Open AccessDUP Discourses on Violence and their Impact on the Northern Ireland Peace Process
Author(s) -
Amber Rankin,
Gladys Ganiel
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
peace and conflict studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 6
ISSN - 1082-7307
DOI - 10.46743/1082-7307/2008.1091
Subject(s) - dup , newspaper , skepticism , narrative , northern ireland , democracy , political science , identity (music) , political economy , law , sociology , politics , literature , epistemology , philosophy , ethnology , art , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , gene duplication , acoustics , gene
This paper analyses the Democratic Unionist Party‟s (DUP) discourses about paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. Drawing on narrative analysis of DUP discourses reported in Northern Ireland‟s largest unionist newspaper, the News Letter (1998–2006), it explores the relationship between the party‟s identity, its discourses about republican and loyalist paramilitaries, and the impact of these words on the DUP‟s electoral success and on the peace process. The paper argues that these discourses may haunt the progress of peace-building, not least because the DUP will find it hard to disentangle itself from a history of scepticism and nay-saying even as it takes a leading role in a devolved Executive designed by an Agreement it long-scorned.