Irish-America, the End of the IRA's Armed Struggle and the Utility of `Soft Power'

Feargal Cochrane
Additional contact information
Feargal Cochrane: Richardson Institute for Peace and Conflict Research, Lancaster University

Journal of Peace Research, 2007, vol. 44, issue 2, 215-231

Abstract: This article examines the changing role of Irish-America in the Northern Ireland peace process and contends that it played a pivotal role in the Provisional IRA's announcement in July 2005 that it was ending its campaign of violence. It is argued here that the IRA decision to end its campaign was influenced considerably by three separate but interrelated factors: (1) the internationalization of Northern Ireland by successive US governments beyond the limits of domestic UK politics; (2) the evolution of the Irish-American political lobby in the 1990s, from outcome-driven objectives to process-driven and attainable goals; and (3) the current leadership of the Irish republican movement has orientated itself around the changing social fabric of Irish-America, which is smaller and less cohesive than in the past. More broadly, the article demonstrates the way in which the dynamics of internal conflict can be altered by external actors via the use of `soft power' strategies, in a manner that can assist the development of a peace process.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/44/2/215.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:44:y:2007:i:2:p:215-231

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().