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What Politicians Can Teach Academics: ‘Real’ Politics, Consociationalism and the Northern Ireland Conflict

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Consociationalism and Power-Sharing in Europe

Part of the book series: International Political Theory ((IPoT))

Abstract

Consociationalism has been an influential theory on the academic study of the Northern Ireland peace process. This chapter contrasts the ‘classic’ consociationalism of Arend Lijphart with the ‘revisionist’ consociationalism of John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary. It is argued that as consociationalism has become revised to capture the dynamism of the Northern Ireland conflict the theoretical coherence of ‘classic’ consociationalism has deteriorated so that its definition is vague and ambiguous. Consociationalism cannot explain the success of the peace process because its description of the conflict was inaccurate and its prescriptions, based on that analysis, were not implemented. There is little or no evidence that consociationalism was influential on the negotiators of the Belfast or St Andrews Agreement. This chapter argues that consociationalism is too abstract and generalised from the real world to be a useful guide to peace making.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK

    Paul Dixon

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  1. Paul Dixon
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom

    Michaelina Jakala

  2. Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom

    Durukan Kuzu

  3. Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom

    Matt Qvortrup

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Dixon, P. (2018). What Politicians Can Teach Academics: ‘Real’ Politics, Consociationalism and the Northern Ireland Conflict. In: Jakala, M., Kuzu, D., Qvortrup, M. (eds) Consociationalism and Power-Sharing in Europe. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67098-0_4

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