Shades of Orange and Green: Civil Society and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland

This chapter examines the role of Northern Irish civil society in the transition from conflict to peace and democratic consolidation. Northern Ireland has a strong and well-established civic sector. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) alone are estimated at around 5,000, making this region particularly thriving in civic activities. The vast majority of these organizations promote civic politics instead of ethnic politics, and social and political spaces of dia- logue instead of ethnic or national segregation. NGOs and community groups have contributed considerably to the peace process, which culminated with the signing of the Belfast Peace Agreement in April 1998. Most notably, they have been instrumental in creating the underlying conditions favorable to the negotia- tion, signing and implementation of the peace settlement. In 1992-3 the Opsahl Commission involved the grassroots and changed the terms of the political dis- course by coming forward with one of the key principles of later peace negotia- tions: "parity of esteem." In the spring of 1998 the nonpartisan "Yes" campaign helped achieve a victory in the referendum that sealed the peace deal between Protestants and Catholics (Guelke 2003). In the post-agreement phase, NGOs continued to provide citizens with avenues for political, social and economic participation (Cochrane 2006).