Consociational and civic society approaches to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

A number of consociational power-sharing initiatives are compared to explor e some of the reasons why the elite conflict regulation model has not settl ed the Northern Ireland conflict. In the period 1972-85, four at-tempts by the British government to formulate and implement a power-sharing governmen t within Northern Ireland failed as a result of the recalcitrance of one or other of the mainstream political parties. The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) ended the Unionist veto and included the Irish government in the poli tical process to find a solution. Since 1985, four efforts by both governme nts to establish a devolved power-sharing government have included previous ly marginalized political groups in the political process. In this article, I argue that since the 1985 AZA the bilateral external ethno-guarantors - the British and Irish governments - have contained the conflict by using a coercive consociational approach to elite conflict management. Since 1985, four efforts to promote contact between Unionists and Nationalists at all l evels and all points show promise in reframing the conflict from resources and interests to identity needs. Such a transformational approach is necess ary to open up thinking about conflict and in constructing a multimodal, mu ltilevel contingency approach to peace building and conflict settlement in Northern Ireland.