This book uses the case of Northern Ireland to evaluate theoretical approaches in international relations. It investigates the process of negotiation that led to the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement and the continuing challenges to peace reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Incorporating the work of leading scholars, it explores a wide range of topics, including the function of deception in promoting peace, the question of partition and how it was reimagined by nationalists such as John Hume, and how the decommissioning process led to a role in internal policing for paramilitaries. The influence of outside actors - notably the United States and the European Union - is also considered, along with the involvement of the Catholic Church and the marginalization of women. This book will be important for academics interested in theories of international relations and to a wider public interested in understanding the Northern Ireland peace process.

Reviews

'This is a well-conceived book. It is valuable for specialists on the Northern Ireland con?ict and for those interested in exploring if and how international relations theories fare in the substantive analysis of complex cases of con?ict and settlement.'
Jennifer Todd, University College Dublin, International Studies Review, 2019

1 The 'real' and 'dirty' politics of the Northern Ireland peace process: a constructivist
realist critique of idealism and conservative realism
Paul Dixon
2 Issues, leaders, and regimes: reaching settlement in Northern Ireland
Andrew P. Owsiak
3 Under the gun: Northern Ireland's unique history with DDR
Carolyn Gallaher
4 Assessing the importance of ideas and agency in the Northern Ireland peace process
P. J. McLoughlin
5 The role of licit and illicit transnational networks during the Troubles
Devashree Gupta
6 Gender, International Relations theory, and Northern Ireland
Máire Braniff and Sophie Whiting
7 'A serious moral question to be properly understood': Catholic human rights discourse in Northern Ireland in the 1980s
Maria Power
8 Northern Ireland and the EU: applying a theory of multi-level governance
Mary C. Murphy
9 Peace and the private sector: Northern Ireland's regional experience of globalised trends
Katy Hayward and Eoin Magennis
10 Assessing external funding supports for the Northern Ireland peace process
Sandra Buchanan
11 Cooperation theory and the Northern Ireland peace process
Timothy J. White
12 Responsibility, justice, and reconciliation in Northern Ireland
Cillian McGrattan
Conclusion: Northern Ireland and International Relations theory
Timothy J. White