Violence in Northern Ireland 1969–1994: Sectarian or ethno‐national?

Analysis of the political context within which violence occurred suggests that the targeting of victims by both republican and loyalist paramilitary groups was governed primarily by instrumental, tactical and strategic choices rather than by affective motivations. While it is clear that communal antagonism plays a significant role in shaping the behaviour of killers within both the loyalist and republican paramilitary groups, the fact that both sets of organizations have proved capable of controlling both levels of violence and the specification of targets of violence supports the interpretation that strategic factors related to ethno‐national goals are the primary determinants of the dynamics of paramilitary violence. Successful conflict regulation requires the recognition and accommodation of the core cause of the conflict ‐ in this case competing national aspirations ‐ rather than a containment of the violent symptoms of the conflict. The Downing Street Declaration of 1993 represented an improvement on previous conflict regulation strategies because it was a recognition of both the instrumental nature of paramilitary violence and of the legitimacy of the ethno‐nationalist causes which violence served. Having recognized the instrumental nature of violence and the legitimacy of the opposing ethno‐national goals, the two governments must now devise a constitutional compromise which offers each community sufficient protection of their ethno‐national interests which obviates the resort to violence: a difficult but necessary task. The recognition of the legitimacy and salience of the ethno‐nationalist cause is not the same as legitimating violence. On the contrary, it is the first step in making political violence redundant.