The Politics of Antagonism Understanding Northern Ireland [Hardcover]

Written during the Northern Ireland peace process and just before the Good Friday Agreement,The Politics of Antagonismsets out to answer questions such as why successive British Governments failed to reach a power-sharing settlement in Northern Ireland and what progress has been made with the Anglo-Irish Agreement. O'Leary and McGarry assess these topics in the light of past historical and social-science scholarship, in interviews of key politicians, and in an examination of political violence since 1969. The result is a book which points to feasible strategies for a democratic settlement in the Northern Ireland question and which allows today's scholars and students to analyse approaches to Northern Ireland from the perspective of the recent past.

Brendan O'Learyis Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

John McGarryis Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University, Canada, and Canada Research Chair in Nationalism and Democracy.

Introduction
1. Auditing the Antagonism
2. The Colonial Roots of Antagonism: Fateful Triangles in Ulster, Ireland, and Britain, 1609-1920
3. Exercising Control: The Second Protestant Ascendancy, 1920-2
4. Losing Control: The Collapse of the Unionist Regime, 1963-72
5. Deadlock, 1972-85: The Limits to British Arbitration
6. The Meaning(s) and Making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement: An Experiment in Coercive Consociationalism
7. The Impact of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, 1985-9: The Limits to Coercive Consociationalism
8. Transcending Antagonism? Resolving Northern Ireland in the 1990s
9. Epilogue: The Brooke Initiative and After, 1990-
10. Postscript: A Tract of Time between War and Peace
11. Addendum: War about Talks, and Talks about War, February-March 1996
Glossary
Bibliography
Subject Index
Names Index