Abstract
The International Fund for Ireland and the European Union (EU) Peace III Fund have provided external economic resources to local community projects in Northern Ireland and the Border region to support intercommunal relations, community development, economic development, peacebuilding and reconciliation. The British and Irish governments, the EU, and the USA see the economic aid as their commitment to support the peace process, nurture the local voluntary sector, and build the peace dividend. The research findings demonstrate that the reality on the ground is more complex. Some believe that the economic assistance has created employment opportunities, built capacity, and localized peacebuilding knowledge. Others are more sceptical and perceive that the aid has created dependency, facilitated a competitive milieu, and has not transformed relationships in a sectarian environment.
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Notes
“People living in the Border area, including South Down, South Tyrone and Fermanagh have experienced the conflict and the violence differently from people living in Belfast” (Byrne et al. 2009b, p. 341). Derry city with a large nationalist unemployed community was at the apex of NICRA struggles in the 1960s for equality and jobs while the conflict devastated the economic infrastructure of Border communities as the Bann border divide became increasingly significant (Byrne et al. 2009a, p. 631).
Liberal peace advocates envision peace as trickling down and this paper suggests that peacebuilding strategies should be interpreted within the context of Northern Ireland and the Border Counties, and should consider local people’s voices and agency (Mac Ginty 2014, p.550). Everyday politics in Northern Ireland and the Border region includes local people’s “inclusionary and exclusionary political practices” that are grounded in the cultural practices (e.g., language, stories, graffiti, etc.) of their everyday living that shapes the local peacebuilding milieu that in turn is framed by the “transitional liminal” peace process (Marijan 2015, p. 40). Everyday peacebuilding is complex, emancipatory, uncertain, and untidy and includes a myriad of local peacebuilders working in “visible and invisible” ways to own, and contest their peace as the society transitions from war to a cold peace (Marijan 2015).
The DUP was the only major political party to oppose the GFA while the PIRA was forced to abandon its military campaign so that Sinn Fein could be included in the talks (Evans & Tonge 2013, p. 55).
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Jessica Senehi, Tom Maytok, Jennifer Ham, Tom Boudreau, and the anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting on a number of drafts of this article. The research for this paper was supported by a three-year research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Authors’ Biographical Notes
Olga Skarlato, PhD, teaches Political Studies at the University of Manitoba and at the International College of Manitoba. She earned an M.A. from the School of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University and a Ph.D. in PACS from the Mauro Centre. She is also a Research Associate of the Mauro Centre, St. Paul’s College at the University of Manitoba. Her current research interests include peacebuilding, environmental conflict resolution and prevention, human security, vulnerability, and resilience.
Sean Byrne is Professor and a cofounding Director of the PhD and Joint MA PACS Programs, and the first Director of the Mauro Centre. His current research interests include critical and emancipatory peacebuilding; ethnic conflict, economic aid, and peacebuilding; children and war; women and peacebuilding; human rights and social justice; and international peacebuilding and violence. He was a consultant to the special advisor to the Irish Taoiseach on the decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland. He is a consultant on the Northern Ireland peace process to the Senior Advisor for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Lieutenant Colonel (Retd) Kawser Ahmed is a Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) Ph.D. candidate at the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba. His doctoral research is in Faith Based Organisations and peacebuilding. He earned an M.Phil. degree in PACS from the University of Dhaka Bangladesh. He is also a graduate of the Defence Services Command and Staff College, Bangladesh, and he has served in the Bangladesh army’s UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara. He is also an alumnus of the National Defence University, Washington D.C.
Dr. Peter Karari is a PACS alumnus from the Mauro Centre. He is Chair of the Department of PACS, Karatina University in Kenya. His areas of interest include ethnopolitical violence, transitional justice, peacebuilding, and human rights. His doctoral research was on ethnopolitical violence, transitional justice, and peacebuilding in Kenya. He earned a Bachelor in Social-Work from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and a Masters in PACS from Otto-von Guericke University in Magdeburg Germany.
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Skarlato, O., Byrne, S., Ahmed, K. et al. Economic Assistance to Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Community-Based Projects in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties: Challenges, Opportunities and Evolution. Int J Polit Cult Soc 29, 157–182 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-015-9209-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-015-9209-z