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The Dynamics of a Divided Regime*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Richard Rose
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Extract

‘L'Irlande est une petite contreé sur laquelle se débattent les plus grandes questions de la politique, de la morale, et de l'humanité.’

Gustave de Beaumont, 1839

IT IS MUCH EASIER TO EXPLAIN THE COURSE OF A FULLY LEGITIMATE, a fully repudiated or a fully coercive regime than to explain what goes on in a regime that is persistently divided. Northern Ireland is an excellent case study of a regime that lacks the stability or quasistability of these three familiar types of political authority. The regime there has always been divided, i.e., the constitution is supported by only a portion of the population, and a substantial fraction of its nominal subjects are inclined to disobey basic political 1aws. It is particularly striking that this should happen in a land where the institutions of government are explicitly modelled after the Parliament of the United Kingdom to which it is bound, and the culture permits the easy assimilation of its emigrants to life in Britain and America. To understand why industrialization and urbanization together have not produced a fully legitimate regime, one must look back into the history of Ireland, and examine the strategy of political leaders who commenced governing in less than ideal circumstances. Then one can begin to understand the multiple and extreme challenges to the regime today.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1970 , pp. 166 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1970

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References

1 For a definition of terms and a discussion of the theoretical framework underlying this case study, see Rose, Richard, ‘Dynamic Tendencies in the Authority of Regimes’, World Politics, XXI, 4, 1969 Google Scholar.

2 On American assimilation, see Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1962;Google Scholar and Green, E. R. R. (ed.), Essays in Scotch-Irish History, London, 1969.Google Scholar Cf. Jackson, J. A., The Irish in Britain, London, 1963.Google Scholar

3 For an example of this from the United States, see Lipset, S. M., The First New Nation, London, 1963.Google Scholar

4 See Heslinga, M. W., The Irish Border as a Cultural Divide, Assen, Netherlands, 1963.Google Scholar

5 For an expansion of these themes, see especially the essays of F. S. L. Lyons, ‘Fenianism, 1867–1916’ and T. W. Moody, ‘The Fenian Movement in Irish History’, in T. W. Moody (ed.), The Fenian Movement, Cork 1968, and MacDonagh, Oliver, Ireland, Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1968, pp. 2 ff.Google Scholar

6 See Beckett, J. C. and Glasscock, R. E. (eds.), Belfast: Origin and Growth of an Industrial City, London, 1967 Google Scholar, and, for an account based on official 19th-century investigations of disorders and violence, Boyd, Andrew, Holy War in Belfast, Tralee, 1969.Google Scholar

7 See A. Boyd, Holy War in Belfast, chs. 8–10.

8 See J. W. Boyle, ‘Belfast and the Origins of Northern Ireland’ in J. C. Beckett and R. E. Glasscock (eds.), op cit., p. 138; Macardle, Dorothy, The Irish Republic, London, 1968, p. 86 Google Scholar, and Colvin, Ian, The Life of Lord Carson: Volume II, London, 1934, pp. 206 ff.Google Scholar

9 See Stewart, A. T. Q., The Ulster Crisis, London, 1967.Google Scholar

10 Cf. J. J. Campbell, ‘Between the Wars’ in J. C. Beckett and R. E. Glasscock (eds.), op. cit. ; Barritt, D. P. and Carter, C. F., The Northern Ireland Problem, London, 1962, p. 129 Google Scholar; Clark, Wallace, Guns in Ulster, Belfast, 1967 Google Scholar, and, for an anti-partition view, Gallagher, Frank, The Indivisible Island, London, 1957.Google Scholar

11 The words of Sir James Craig (later Lord Craigavon), as quoted in Mansergh, Nicholas, The Irish Question 1840–1921, London, 1965 (revised edition), p. 213.Google Scholar

12 Moody, T. W., ‘A General Survey’ in Moody, T. W. and Beckett, J. C., editors, Ulster Since 1S00: a Political and Economic Survey, London, 1955, p. 133.Google Scholar

13 For an account of developments in the South, with ample references to violence, see Coogan, T. P., Ireland Since the Rising, London, 1966, especially Chs. 1–5, II.Google Scholar

14 See J. J. Campbell, op. cit., p. 146.

15 ‘Northern Ireland’ in Moody, T. W. and Martin, F. X. (eds.), The Course of Irish History, Cork, 1968, p. 317.Google Scholar

16 See Lord Hunt’s Report of the Advisory Committee on Police in Northern Ireland, HMSO, Cmd., 535, Belfast, 1969 pp. 11 ff., pp. 38 ff. Cf. Wallace Clark, op cit., for an informal memoir.

17 The most up-to-date account of the regime can be found in D. F. Barritt and C. F. Carter, op. cit. For more institutional analyses, see Mansergh, Nicholas, The Government of Northern Ireland, London, 1936 Google Scholar, and Wilson, Thomas (ed.), Ulster Under Home Rule, London, 1955.Google Scholar

18 See David Kennedy, ‘Catholics in Northern Ireland, 1926–39’ in MacManus, Francis (ed.), The Years of the Great Test, 1926~39, Cork, 1967.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., pp. 145–6.

