be a focus on longer and larger grants, as well as the termination to the Postdoctoral Fellowships and Mid-Career Development Fellowships Schemes.  At the same time, the ESRC will continue to prioritise the generation of economic and societal impact, and this reflects a similar focus on impact within the Research Excellence Framework (a successor to the Research Assessment Exercise).

So, what does this mean for those undertaking research today? Not least it means that it will be harder to get funding, but it also means that we may need to rethink the way that we operate.  In a hard economic climate, it may be difficult to get funding for primary data collection.  On the other hand, there is a wealth of secondary datasets available for researchers to exploit from resources such as the Economic and Social Data Service.  Researchers also need to consider who their work is likely to impact, and how they will communicate this.

Whilst itself grappling with the issues of a changing funding context, ARK (Access, Research, Knowledge) can help researchers during these different times.  Celebrating over 10 years of work, ARK facilitates free access to social and political information on Northern Ireland, and is a joint initiative within Queen’s University and University of Ulster.  It evolved from the realisation that much research remained hidden in desks and shelves of offices all over Northern Ireland and beyond ‑ and even when research results were published, they were not necessarily in an easily-understood form.  ARK was established in 2000 and is now a unique resource that is multi-disciplinary and uses a multi-method approach to help researchers, policy-makers and practitioners understand society and politics in a region that is post-conflict and newly devolved.

So what exactly do we do?  Our work can be broadly divided into four main areas. Surveys have been an integral part of ARK since its inception.  NILT, the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, began in 1998, and records public attitudes to a wide range of social policy issues.  The attitudes of younger people are recorded within the Young Life and Times Survey (16 year olds) and the Kids Life and Times Survey (KLT) of 11 year-olds.  Importantly, this suite of surveys provides a record of public opinion, whilst also contributing to public debate.  One feature these surveys have in common is open access.  The dataset from each survey is made publicly available on the ARK website for download without charge within six months after the completion of fieldwork, thus facilitating secondary analysis.  In addition, users can access tables of results for each question, broken down by sex and religion (and age for the NILT survey of adults).  The site also contains the technical notes for each survey, the questionnaires, and contact details for a survey helpline.  The same model of dissemination is also applied to surveys carried out and held by other bodies, which are made available within the Surveys Online (SOL) section.

ARK provides access to a broad range of information on the Northern Ireland conflict, politics and elections. Through its resources ARK aims to facilitate researchers and others in understanding the underlying causes of conflict and to facilitate conflict transformation and peace-building locally and internationally. For example, the Northern Ireland Elections section includes information about elections in Northern Ireland since 1885 and detailed breakdowns of election results.   However, one of the most extensive sections of ARK is the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), which is an encyclopaedic resource on ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland.  Associated to this is a specialist section on the topics of victims, survivors and commemoration in Northern Ireland.  In addition, the Qualitative Archive on the Conflict holds information on qualitative material covering the 35 year span of ‘the Troubles’ in NI (content, availability, recording format etc.) and presents it in a searchable catalogue.

The ARK Policy Unit supports policy development and debate in Northern Ireland by providing information and critical analysis.  The Online Research Bank (ORB) comprises two searchable databases containing bibliographies and lay-friendly summaries of research that has been carried out with adults and children in Northern Ireland over the last 20 years or so.  More recently, our policy-related work has been expanding:  Figuring it Out reveals what social statistics can tell us about social policy in Northern Ireland, whilst a series of Policy Briefs on key issues draw upon published research evidence and discussion within ARK Policy Roundtables.

In summary then, the ARK website provides a variety of different kinds of information including background facts and figures, survey results, research reports, research summaries, audio-visual material and election results.  However, ARK isn’t just a virtual resource – we undertake a wide range of outreach and dissemination activities as well.  These include a public seminar series, which is also available online; lay friendly summaries of key research within our Research Update series; introductory and advance training courses; and educational material for schools, youth organisations and young people.

Of course, ARK’s main resource is its team, and within the School, this comprises Katrina Lloyd, Dirk Schubotz, Robert Miller and Paula Devine.  In these changing and challenging times, the presence of a resource like ARK becomes even more pertinent.

For more information on ARK, visit the website at www.ark.ac.uk.

