The Politics of Ethno-National Conflict Transformation: A Recognition-Theoretical Reading of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland

On 17 May 2011, Queen Elizabeth II of England laid a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin to acknowledge the sacrifice of those Irish republicans who had fought and died in the struggle for Irish freedom and against British rule in Ireland. In the context of a long history of violent conflict, this gesture by a British monarch was deeply significant and highly charged with symbolism. This was, after all, the first visit by a British Head of State to the Republic of Ireland, 90 years after independence was first achieved. The visit represented the end of several centuries of antagonism and it celebrated the connections that now make the two countries, in the Queen’s own words, ‘firm friends and equal partners.’1 The laying of that wreath also seemed to confirm that the recent peace process in Northern Ireland had, through the establishment of new and inclusive political institutions, successfully achieved a radical transformation of relations between its rival British unionist and Irish nationalist communities. The fact that the visit took place at all suggested that by May 2011 the politics of antagonism and conflict had been comprehensively re-evaluated through a long and painful process of mutual recognition. In this chapter, I will defend this interpretation of the recent history of Northern Ireland and of British-Irish relations, and I will use this case to test the potential of critical recognition theory as a general guide to the transformation of ethno-national conflict.