20 See Blake, J. W., Northern Ireland in the Second World War, Belfast, 1956.Google Scholar

21 For the text and discussion, see Calvert, Harry, Constitutional Law in Northern Ireland, London, 1968, Ch. 1.Google Scholar

22 Cf. Jackson, Robert, Rebels and Whips, London, 1968, p. 73.Google Scholar

23 Cf. T. P. Coogan, op. cit., pp. 276 ff., and D. P. Barritt and C. F. Carter, op. cit., pp. 130 ff.

24 For the former Prime Minister’s viewpoint, with an appreciation by John Cole, see O’Neill, Terence, Ulster at the Crossroads, London, 1969.Google Scholar

25 See Lawrence, R. J., The Government of Northern Ireland, Oxford, 1965.Google Scholar

26 See e.g., Sir Robert Hall’s Report of the Joint Working Party on the Economy of Northern Ireland, HMSO, Cmd. 1835, London, 1962, and Professor Thomas Wilson’s Economic Development in Northern Ireland, HMSO, Cmd. 479, Belfast, 1965.

27 See Digest of Statistics No. 31, Belfast, March, 1969.

28 See Orange and Green: a Quaker Study, Northern Friends’-Peace Board, Sedbergh, Yorkshire, 1969, p.33.

29 For convenient and very different descriptions and assessments of these developments, see Lord Cameron’s Report, Disturbances in Northern Ireland, HMSO, Cmd. 5 32 Belfast, 1969; Devlin, Bernadette, The Price of My Soul, London, 1969 Google Scholar, and Boyd, Andrew, The Two Irelands, London, Fabian Research Series, No. 269, 1968.Google Scholar

30 The churches officially condemn illegal political action, but the great majority of those involved in protests are believers and church-goers. Since nearly all disaffected political groups are effectively sectarian, even when this is not their intent, religious labels are convenient for classifying people here. The major non-sectarian political movement – the Northern Ireland Labour Party – is not discussed because it favours the existing regime and is of minor importance, electorally or in government.

31 See e.g., Farrell, Mike, The Struggle in the North, Belfast, 1969.Google Scholar

32 Paragraphs 188, 212–15. A much needed scholarly study of the IRA is now being prepared by Dr. J. Bowyer Bell, Center for International Affairs, Harvard.

33 Ibid., paragraphs 86, 193.

34 For varying viewpoints within the group, see conveniently, ‘People’s Democracy: a Discussion on Strategy’, a group interview in New Left Review, No. 55,1969.

35 The PD group was also the first to start small scale demonstrations in the months following the arrival of British troops in August 1969.

36 For a detailed and plausible discussion of the Irish government’s position, see ‘Crisis in the Cabinet’, Nusigbt, Dublin, October 1969.

37 The Sunday Times, 23 February 1969.

38 Op. cit., paragraph 177. See also, Bowes Egan and Vincent McCormack, Burntollet, London, 1969.

39 See A. T. Q. Stewart, op. cit., p. 62.

40 See Andrew Boyd, Holy War in Belfast, Ch. 11.

41 ‘Paisley Tells Bishop What Loyalty Means to Him’, Belfast Telegraph, 10 October 1969.

42 Disturbances in Northern Ireland, Appendix IX.

43 Sec Belfast Telegraph, 16 June 1966.

44 ‘Legal guns on the increase, MPs are Told’, Belfast Telegraph, 31 October 1969.

45 See ‘Five Remanded on Charge of Causing Explosion’, Belfast Telegraph, 3 November 1969, and ‘Ballyshannon was Reprisal Raid – UVF “communique”‘ Ibid., 24 October 1969. Cf. Disturbances in Northern Ireland, paragraph 221.

46 Report of the Advisory Committee on Police in Northern Ireland, paragraphs 145–7. Cf. ‘P.M. Defends Right to be an Orangeman’, Be/fast Telegraph, 3 December 1969.

47 Report of the Advisory Committee …, paragraph 181.

48 Ibid., paragraph 172.

49 See the running series of protests against it recorded in the Northern Ireland and Westminster Parliaments in November-December 1969.

50 ‘I am a Man Prepared to Stand my Ground – Craig’, Belfast Telegraph, 29 November 1967.

51 Report of the Advisory Committee …, paragraph 4.

52 ‘Force if Necessary, Craig Says’, Belfast Telegraph, 30 September 1969.

53 Cf. Harry Calvcrt, op. cit., Chs. 1–6, 20.

54 On these distinctions and their consequences, see Rose, Richard, ‘Parties, Factions and Tendencies in Britain’, Political Studies, XII, 1, 1964.Google Scholar

55 For basic distributions and their implications, see Richard Rose, ‘After the Cameron Report’, New Society, 18 September 1969.

56 Cf. Barry White, ‘What is Gained Marching for a Principle?’, Belfast Telegraph, 16 January 1969. More generally, see Nieburg, H. L., Political Violence, New York, 1969, especially pp. 56 ff.Google Scholar

57 The beginnings of an explanation will be found in Richard Rose, The United Kingdom as a Multi-National State, Glasgow, Strathclyde Occasional Paper No. 6, 1970.

58 Ibid., and Rose, Richard and Urwin, Derek, ‘Social Cohesion, Political Parties and Strains in Regimes’, Comparative Political Studies, II, 1, 1969, especially pp. 31 iffGoogle Scholar.

59 An assumption supported by an analysis of the Strathclyde survey by age cohorts.

60 In short, the conventional paradigm of David Easton is turned inside out. Cf. A Systems Analysis of Political Life, New York, 1965, Diagram 2.