ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the factors that led to Northern Ireland's creation in 1921. It demonstrates that Northern Ireland's character, rather than being preordained, was the product of a number of exogenous and endogenous factors' interaction. The chapter examines the Northern Ireland conflict's assumed origins. It provides an overview of the theory most closely associated with the conflict's regulation, consociationalism. The chapter shows that consociationalists' centripetalist defences of the Belfast Agreement similarly cannot be fully understood without reference to external actors' perceptions, calculations and actions. It demonstrates the vital, yet somewhat neglected, role of the British, Irish and US governments in determining Northern Ireland's political trajectory in the post-Agreement era. The method of conflict management most closely associated with these agreements has been a form of power-sharing known as consociationalism, although whether or not consociationalism has been a consistent goal of the two governments is a matter of debate.
