How can psychiatrists resolve political conflicts? A case study from Northern Ireland

Psychiatrists have advanced peacemaking initiatives by collaborating with diplomats to differentiate between official Track I and unofficial Track II diplomacy. For decades, psychiatrists have researched the psychological factors of Track II diplomacy while largely remaining silent about Track I. This article presents a psychological framework to advance peacebuilding in Track I diplomacy by analyzing scholarship from the psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and politician Lord John Alderdice. Lord Alderdice played a seminal role in the Irish Peace Process which culminated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. We analyze his scholarship through inductive content analysis and triangulate findings against primary sources from that period to classify psychological factors under four domains that are crucial to successful negotiations: social conditions that stimulate an interest in peace, the political and economic incentives of negotiations, the structure of peace negotiations, and the communication process in negotiations. We show how this framework can be applied to other violent political conflicts such as the wars between Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine. We hope that our framework stimulates interest on the psychological factors of peacemaking in Track I diplomacy.