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‘Democracy’ in Northern Ireland: experiments in self–rule from the Protestant Ascendancy to the Good Friday Agreement[Note 1. As usual I am indebted to Margaret Moore and ...]
Author(s) -
McGarry John
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/1469-8219.00061
Subject(s) - democracy , northern ireland , partition (number theory) , multiculturalism , liberal democracy , protestantism , sociology , law , political economy , political science , ethnology , politics , mathematics , combinatorics
Pierre van den Berghe has argued that democracy in divided societies can take five different forms: Herrenvolk democracy, ethnic democracy, liberal democracy, multicultural democracy and consociational democracy. My article argues that each of van den Berghe’s five versions of democracy, or relatives of them, has been experimented with in pre–partition Ireland and Northern Ireland. While all have clear limits, the one that is most suited to Northern Ireland’s conditions is consociational democracy. The article discusses some limits of the consociational approach in Northern Ireland but also defends it against common criticisms.