Northern Irish Voters and the Britishâ€“Irish Agreement

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Northern Irish Voters and the British±IrishAgreement: Foundations of a StableConsociational Settlement?

GEOFFREY EVANS AND BRENDAN O'LEARY

Northern Irish politics is characterisedby two distinct and polarised Nationalistand Unionist ethno-national blocs, andmarked clearly by religious origin ora�liation. There is also a third, signi-®cantly smaller, òther' quasi-bloc, thatis more heterogeneous in nature, andlacks the ethno-national solidity of thetwo primary blocs. As is well known,the two primary blocs, their politicalrepresentatives, and those who termthemselves their military or paramilitaryrepresentatives, have remained at war, orat least at loggerheads, for many years.The British±Irish (or Good Friday) Agree-ment of April 1998 has been widely, andcorrectly, hailed as a major politicalbreakthrough with reasonable prospectsof transcending previous failed attemptsto resolve an apparently intractable con-stitutional, party political and militarystalemate.

The Assembly established by theAgreement is based upon a consocia-tional model of political regulation. Acentral plank of consociation is the beliefthat a legitimate government and govern-ability cannot be obtained in dividedterritories without the endorsement of(most of) each of the main communitieswithin the relevant region.1 Simple over-all majority support is not su�cient forstable and legitimate government in suchregions; indeed consociational arrange-ments, in principle, are designed towork against the logic of simple major-itarianism in the electorate, the legislat-ure, the executive, the judiciary and the

bureaucracy. Consociational institutionstherefore need to adopt procedures thatrely on, create and sometimes formalisecross-community consensus. In short, tobe workable, consociational institutionsappear to require concurrent majorities.

The British±Irish (or Good Friday)Agreement was put to a referendum inboth parts of Ireland. There were concur-rent majorities across the two territories,with a 95 per cent endorsement in theRepublic of Ireland, and a 71 per centendorsement in Northern Ireland. Butwere there concurrent majorities withinNorthern Ireland? Most local voters, mostparties, and a majority of Catholic andProtestants endorsed the Agreement, buta substantial number of Unionists re-jected itÐa bare majority of Unionists ifwe exclude supporters of the AllianceParty from the Unionist bloc. This anti-Agreement segment of the Unionist blocpresents a continued threat to the viabil-ity of the Assembly, and indeed to theoverall Agreement: it can constantlychallenge whether the Agreement, andits implementation, has the support of amajority of Unionists, as indicated mostrecently in the June 1999 European Par-liamentary elections.

The Agreement institutionalises twotypes of `key' decision-making withinthe new Assembly.2 One is an explicitoperationalisation of the logic of concur-rent majoritarianism. All Assembly mem-bers must register as Nationalist,Unionist or òther'. Under the `parallelconsent' procedure a key decision must

# The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2000Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA78

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pass with the support of a majority ofAssembly members, including a majorityof registered Nationalists and registeredUnionists. The second is a `weightedmajority' procedure. In this case a keydecision requires the support of 60 percent of Assembly members, including 40per cent of registered Nationalists and 40per cent of registered Unionists. So astable Assembly appears to need a solidfoundation in Nationalist and Unionistconcurrent majorities. Formally, how-ever, to be viable the Assembly needsconcurrent majorities only for one keydecision: only the election of the dualpremiers, the First Minister and the Dep-uty First Minister, requires the use of theparallel consent procedure; in principle,all other key decisions may be madeaccording to the weighted majority pro-cedure.

The Assembly elections of June 1998returned 108 members: 42 Nationalists(the SDLP winning 24 seats and SinnFein 18) willing to support the Agree-ment; 8 òthers' (6 in the Alliance partyand 2 in the Women's Coalition) willingto support the Agreement; and 58 Union-ists. These 58 Unionists were narrowlydivided: 30 were members of two partiesthat had endorsed the AgreementÐtheUlster Unionist Party (28) and the Pro-gressive Unionist Party (2); 28 were eithermembers of parties who had argued for a`No' vote in the referendumÐnamely theDemocratic Unionist Party (DUP: 20) andthe United Kingdom Unionist Party(UKUP: 5)Ðor independent or dissidentUlster Unionists (3). In short, the formallegislative arithmetic returned a narrowconcurrent legislative majority of 30 `Yes'Unionists to 28 `No' Unionists, comparedwith a solid Nationalist concurrent ma-jority. (Had all the òthers' registered asUnionists the formal size of the `Yes'Unionist camp would have been bigger,but they preferred to retain their separateidentity.) Such a narrow majority of `YesUnionists' immediately suggested thatthe Unionist bloc might be less capable

of working with the Agreement than theNationalists. That said, the weightedmajority rule procedure suggested a safe-guard because, if necessary, most keydecisions could be made with the supportof 60 per cent of the Assembly and of 40per cent of Unionists. The sole exceptionis the previously mentioned election ofthe dual premiers; but this decision, the®rst major action of the shadow Assem-bly, occurred with the requisite concur-rent majorities supporting David Trimbleand Seamus Mallon.

