ABSTRACT
Jerusalem and Belfast highlight the dilemmas and challenges faced by cities in societies polarised by nationalistic conflict. Political control is contested as identity groups push to create a political system that expresses and protects their distinctive group characteristics. This chapter discusses both the case studies which are embedded in long-term and uncertain peace-making contexts – Jerusalem since 1993 and Belfast since 1998. The two cases present different tempos and directions of national peace-making: incremental improvement in Northern Ireland, disrupted and regressive in Israel and Palestine. The chapter examines two cities that are similar in political contestability but different in how public authority addresses the ethno-nationalistic conflict. National political goals—whether they be partisan in promoting sovereign control or peacebuilding and conciliatory in aspiration—are transmitted to, and implemented in, cities in ways that produce ineffective outcomes, at times unintended and contradictory to the national goals themselves.
