Northern Ireland is currently enjoying a period of relative peace and stability unprecedented for much of the past half century. Such stability is the product of a variety of factors that has created conditions whereby Northern Ireland now runs its own political institutions for the first time since the early 1970s. International relations and developments since the early 1980s have had a key influence on the Northern Ireland process, and such external influences require renewed attention in assessing the evolution of the Northern Ireland conflict and the recent progress towards long-term peace. Since the abrupt end of the Cold War in the early 1990s in particular, the Northern Ireland dispute, along with many other inter-ethnic conflicts, has felt the repercussions of such geo-political changes, both positive and negative. In this context, many external states, forces and individuals have wielded significant influence over Northern Ireland’s development. The world's only remaining superpower, the USA, has particularly taken a renewed interest in Northern Ireland, an interest bolstered by a President with a genuine interest in the province. Other long-term external disputes such as the Middle East conflict and South Africa’s advance from apartheid have also been inter-linked with the Northern Ireland dispute. The European Union has continued to evolve as a trans-national organisation, and has also sought to influence the easing of sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland. This book seeks to assess the overall impact that such global developments have undoubtedly had on the Northern Ireland peace process, and attempts to offer fresh interpretations of a complex element within that process. Ben Williams, B.A (Hons.), M.A PhD student, University of Liverpool. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

This book uniquely combines global opinion theory with the English school of international relations to explain the effects of world opinion on the Northern Ireland peace process. It begins by analyzing the reasons why the civil rights movement imported from the United States ended in the Troubles. It traces how national identity now arises in Northern Ireland as a negotiation between the area’s international image and its citizens’ national consciousness. Rusciano illustrates how world opinion affects patterns of speech and silencing, and the effect this has on the peace process. He also shows how those negotiating the peace were affected by world opinion. Finally, the volume concludes by describing a possible path toward completing the peace process consistent with world opinion.

This book incorporates recent research that emphasizes the need for civil society and a grassroots approach to peacebuilding while taking into account a variety of perspectives, including neoconservatism and revolutionary analysis. The contributions, which include the reflections of those involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, also provide policy prescriptions for modern conflicts.

Northern Ireland's Belfast Agreement has faced continual crises of implementation over a variety of security related issues. This book places the implementation of the Belfast Agreement in a wide context to provide an analysis of why implementation has been so difficult.

This book examines the economic and political contributions of the EU to the Northern Ireland peace process, tracing the genesis of EU involvement since 1979 and analysing how it acted as an arena in which to foster dialogue and positive cooperation. Based on extensive archival research and exclusive elite interviews this volume provides the first comprehensive study of how the EU contributed to the reconfiguration of Northern Ireland from a site of conflict to a site of conflict amelioration and peace-building. The book demonstrates that the relationship between Northern Ireland and the EU has been much more significant in the peace process than previously suggested.

Spanning more than thirty years, and costing over 3000 lives, the conflict in Northern Ireland has been one of the most protracted ethnic conflicts in Western Europe. After several failed attempts to resolve the fundamental differences over national belonging between the two communities in Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 seemed to offer the long awaited chance of sustainable peace and reconciliation. By looking at the various dimensions and dynamics of post conflict peace-building in the political system, the economy, and society of this deeply divided society, the contributors to this volume offer a comprehensive analysis of Northern Irish politics and society in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement and conclude that this is probably the best chance for a stable and long-term peace that Northern Ireland has had but that the difficulties that still lie ahead must not be underestimated.

By providing a critical interpretation of political leadership during the Northern Ireland peace process, Gormley-Heenan shows the 'leadership lens' offers insights not offered by conventional analyses of peacemaking processes. The book discusses the confusions, contradictions and chameleonic nature of leadership and its role, capacity and effect.

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has long accepted that citizens who identify with an ancestral homeland may hold dual loyalties; yet Americans have at times regarded the persistence of foreign ties with suspicion, seeing them as a sign of potential disloyalty and a threat to national security. Diaspora Lobbies and the US Government brings together a group of distinguished scholars of international politics and international migration to examine this contradiction in the realm of American policy making, ultimately concluding that the relationship between diaspora groups and the government can greatly affect foreign policy. This relationship is not unidirectional—as much as immigrants make an effort to shape foreign policy, government legislators and administrators also seek to enlist them in furthering American interests. From Israel to Cuba and from Ireland to Iraq, the case studies in this volume illustrate how potential or ongoing conflicts raise the stakes for successful policy outcomes. Contributors provide historical and sociological context, gauging the influence of diasporas based on population size and length of time settled in the United States, geographic concentration, access to resources from their own members or through other groups, and the nature of their involvement back in their homelands. This collection brings a fresh perspective to a rarely discussed aspect of the design of US foreign policy and offers multiple insights into dynamics that may determine how the United States will engage other nations in future decades.