Premium
National identity in Northern Ireland: stability or change?
Author(s) -
COAKLEY JOHN
Publication year - 2007
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/j.1469-8129.2007.00316.x
Subject(s) - nationalism , politics , protestantism , identity (music) , preference , northern ireland , national identity , political stability , competition (biology) , public opinion , sociology , political science , political economy , value (mathematics) , gender studies , law , economics , ethnology , aesthetics , machine learning , computer science , biology , microeconomics , ecology , philosophy
. This article addresses a set of fundamental, long‐term factors associated with the Northern Ireland conflict: the pattern of underlying values and attitudes, especially those related to identity, that have helped to shape the nature of intercommunal competition. Using all generally available public opinion data, the article explores in particular the nature of national identity and of related forms of belonging for political behaviour. It notes the mutually reinforcing character of political loyalties within the Protestant community (where national identity, communal affiliation, constitutional preference and party support tend to coincide in a ‘Protestant‐unionist’ package) and the failure of this to be matched within the Catholic community (where the components of the ‘Catholic‐nationalist’ package are less closely interrelated). It concludes by speculating about the implications of these value configurations for political development, suggesting that they are unlikely to contribute to any fundamental political change in Northern Ireland in the short or medium term.