ABSTRACT
Economic aid, development and peacebuilding Populist economic policies combined with political exclusion, micronationalism, and ethnic identity exacerbates ethnic tensions that often escalate into violent protracted ethnic conflict (Wolff 2006). After violent conflict the international community with its liberal peace agenda, uses foreign economic aid as part of its peacebuilding intervention to transform the structural roots of conflict (Jeong 2005). The belief is that economic prosperity, intergroup cooperation, and conflict transformation are interconnected and can prevent spoilers from destabilizing nascent peace processes (Esman 1991, 1994). The idea is that an inclusive capacity-building participatory process that nurtures sustainable economic development will also stimulate a process of reconciliation that promotes peace with justice (Lederach 1997, 2005). Yet prosperity does not guarantee peace, and economic development may have little impact on relationships as ethnic communities remain locked in strife over group egotism that reinforces difference (Horowitz 2000; Ryan 2007). Indeed, research on the impact of international economic aid on ethnic relations in post-conflict societies remains underexamined (Brynen 2000; Esman 1995, 1997). Others are of the view that economic aid may mitigate conflict as part of an overall elite powersharing and political accommodation strategy (McGarry and O’Leary 2007). Economic aid is not a panacea to transform relationships and structures (Reychler and Paffenholz 2001). However, a lack of economic development providing employment opportunities can lead to renewed violence (van Tongeren et al. 2005). Uneven and unequal development can disadvantage an ethnic group in a stratified system that limits employment opportunities (MacGinty and Williams 2009). A dominant ethnic group oriented to a core and a subordinated ethnic group reflect the internal stratification of the periphery (Hechter 1975). A cultural division of labor ensues whereby production is subordinated to the needs of the core, with the periphery forced into a pattern of dependence and economic specialization that results in an ethnically distinct economically disadvantaged peripheral ethnic group (Hechter 1975). In Northern Ireland “internal colonialism” resulted in an internal stratification system with a dominant ethnic group and a subordinated ethnic group (Hechter 1975). Unionist policies discriminated against Nationalists in terms of job and educational opportunities, and housing promoting sectarianism (Bew et al. 1995). The 1960s saw the decline of shipbuilding, linen manufacturing, and agriculture as the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) mobilized to agitate for political reform (Arthur 2000). During the 1970s and 1980s the British government’s economic policy sought to bring Northern Ireland into parity with the rest of the United Kingdom (McGarry and O’Leary 1995). For example, the 1983 Northern Ireland Forum Report addressed the relationship between the
political marginalization and economic deprivation of Nationalists. This was important as working-class Loyalist and Republican communities that have suffered the highest levels of unemployment have provided the recruits for the paramilitaries as the war economy emerged out of the paramilitary violence and the British economic subvention (Darby 2001; Irvin 1999). Furthermore, the 1985 AIA established the IFI to nurture economic development as well as promote reconciliation between Unionists and Nationalists (McGarry 2001; McGarry and O’Leary 2004). In 1994 the reciprocal cease-fires of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) resulted in the establishment of the EU Special Initiative for Peace and Reconciliation, or Peace I Fund, while the 1998 Belfast Agreement (BA) highlighted targeting marginalized Nationalist and Unionist communities for economic assistance from both the IFI and the EU Peace I Fund (1995-99) (Dixon 2007). The connection between economic aid, sustainable development, and peacebuilding also resonated in the U.S. Congress, which saw such aid as a key foreign policy tool in building the peace dividend in Northern Ireland (Cox et al. 2000). Peace I lay the foundation for a durable peace by encouraging reconciliation through economic development and social inclusion through “single identity” as well as cross-community development and reconciliation projects (Byrne et al. 2006). The Peace II phase (2000-06) built on the criticisms made by Colin Harvey and the EU Court of Auditors to mainstream the application process and to promote more peace and reconciliation within the inter or cross-community application process in order to build a stable society (Byrne and Irvin 2001, 2002). Thus, it is important to explore how Northern Ireland’s citizens perceive how that aid is promoting and sustaining economic development as well as postconflict reconciliation and peacebuilding.
