Jonathan Tonge
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From conflict to communal politics
The politics of peace
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Consociational political agreements, such as the one introduced in Northern Ireland in 1998, try to create power sharing between political elites in divided societies. The pessimistic reading of consociation, both generally and in its application to Northern Ireland, has been challenged. The politics of peace and devolved power sharing in post-conflict Northern Ireland have not seen an end of occasional zero-sum contests between unionists and nationalists, despite their combining in an elite level consociation to govern the region. The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland's (APNI) status as a non-confessional party is secured on the basis of its appeal for votes across the sectarian divide. Polarisation of party positions becomes evident when non-constitutional aspects of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) are examined. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) draw their membership almost exclusively from discrete and different ethno-political communities.

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Northern Ireland after the troubles

A society in transition

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