Grassroots Peace-building and Third-party Intervention: The European Union's Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

• Published in: Peace and change Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 361 - 390
• Main Authors: Racioppi, Linda, O'Sullivan See, Katherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01-07-2007; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Conflict; Grass roots movement; Intervention; Northern Ireland; Peace; Peace negotiations; Political Parties; Political Power; Reconciliation; Reconstruction; Northern Ireland
• ISSN: 0149-0508; 1468-0130
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0130.2007.00445.x

This article explores the challenges of grassroots peace‐building and third‐party interventions into protracted conflicts, through an examination of the European Union's (EU) Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Contributing over a1 billion through a unique, decentralized funding mechanism, the EU has complemented the efforts of the British, Irish, and American governments to end the ethno‐national conflict by targeting its intervention at civil society. In doing so, the EU initiative reflects the approach of conflict resolution theorists such as Lederach and Saunders, who argue that in the long run, peace can be sustained only if the efforts of elite‐level politicians and (para)military leaders are reinforced by the participation and integration of ordinary citizens in the reconciliation process. We describe how the decentralized structure of the EU Programme involves civil society in addressing the structural and social–psychological sources of the conflict, but it also raises questions about whether the Programme can help disrupt long‐standing patterns of ethnic animosity at the grassroots, particularly in the absence of elite‐level cooperation and ethnic power‐sharing.