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The Emergence, Maintenance, and Legitimation of the Contemporary Northern Irish Republican Armed Struggle

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The Emergence, Maintenance, and Legitimation of the Contemporary Northern Irish Republican Armed Struggle ‘Making the most of it’: The emergence, maintenance, and legitimation of the contemporary Northern Irish republican armed struggle Sanjin Uležžicć TESI DOCTORAL UPF / 2017 Thesis director: Dr. Mariona Ferrer-Fons Department of Political and Social Sciences Mural at the offices of the Irish Republican Prisoners´ Welfare Association (IRPWA) in Chamberlain Street, Derry. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The first expression of gratitude is for my supervisor, Mariona Ferrer- Fons, to whom I am grateful for the given opportunities, the mentoring and support, and for enabling my research ideas. The institutional setting at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the UPF was very supportive of my research, where I am particularly grateful for the research funding which enabled me to carry out the fieldwork for the production of this work. I would like to thank all my peers and colleagues at the UPF who over the years left imprints on my work and thoughts, with my gratitude extended particularly, but not exclusively and in no particular order, to Olatž Ribera Almandož, Antonella Levatino, Queralt Capsada, Elisabeth Kraus, Francesco Pasetti, Albert Jimećnež, Peter Clinton, Adam Holesžewitž, and Lesley-Ann Daniels, who had the immense misfortune of sharing my research interests and thus had to endure my rants, raves, and random thoughts. In the later stages of writing the opportunities at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence and the mentorship there of Professor Lorenžo Bosi offered a highly stimulating setting for the completion of this work and an opportunity for which I am very thankful. Finally, I want to thank Maja for her endless support and care. RESUM La tesi es centra en l'actual iteracioć de la lluita armada republicana a Irlanda del Nord, activa des de l'eèpoca del procećs de pau a finals dels anys noranta. Tot i caracteritžar-se per una intensitat menor que la del conflicte armat que es va produir entre 1969 i 1998, l'actual campanya de violeència politicać continua sent letal, amb episodis perioè dics de violeència dirigits contra ambdues entitats estatals i contra aquells entesos com a amenaces per a les comunitats nacionalistes. La tesi doctoral aquić presentada assumeix la tasca d'estudiar aquesta lluita armada des d'una triple perspectiva, observant-ne l'emergeència, el manteniment i la legitimacioć . Aquesta tasca es caracteritža per la seva exploracioć de la naturalesa entrellaçada de les diferents formes de violeència politicać que constitueixen la lluita armada, fent-se especialment evident en el caraècter muć tuament constitutiu de les condicions que faciliten l'existeència de violeència politica.ć La present ećs la primera investigacioć en problematitžar aquesta relacioć i, per tant, ofereix una comprensioć innovadora dels fenomens estudiats. ABSTRACT The thesis is focused on the contemporary iteration of the Northern Irish republican armed struggle, which has been active since the time of the peace process in the late 1990s. Despite being characterised by a lower intensity than the armed conflict that took place between 1969 and 1998, the ongoing campaign of political violence is still lethal, with periodic instances of violence directed against both entities of the state and those understood to be threatening the nationalist communities. The presented doctoral thesis takes up the task of studying this armed struggle in a tripartite focus, by looking at the emergence, maintenance, and legitimation thereof. This work is defined by its exploration of the interwoven nature of the different forms of political violence that makes up the armed struggle, with this most evident in the mutually constituting nature of the facilitating conditions for the existence of political violence. It is the first work to problematise this relationship and thus offers a novel understanding of the studied phenomena. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 I. Context 2 II. Framing the research 10 III. Outline of the argument 16 IV. Methodology 18 Section 1: Emergence 24 Introduction 25 Conflict and institutional emergence 29 I. Cleavages and the replacement of statutory frameworks 29 II. Development in isolation and establishing a path 33 Stabilisation and post-conflict continuity 35 Challenges and the potential for path termination 41 I. Critical junctures and the feedback of statutory action 41 II. Statutory responses and organisational targeting 43 Conclusion 46 Section 2: Maintenance 48 Introduction 49 Development of a strategic outlook in the modern republican struggle 52 Contemporary strategic outlook of armed republican groups 55 The innovation in IED application and the tactics of 'hoaxes' 62 Conclusion 68 Appendix 70 Section 3: Legitimation 71 Introduction 72 Securitisation and strategy following conflict 75 I. Conflict and threat perception 75 II. Securitising moves and possible outcomes 78 III. Securitising actors and their strategy 81 IV. Alliances and role specialisation 83 Securitisation by contemporary republican actors in Northern Ireland 86 I. Securitisation of the threat of illegal substance abuse 87 II. Securitisation of the perceived threat of statutory action 89 Conclusion 92 CONCLUSIONS 94 Summation 95 Theoretical contributions 96 Discussion 101 APPENDIX 105 Elaboration of the interviewing process and its outcomes 106 Profiles of the interviewees 107 Standardised interview schedules 116 REFERENCES 120 INTRODUCTION To hell with the future, let‘s get on with the past!1 On August 15th 1998 a car-bomb exploded in the town of Omagh in Northern Ireland. 