Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The transformative power of integration: conceptualising border conflicts
- 2 The influence of the EU towards conflict transformation on the island of Ireland
- 3 Catalysis, catachresis: the EU's impact on the Cyprus conflict
- 4 Transforming the Greek–Turkish conflicts: the EU and ‘what we make of it’!
- 5 Border issues in Europe's North
- 6 The EU and the Israel–Palestine conflict
- 7 The EU as a ‘force for good’ in border conflict cases?
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
2 - The influence of the EU towards conflict transformation on the island of Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The transformative power of integration: conceptualising border conflicts
- 2 The influence of the EU towards conflict transformation on the island of Ireland
- 3 Catalysis, catachresis: the EU's impact on the Cyprus conflict
- 4 Transforming the Greek–Turkish conflicts: the EU and ‘what we make of it’!
- 5 Border issues in Europe's North
- 6 The EU and the Israel–Palestine conflict
- 7 The EU as a ‘force for good’ in border conflict cases?
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Overview of the conflict
Although relatively recently drawn (1920) in comparison to other European state borders, the Irish border has been the focus of the most enduring and explicitly violent conflict situation within the European Union. The Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 1998 brought together the two governments and the main parties in Northern Ireland to construct an agreement for peace built on new institutional and constitutional dynamics within Northern Ireland, within the island of Ireland, and between Britain and Ireland. The Irish case study is unique in that the EU membership of both states concerned has enabled the EU to both directly intervene in the peace process (such as in the provision of funds for cross-community and cross-border projects) and indirectly affect the context for peace-building. This chapter charts the multifarious nature of the EU's influence in transforming the Irish border from a line of conflict to a line of cooperation.
The Irish border and the conflict
This research is based on the fundamental premise that the conflict in Ireland is a border conflict. This is not to disregard the significance of religious, cultural, socio-economic or any other interpretation of the cause of the conflict. Neither are these explanations simply subjugated within an analysis of the conflict as a disagreement over the partition of the island.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The European Union and Border ConflictsThe Power of Integration and Association, pp. 33 - 63Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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