Teaching Comparative

A rough road to devolution

The Washington Post reported today on the difficulties of devolution in Northern Ireland. The obstacles are the religious cleavages of Northern Ireland. The article included some subdued optimism for progress.

Your students could find this a good example of the role political leadership plays in politically evolving cases (in this case, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams). You could ask them to compare this leadership example to those of China in the 1980s, Iran in the '80s, Russia in the 1990s and Nigeria since the '90s.

Britain Closes Northern Ireland Assembly

"Britain shut down Northern Ireland's legislature Tuesday and planned a new election to determine the fate of power-sharing, the central goal of the peace accord for this British territory. The closure of the Northern Ireland Assembly -- a 108-member body elected in 2003 but which failed to form an administration -- will permit Protestant and Catholic parties to campaign for stronger mandates in a March 7 election.

"The governments of Britain and Ireland want the next assembly to form a Catholic-Protestant coalition a week later. Britain would hand over control of most Northern Ireland departments March 26 -- a deadline that both governments insist must be met, otherwise the assembly will be closed again the next day...

"An experts' report also being published Tuesday documents the deepening commitment to peace of the Irish Republican Army since 2005, when the group disarmed and officially abandoned its decades-old goal of overthrowing Northern Ireland by force...

"The last coalition collapsed in 2002 over arguments about the IRA's future. Since then, Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley has stressed he will cooperate only after Sinn Fein accepts British law and order...

"Paisley did concede that the Sinn Fein move was significant because the once-revolutionary party was accepting the legitimacy of Northern Ireland and its institutions..."

Labels: devolution, UK

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:48 AM