29 people were killed, and over 200 were wounded. The act was carried out by the Real IRA (RIRA), a faction of the Provisional IRA that was heavily opposed to the peace process which was taking place in Northern Ireland at that time, and which reached its peak with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) on April 10th of that year. The bombing strenghtened both the international and domestic commitment to the successful outcome of the peace process, which included strong condemnation from both the republican and the loyalist sides. However, despite the act being still regarded as the most prominent one that anti- GFA armed republican groups (ARGs) have undertaken, this lack of a campaign marked by high casualties is far from an indicator of a completed peace process. While most scholarship on the topic of the behaviour of ARGs is in agreement as to the limited nature of the armed struggle being waged against the British state in Northern Ireland since the 1998 peace agreement, there is also agreement as to the desire to continue exercising political influence through violent means by ARGs, thus contributing to a particular form of peace spoiling. Scholarly inquisitiveness therefore provides the basic questions that need to be answered for the understanding of these entities and their actions. How has this struggle emerged, or indeed, why has it survived the peace process? Why has the popular opposition to armed struggle not affected the capacity to act in such ways? And how is the struggle justified and legitimacy for it achieved? This work echoes and attempts to heed to the call by Sophie Whiting who notes the following: ''whilst continuous observations of these groups have been made through the media, government reports and intelligence services, few attempts have been made to form a comprehensive understanding of 'dissident' actions. There is a need therefore to provide further insight into the ideology and functioning of 'dissident' groups in order to expand beyond 1 Unknown Northern Irish protester, cited in: James K. Sebenius and Daniel F. Curran, "To Hell with the Future, Let's Get on with the Past: George Mitchell in Northern Ireland,'' (Cambridge: Harvard Business School, 2001). 1 the descriptive analysis. For example, do these groups have ideological and political purpose or is it simply enough to explain their actions as possessing an affinity to violence?2'' In the following sections, I will present the research context, justify the research with a reflection of the field of research, and finally provide an overview of the argument as it will be developed through the thesis. I. Context Setting the stage for spoilers As any work that deals with the aftermath of a given conflict, this work needs to briefly address the extent and dynamics of the Northern Irish conflict of the second half of the 20th century, and to link the trajectory of the conflict with the political and security landscape of the post-conflict period leading up to the present day. Focusing on the development of the intractable conflict stemming from the initial political cleavages that traditionally make up the justificatory postulates for political violence, we can identify several that have persisted as identifiable concepts in the intra-conflict period, with these largely falling under cleavages from discriminatory and exclusionary practices in economic, labour, and political affairs, as well as high levels of sectarianism and unresolved historical injustice that makes up a complex martyrology on both sides of the divide. This divide, variously labeled as between Catholics and Protestants, Catholic- Nationalists and Protestant-Unionists, or Catholic-Nationalist-Republican and Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist sections of the Northern Irish society reached the flashpoint of its most recent large-scale conflict in the late 1960s. By then, the underlying cleavages, primarily driven by economic and social inequality, became a coherent mobilising factor in the nationalist community that was set on achieving given civil rights that it had not enjoyed by then. This mobilisation "had become more vocal and prompted reactionary responses from the Northern Ireland government and the loyalist majority"3, with this leading to increased violence but 2 Sophie Whiting, ''Spoiling the peace? The threat of dissident Republicans to peace in Northern Ireland,'' (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), p. 4-5. 3 Roger Mac Ginty, ''Northern Ireland: A peace process thwarted by accidental spoiling,'' p. 155. In: Edward Newman and Oliver Richmond (eds.), ''Challenges to peacebuilding: Managing spoilers during conflict resolution,'' (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2008).
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