This book examines the interrelated dynamics of political action, ideology and state structures in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, emphasising the wider UK and European contexts in which they are nested. It makes a significant and unique contribution to wider European and international debates over state and nation and contested borders, looking at the dialectic between political action and institutions, examining party politics, ideological struggle and institutional change.

Foreword

Introduction

Part I: Contexts

1. State, Nation, Island: The Politics of Territory in Ireland

2. The British-Irish Relationship: Confusion, Complexity and (ultimately) Consensus

3. The EU Context of Change in State and Nation Post-1973

4. The Effectiveness of the Agreement: International Conditions and Contexts

5. British-Irish Relations and the Northern Ireland Peace Process: The Importance of Intergovernmentalism

Part II: Competition

6. Modelling Ireland's Crises: North, South, and North-South Intersections

7. The Changing Nature of Electoral Competition in Ireland

8. Dynamics of Change in Political Parties: An All-Island Perspective

9. Nationalist in the North and Socialist in the South? Examining Sinn Féin's Support Base on Both Sides of the Border

Part III: Complexity

10. Persistent Gender Inequality in Political Representation, North and South

11. Northern Intransigence and Southern Indifference: North-South Cooperation Since the Belfast Agreement

12. Women's Activisms in Ireland, North and South: Different Pathways, Shared Interests

13. Nations, Citizens and 'Others' on the Island of Ireland

Niall Ó Dochartaigh is Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, and convener of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence.

Katy Hayward is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Fellow of The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's University Belfast, UK.

Elizabeth Meehan holds an Emeritus Chair in the School of Law at Queen's University Belfast, UK. In 2001, she moved from the School of Politics in Queen's University Belfast to become the Founding Director of the university's new Institute of Governance and Public Policy.