Boundary Activation and Peacemaking in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country

Ethnic attachments and boundaries are often seen as crucial barriers to peacemaking. From this analytical perspective, in order for peace efforts to even begin, ethnic or nationalist insurgents must overcome their Manichean worldviews and chauvinistic attachments to the ethnic group, deactivating ethnic boundaries in the process. This ignores the positive role that increased ethnic solidarity—and therefore the activation of ethnic boundaries—can play in conflict resolution. Overcoming historical animosities within ethnic communities can provide an impetus for the transformation of conflicts if violent insurgents see ethnic solidarity as an opportunity for nonviolent nationalist contention. Examining the conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, I show that pan-nationalist solidarity provided the initial impetus for the disengagement of the IRA and ETA. In Northern Ireland, militant republicans came to realize that IRA violence prevented the establishment of a “pan-nationalist front” that could effectively pressure London and Northern Irish unionists to negotiate over the political status of Northern Ireland and its relationship to both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. In the Basque case, the Irish peace process inspired a broad effort in the late nineties among moderate and radical Basque nationalists to bring an end to ETA’s violence by collectively employing democratic methods and nonviolent contention in the drive for Basque self-determination, an effort that ultimately failed. Efforts to heal old wounds among leftwing Basque nationalists nevertheless continued and, since ETA’s 2010 ceasefire, successful coalitions among left nationalist rivals have driven ETA's ongoing disengagement.