ABSTRACT
The twin processes of devolution and a search for peace have had a notable impact on Northern Ireland’s political arrangements since the mid-1990s. Constitutional reform in the United Kingdom gave Northern Ireland a regional political identity akin to that of Scotland and Wales, and opened up opportunities for self-government that had been absent since direct rule was imposed on the province in 1972. A parallel peace process, ongoing since the mid-1990s, delivered the stability necessary for self-administration to take root. Important shifts in Northern Ireland’s customary political paradigm, then, provided a period of opportunity for the development of a new relationship between civil society, government, and the state.1
