John Coakley

This article revisits a well-known dichotomy (the ‘territorial’ and ‘personal’ principles) and develops a four-element classification of state approaches (from the most generous to the most menacing, from the perspective of speakers of minority languages). The article examines the implications for language policy of geographically dispersed or spatially concentrated patterns of distribution of speakers of particular languages. We begin by exploring the general literature on language policy, focusing in particular on the territorial and personal principles, the use of ‘threshold rules’ at municipal and other subnational levels, and the hybrid language regimes that are often a consequence of sociolinguistic complexity. We consider the extent to which responses to linguistic diversity across Europe may be understood by reference to these principles and categories. We explain why we have selected particular case studies (the Baltic republics, Transylvania, Switzerland, Belgium and Ireland) for further exploration. We conclude that, notwithstanding the value of the typologies we consider, real-life cases are almost invariably more complex, with states implementing policies that defy categorisation, that may change over time, and that may treat different language minorities by reference to different principles.

Language policy in the Republic of Ireland has an unusual starting point: the geographical base of the Irish language is very weak and territorially dispersed, yet the constitutional status of the language is extremely strong. The article explores this paradox. It sets Irish language policy in two contexts: that of successful nationalist movements mainly in Central and Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century, and that of the struggling Celtic languages of Western Europe. It explores the evolution of the language and its weakening demographic status since the nineteenth century, noting that while its demographic weakness mirrors that of the other Celtic languages, its constitutional entrenchment resembles that of the national languages of Central and East European states. It attempts to explain this by suggesting that the language has played a marginal role in nationalist mobilisation; the language served as a symbol of a specific cultural heritage rather than as the vital lingua franca of the community. The central role of the language in nationalist ideology, however, failed to address the reality of continuing decline in the Irish-speaking districts, notwithstanding the emergence of a sizeable population of ‘new speakers’ of the language outside these districts.

How much public and elite support is there for the use of a citizens’ assembly – a random selection of citizens brought together to consider a policy issue – to tackle major, deadlock-inducing disagreements in deeply divided places with consociational political institutions? We focus on Northern Ireland and use evidence from a cross-sectional attitude survey, a survey-based experiment and elite interviews. We find that the general public support decision-making by a citizens’ assembly, even when the decision reached is one they personally disagree with. However, support is lower among those with strong ideological views. We also find that elected politicians oppose delegating decision-making power to an ‘undemocratic’ citizens’ assembly, but are more supportive of recommendation-making power. These findings highlight the potential for post-conflict consociations to be amended, with the consent of the parties, to include citizens’ assemblies that make recommendations but not binding policy.

Analysis of the flow of demographic trends and the evolution of political forces in Northern Ireland has long had a predominantly binary focus. The many studies of the fall and rise of nationalism, and of the rise and fall of unionism, are based on a sometimes explicit but more often unspoken narrative of competition between two communities. This article considers an issue in relation to which a much smaller literature has appeared: the steady growth of an apparent middle ground. This is made up in part of those who were born outside Northern Ireland. But it also includes people who have exited from affiliation to the two dominant communities defined by religious background, or perhaps never belonged to either; of those who do not see themselves unambiguously as British or as Irish, but rather report a dual or alternative identity; and of those who identify with neither the unionist nor the nationalist community. Using census and survey data, the article tracks the evolution of this expanding section of the population, and assesses its implications for political choice and for the future constitutional path of Northern Ireland.

We empirically identify the considered views of the Northern Ireland public on the relative merits of two possible models of a united Ireland: an integrated united Ireland in which Northern Ireland is absorbed into an all-island polity, and a united Ireland in which Northern Ireland continues to exist as a devolved entity. We use data from a specially designed one-day citizens’ assembly. We report analyses based on quantitative examination of pre- and post-deliberation surveys and qualitative analysis of the transcripts of participants’ deliberation. We find that, after learning about the different two models, citizens’ support for the devolved model declined, particularly among Protestant participants. We elaborate the implications of our findings for any referendum on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland.

Support for Brexit in Northern Ireland has been substantially associated with the unionist community, and has evolved against a backdrop of changing patterns of relationships between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, and between Northern Ireland and the Republic. But the shape taken by the Brexit project is such that it also offers an existential threat to the Union. Is the phenomenon of the unionist Brexiteer simply an unexpected conjunctural development, or might it be explained by reference to distinctive features of unionist ideology? This article provides an initial overview of the comparative and historical context in which unionism responded to major political restructuring in the last century. It asks if the very quest to uphold the Union in contentious times leads to strategies that appear to have the opposite effect. It suggests that the phenomenon of the Brexit-supporting unionist may derive from a distinctive strand of Ulster unionist ideology, one which prioritises the symbolic interests of the ‘imagined community’ in Northern Ireland.

The literature on belief systems in mass publics shows that survey respondents typically have difficulty in describing their images of political parties; only about half offer a meaningful description of how they see individual parties. This paper investigates what people in Northern Ireland think that parties stand for in their home jurisdiction, in Great Britain and in the Republic of Ireland, using open-ended questions in a survey of 1,008 Northern Ireland residents. Northern Ireland respondents resemble those elsewhere, in that only about half seem able to offer a politically meaningful description of what local parties stand for. Among the more politically sophisticated, the Northern Ireland parties are described in ethnonational terms, the British parties are placed in socio-economic (social class and left-right) categories, but few respondents know how to describe the parties in the Republic of Ireland. There is an intriguing asymmetry in the characterization of Northern Ireland’s unionist and nationalist parties: the DUP emerges as only marginally more ‘hard-line’ than the UUP, whereas a great gulf exists between the SDLP and Sinn Féin, the former being perceived as much more moderate. Notwithstanding high levels of electoral stability in Northern Ireland, our findings show that party supporters vary greatly in their levels of political sophistication, perhaps allowing elites greater freedom of action than if all voters were highly politically informed.

The twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday agreement offers a useful vantage point from which to review the agreement’s progress, particularly because the anniversary coincides with Brexit, a process likely to place it under particular strain. Using both evidence offered elsewhere in this collection and new material, this article reviews the two decades since the agreement in 1998 using as a framework the three relationships that the agreement sought to address. First, it argues that a combination of structural reform, social change, demographic transformation and political reconfiguration has substantially removed the incentives for inter-communal conflict in Northern Ireland, though without completely eliminating overt political violence, as worrying indicators of dissent survive. Second, it contends that the provisions of the agreement for the promotion of institutionalised cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic have had limited impact, but that they have been supplemented by new forms of all-Ireland integration driven by change at EU level. Third, the article suggests that the once-hostile relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom has mellowed, a change that both facilitated the settlement of 1998 and was itself reinforced by this. The article concludes that the institutions established by the Good Friday agreement have had a mixed impact, and that they face a particular challenge in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.