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Contested Constitutionalism? Northern Ireland and the British-Irish relationship since 2010
Author(s)
Date Issued
2016-06-16
Abstract
This article argues that the root of recent crises and political stalemate in Northern Ireland lies in a constitutional failure. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 played an innovative constitutional role in Northern Ireland, and this was central to peace and stability. Yet its own principles were underspecified and disputed. Strong convergent action by the British and Irish states functioned as an informal mode of constitutional adjudication and it stabilised the settlement. It failed, however, to emphasise constitutional principles or to embed them within the politics of Northern Ireland. British and Irish interests and capacities have changed and with them the role the states play in Northern Ireland; the result from 2012 has been recurrent political crisis. If the informal British-Irish approach cannot be sustained, the likely alternative – a narrower form of British sovereigntism – carries still greater dangers to stability.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Journal
Parliamentary Affairs
Volume
70
Issue
2
Start Page
301
End Page
321
Copyright (Published Version)
2016 Hansard Society
Web versions
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
File(s)
No Thumbnail Available
Name
Contested_constitutionalism_April_7_2016.docx
Size
81.42 KB
Format
Microsoft Word
Checksum (MD5)
c4e2a21d523b74a06355a2c9b9ccc1e9
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