The politics of abortion – Lisa Smyth on the recent European Court of Human Rights’ Ruling

Does the ECHR judgement in the case of A, B and C versus Ireland promise to re-ignite the divisive abortion politics of the 1980s and early 1990s? Rather than tapping into cultural anxieties concerning the moral dimensions of nationhood, this latest episode in the long-running controversy seems instead to illustrate the downgraded status of the issue. That the politics of abortion is now being played out in the circumscribed field of European human rights law rather than in the wider political culture is telling. The shift from widespread moral to detailed legal argument signals the changed significance of this issue, once imagined to capture the essence of Irishness in the face of a history of colonisation and an imagined future of increasing European liberalisation.

Events since the X case in 1992 have underlined the ways in which, far from protecting some putative national identity from foreign encroachment, the abortion regime established in 1983 has instead provoked expressions of unease, discomfort and shame. It has also exposed the country to international scrutiny and criticism, as the implications of the constitutional provision have taken shape. Against this unedifying history, it would seem that the question of banning all access to abortion no longer has the purchase on the popular imagination that it did in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The promise that a ban on abortion then seemed to offer, namely a way of securing the nation’s borders in moral/social, if not economic terms, has not been fulfilled. Instead, the succession of cases dealing with girls and women in deep distress, carrying pregnancies that they sought to end for a variety of reasons, has drawn public attention to the complex range of circumstances in which women and girls might want or need to bring a pregnancy to an end. This has happened in ways which have brought shame and humiliation not only to those women and girls caught in the legal quagmire, but also to the ‘pro-life’ nation itself. How can a nation claim to be ‘pro-life’ when women and girls living within its borders can be forced to remain pregnant in situations where their lives, health and long-term well-being might be at risk? This may explain why, in comparison to the pre-X era, the claim to ‘pro-life’ nationhood is now rarely made. Indeed, public responses to the 2007 ‘D’ case clearly illustrated the ambiguity associated with the abortion ban, as public talk shifted to designating the nation as pragmatically compassionate, rather than as simply and absolutely ‘pro-life’.

The sleight of hand which has allowed women to exercise their right to obtain an abortion abroad, but not at home, even under the circumstances deemed constitutional in 1992, bridges the ever-widening gap between an assertion of moral unity on this issue, and an evident unease with the implications of the ban for women in crisis. The contradictions evident in the state’s unwillingness to enforce the X case decision are stark, and the judgement in A, B and C versus Ireland promises to at least reduce the calamitous effects of this long standing situation. The ruling that the state must develop interpretive guidelines, which clearly set out the circumstances and procedures for the provision of legal abortions within the state, is very welcome. Hopefully this will bring to an end the bizarre circumstances such as those of the ‘C’ case (1997), where the state financially supported and accompanied C, a minor in its care, to travel to Britain to end a pregnancy, in circumstances which should have allowed her to do so in Ireland, under the terms established in the X case. On the other hand, this most recent ECHR ruling has nothing to offer those who find themselves in circumstances similar to those of A or B, condemned to bear the heavy burden of a contested national moral culture through their pregnancy crises. The existence of a right to travel to obtain an abortion abroad can be small comfort to those finding themselves pregnant without the health or economic resources to have any real choice about their situation.

The demotion of abortion over the past 18 years from a defining national issue to an ambiguous and somewhat shameful legal-political situation which politicians would prefer to avoid, has taken place alongside the roller-coaster ride of the country’s economic success and then total collapse. This parallel scenario has re-ignited questions about Ireland’s ability to establish and sustain a viable and independent economy. The borders of the nation-state are indeed deeply insecure, and the country’s severe debt crisis may perhaps result in a return to the politics of the 1980s, where efforts to claim entitlement to self-government seek to avoid the question of economic dependency and turn instead to claims to cultural distinctiveness. It is when such claims require women and girls to bear the severe burdens of that distinctiveness through enforced pregnancy and/or enforced migration that the cultural politics of nationhood takes on a particularly oppressive character.

Dr Lisa Smyth is a lecturer in Sociology in this School – she is  the author of Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland – published by Ashgate.

This post originally appeared in the Human Rights in Ireland Blog