ABSTRACT
As discussed in Chapter 3, the Provisional IRA developed a disengagement frame that justified and enabled it to implement the process of ending its armed campaign. However, the analysis of the frame demonstrated how it based its credibility and legitimacy on past armed struggle, and that giving up the struggle was contingent on the conditions having changed (and remaining changed). Chapter 4 demonstrated how the organisational disengagement of the Provisional IRA reduced the risk of recidivism through, among other things, inter-group co-operation. The development of network linkages helped to create a domino effect, whereby a number of militant groups also disengaged, which changed the conditions that the younger generation found themselves in and it is these new conditions which the de-legitimisation of violence is based on. However, tensions in the political system provide opportunities for dissident Republicans to increase attacks, and attempts to compete with dissidents and potential dissidents have led to the accusation that Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA were glamorising violence. In the last few years, some Republicans have recognised how the disengage-
ment frame is inconsistent with its intended purpose, as it does not resonate with some of the younger generation and can in fact facilitate their violent mobilisation. Therefore, just as the Provisional IRA sought to diffuse the disengagement frame to other militant groups in the movement, the remaining informal network that disengaged into community activism has sought to diffuse this frame to the younger generation. The younger generation hold the key as to whether or not disengagement is successful, and while politicians ‘cannot legislate for the next generation’,1 former combatants have a crucial role in shaping and changing the attitudes of the next generation to oppose violence and limit the risk of terrorism and political violence re-emerging in the future. A key factor in the decline of terrorism campaigns can be a group’s inability
to pass the struggle on to the next generation, meaning the group can no longer recruit to replace members who have disengaged.2 In such cases, the groups have tended to be ideologically driven and to have no substantial relations with a supportive community, such as the Weather Underground in the USA or the Red Army Faction in Germany. The Irish Republican
movement has certainly not suffered from this problem, as various incarnations of the IRA have recruited youngsters to varying degrees from the 1900s onwards. Familial ties and the passing on of stories of Republican tradition through commemorative events between generations have ensured that, while there may have been ebbs and flows of the strength of inter-generational bonds, they have been considerably durable. However, such inter-generational bonds are not fixed but can degrade, leading to a gradual decline in the movement’s capacity to regenerate. Thus, in terms of the end of terrorism campaigns, it is the degradation of inter-generational support – both relationally and structurally – which is the key to social movement de-radicalisation, which can help to stop Irish Republican history repeating itself.
