Public Policy, Philanthropy and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

PUBLIC POLICY, PHILANTHROPY AND PEACEBUILDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND COLIN KNOX AND PADRAIC QUIRK Public Policy, Philanthropy and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland Colin Knox • Padraic Quirk Public Policy, Philanthropy and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland Colin Knox Padraic Quirk Nazarbayev University, Social Change Initiative Kazakhstan and Ulster University Belfast United Kingdom United Kingdom ISBN 978-1-137-46268-8 ISBN 978-1-137-46269-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-46269-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939276 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover image courtesy of The Bogside Artists Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London To Meabh, Finn, Jenny and Ryan PREF ACE Much has been written about the politics of Northern Ireland and its struggle to move beyond the violence with which it was synonymous for over 30 years. To all intents and purposes, for the international community the Northern Ireland ‘problem’ has been solved. With a power-sharing devolved government in place, old enmities have faded and the prospect of a shared future seems entirely realistic. In fact, Northern Ireland has yet to move from what Galtung would describe as ‘negative’ peace to ‘structural positive peace’ because some of the enduring inequalities which precipitated the confl ict have yet to be resolved. Northern Ireland is still a highly segregated society with, for example, only 6 % of its school children attending integrated schools. While there has been a small decrease in resi- dential segregation, more than one-third of local government wards are still single identity in their composition (i.e. those with 80 % + of one reli- gion). Much remains to be done therefore to address these structural defi - ciencies and embed a lasting peace. One economic forecast paints a rather bleak picture of the medium term: income inequality in Northern Ireland will rise as a result of the impact of welfare reform and the changing sector and skills profi le of future job creation. Absolute poverty will rise to 2020 on top of an already large increase during the recession; relative poverty will also rise as UK per capita consumer spending and disposable income growth outstrips NI growth (Oxford Economics 2014). Using these facts as the starting point, this book is framed around two thematic areas: peacebuilding and the role played by philanthropy (specifi cally Atlantic Philanthropies) in moving to a post-confl ict society in Northern Ireland. Chapter 1 begins by looking at the key theoretical vii viii PREFACE approaches to peacebuilding, drawing on models developed by Lederach, Galtung and Aiken. All three scholars highlight the importance of address- ing ‘structural violence’ and the need for social justice to sustain and insti- tutionalise peace. As a baseline for subsequent chapters of the book, we ask what constitutes ‘quality’ or ‘positive’ peace (using a rubric developed by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies), and where Northern Ireland sits within this framework. Have key political agreements at the macro level (e.g. Belfast [Good Friday] Agreement 1998; St Andrews Agreement 2006; Stormont House Agreement 2014; and the Fresh Start Agreement 2015) resulted in positive or quality peace as experienced by people who live in Northern Ireland? The second conceptual thread in the book is The role played by an exter- nal stakeholder (Atlantic Philanthropies) in tackling some of the key social justice issues of relevance to the confl ict, and thereby the contributions of that stakeholder towards what Lederach describes as the move from tran- sition to transformation, and ultimately reconciliation, in divided societies such as Northern Ireland. Chapter 2 therefore begins by exploring the role played by philanthropy in the United Kingdom and the limited scholarly attention paid to it. Much of the academic literature is American and does not easily transfer into European settings, and yet Atlantic Philanthropies has played a key role in peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. We therefore explore the social justice change process used by this philanthropy, the scale and nature of its work, and the challenges posed by a model at the centre of which is a strong advocacy focus aimed at creating systemic change. We adopt a public policy framework based on the work of Ferris and Mintrom as a way of examining, through the use of case studies, how Atlantic Philanthropies defi ned the following: social justice problems; associated theories of change; agenda setting; policy advocacy techniques; and how their work was adopted into public policy. An overview of peacebuilding and social justice philanthropy therefore sets the context for a more detailed examination, through case studies, of the work of Atlantic Philanthropies in Northern Ireland. Chapter 3 is the fi rst case study in a series where we consider the example of shared education in some detail. The seemingly intractable problem faced by government in Northern Ireland was the segregated nature of the education system. Although both types of existing faith-based schools (Controlled and Maintained) claim to be open to all pupils, de facto, Protestants attend the former and Catholics the latter, making the system one of voluntary segregation. Despite Atlantic Philanthropies’ fi nan- cial support to the integrated school movement over a number of years, PREFACE ix there was limited growth in the number of pupils attending. An alternative emerged in the form of ‘shared education’ where two or more schools from different sectors share resources, in a sustained way, and pupils take classes across a network of schools. This chapter traces, using Ferris and Mintrom’s public policy framework, how Atlantic Philanthropies moved shared education from being an externally funded concept, operat- ing through pilot projects, to a mainstream activity with full legislative endorsement. This was achieved despite the reluctance of education offi - cials who preferred a model based on the improvement of community relations or on relationship-building between Catholics and Protestants across a network of schools. Chapter 4 considers the second case study involving systemic change. Here the ‘wicked’ problems of segregated public spaces and poor public services are addressed in geographies most impacted by the confl ict— interface areas where the two communities abut. Interface communities are an example of Galtung’s ‘structural violence’ at the micro-level in Northern Ireland, where statutory organisations have neglected the most vulnerable, impoverished people who live in highly segregated spaces and suffer from duplicated, poor quality public services. People living in these communities have not yet experienced a peace dividend and major government initiatives aimed at improving interface areas have failed to improve the quality of people’s lives. In light of these failures, Atlantic Philanthropies fi rst worked with a pilot intervention interface community in West Belfast (Suffolk and Lenadoon) and, based on the accumulated learning, moved to partner with government in a scaled-up initiative enti- tled Contested Spaces/Interface Programme . This chapter traces the way in which Atlantic Philanthropies secured policy leverage, the outcome of which was a fl agship public policy now being implemented by all government departments across Northern Ireland, known as Together: Building a United Community. Chapter 5 , the third case study, looks at the contentious issue of the informal community ‘justice’ system which operated in working-class republican and loyalist communities from the early 1970s. In the absence of what paramilitary organisations, particularly in republican areas saw as a credible, responsive and legitimate state police service, these organisations took on the mantle of community law and order enforcement, with the endorsement of many of the people living in these areas. Those alleged of committing crimes against the community were often brutally assaulted (shot or beaten up) by paramilitaries without due process or x PREFACE respect for their human rights. From the

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