Creating Citizenship: Lessons from Northern Ireland
Ed Cairns
University of Ulster, Coleraine
- Northern Ireland is/has been an atypical environment in which to grow up because:
- it is a deeply divided community.
- a single issue has dominated politics for at least the last 70 years.
- the past has an enormous impact on present day politics.
- Because of the ongoing intergroup conflict:
- politics is almost exclusively framed in terms of competing rights and democracy is therefore understood to mean that the will of the majority will prevail. Tolerance of difference is, as a result, in short supply.
- in both groups adults have become expert at ensuring that young people will develop a salient social identity related to their membership in one of the two dominant groups (Catholic/Nationalist or Protestant/Unionist).
This is achieved because there is a consensus on values among political socialization agents within each community ( because of relatively authoritarian families who choose to send their children to separate schools, sports organizations, churches and even to a certain extent to expose them to separate media).
- social identity can in turn influence political behaviour in different ways.
- For example commentators have noted in Northern Ireland virtually no sign of a generation gap. It would appear that period effects have been more important than generational effects.
Jenvey (1972) has suggested "one of the major effects of living with the troubles has been to direct the young away from rebellion against the adult world characteristic of their age group towards conformity with parents".
As a result there is no evidence of any dramatic general political radicalization of the young in Northern Ireland.
- In turn this has led to relatively high levels of political participation as measured by voter turnout because voting is in effect a reflection of group loyalty. As a result.
to paraphrase Greenstein (1965) generations of Northern Irish voters coming of age in the next century may be expected faithfully to reproduce voting patterns which have their roots in the experience of earlier generations.
- On the other hand political knowledge/interest in the formal sense is apparently remarkably low.
- For example commentators have noted in Northern Ireland virtually no sign of a generation gap. It would appear that period effects have been more important than generational effects.
- For a small minority of young people in Northern Ireland political participation has gone beyond simple voting to membership in (illegal) armed organizations attempting to bring about political change by force.
This has also meant that in Northern Ireland a minority of young people have engaged in political action that under other circumstances they would probably view as immoral - killing one's opponents.
This in turn suggests a link between politics, morality and social identity because it appears that the 'socio-political and the moral contexts interlock as group interests become salient' (Dawes, 1994).
- On the other hand there is evidence that another minority have decided to vote with their feet and leave Northern Ireland never to return - there is evidence that these tend to be the better educated young people and in turn it is suggested the more tolerant (or one could suggest those who have resisted the socialization messages they have been exposed to).
- The economic situation in Northern Ireland with low levels of inward investment and high levels of unemployment it has been claimed has led to a dependency culture (ie people have become dependent on government economic support).
More recent attempts to develop an embryo civic society within each separate community has met with limited success. Further there is evidence that this has been more successful in the Catholic/Nationalist community than in the Protestant/Unionist community and in both communities with women rather than men.
Various explanations have been entertained to explain this. For example the ease with which these ideas were accepted in the Catholic areas was attributed to the Catholic church's sense of community, and the historical experiences of Catholics in adversity transmitted via for example folk memories of the famine. Protestants on the other hand are said to place more emphasis on the individual as opposed to the collective and to be generally more conservative. Further there is among Protestants no tradition in which the government is challenged while Catholics have for generations contested the legitimacy of the existing constitutional arrangements.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that it has been more difficult to involve young people in this sphere. Finally it may be of interest to note that these attempts to foster civic involvement have taken place almost exclusively in working class areas.
- In addition I have learned that in attempting to understand how psychology can contribute what is happening in society psychologists must have some cognizance of other approaches and attempt to co-operate with other relevant disciplines - in Northern Ireland this means with politics, demography, economics, theology and history.