The evidence of our survey suggestsstrongly that the principal reason thatthe `No' Unionist segment was unableto prevent a workable Assembly emerg-ing from the 1998 elections was becauseof the adoption, or re-adoption, of thesingle transferable vote (STV) procedurefor electing the Assembly.3 The operationof STV prevented the narrow `No' ®rst-preference majority within the Unionistbloc of voters from being converted into anarrow `No' majority among the Unionistlegislative bloc; indeed, STV created a`Yes' legislative majority among Union-ists.

The use of STV in the Assembly elec-tions is an important test of the system'scapacity to mitigate entrenched ethno-national political cleavages, because itcreates the possibility of cross-communalvoting transfers; because it establishesother positive incentives; and because in1998 it was being used after an inter-eliteagreement reached through protractednegotiations. Our evidence strongly sug-gests that voters' lower-order preferenceskept the Assembly on track by reducingthe numbers of seats that the anti-Agree-ment Unionist parties won in the election.

Having been provisionally established,the Assembly is now confronted by manyproblematic issuesÐnotoriously, the fullformation of its executive is yet to beachieved, and numerous mutual con®d-ence-building measures remain to becompleted, few of which lie within theAssembly's present legal remit or de facto

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power: for example, the release of prison-ers, support for victims of the con¯ict, thedecommissioning of paramilitary weap-ons, police reform and demilitarisation.The full implementation of an array ofexternal confederal relationships,especially the North±South MinisterialCouncil and the British±Irish Council,await the full formation of the Northernexecutive; as does the transformation ofArticles 2 and 3 of the Republic's consti-tution, which cannot be entrenched untilthe formal agreement of a British±Irishtreaty con®rming the full implementationof the constitutional and institutionalsettlement.

To address these con®dence-buildingmeasures e�ectively, and given the needto ensure, on balance, the support ofconcurring majorities for the peace pro-cess and the new political settlement, theAssembly and its related institutions willcontinue to require endorsement fromthe two primary blocs and the activesupport of the òther' quasi-bloc. Inshort, Northern Irish public opinionwill continue to have clear implicationsfor the viability of the new Assemblyand its interdependent North±SouthMinisterial Council. We are not suggest-ing that public opinion will be decisive.Other bodies and organisations may wellprove pivotal: the interested sovereigngovernmentsÐBritish and Irish; the re-calcitrant paramilitaries who might rejectthe emergent cross-communal consen-sus; and the activities of the local polit-ical parties that are clearly more thanmerely the instruments of bloc publicopinion. Public opinion is just one factora�ecting the prospective institutionalisa-tion of the AgreementÐexternal pres-sure and elite-level manoeuvring needto be considered in a fuller account thatwe do not articulate here. However,neither external pressures nor elitegame-playing are immune to publicopinion. And as for the small minoritieswho can so readily resort to politicalviolence, we here assume a provisional

hypothesis: in the long run political vio-lence in polyarchic systems cannot thriveunless it has some signi®cant basis ofsupport in at least one ethno-nationalbloc. Sustained political violence needsa social infrastructureÐso public opinionremains a key factor even here.

In the rest of this article we examine thepatterns of voting preferences in the re-ferendum and the Assembly elections,and responses to questions on the widerexperiences and attitudes of the NorthernIrish electorate using information takenfrom the 1998 Northern Ireland Referen-dum and Election Survey (see Appendixfor details).4 We also use informationfrom a survey conducted recently byUlster Marketing Services (UMS), anorganisation with which we worked pre-viously in a study of the elections to the1996 Forum, to assess the state of publicresponse to the Assembly and the Agree-ment and the issues they have confrontedsome nine months after the June 1998elections.

We ®rst present some features of thesocial and political context which hasseen the development of the consocia-tional initiative: our aim here is to indic-ate why, from the perspective of publicopinion, such an initiative was needed,and why it was the most viable route to apolitical settlement. Second, we examinethe referendum vote, paying particularattention to the sources of the opposition`No', and the reasons for the necessarybut slim majority of `Yes' votes amongProtestants. We then move to considerthe Assembly vote and how the STVprocedure worked to ensure the Assem-bly had a workable proportion of pro-agreement Unionist members. Our focusthen switches to the viability of the pro-posals embedded in the Agreement. Isthere a cross-communal public mandatefor the consociational, and other, policiesin which the Assembly and others areengaged? Finally, we address whetherthe Assembly and the Agreement are stillreceiving support; are the di�cult issues

# The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 200080 Geo�rey Evans and Brendan O'Leary

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they currently confront underminingtheir popular legitimacy?

The social and political context

Let us ®rst examine some survey evid-ence on the social context in which thenegotiation of the Agreement and itspartial implementation have occurred.5

The need for consociational dimensionsto a solution to Northern Ireland's prob-lems derives from 30 years of what hasbeen termed `low intensity civil war'. Thecritical questions may be formulated asfollows: To what degree has the con¯ictleft its imprint on the population? And towhat degree do the primary blocs presentus with irreconcilable di�erences?

Several indicators of the Northern Irishelectorate's experience and attitudes atthe start of the `new era' are included inthe Referendum/Election study. Table 1presents the measures of self-reportedèxperience of the troubles', to use thelocal euphemism. Clearly, many peoplecan point to the direct e�ect of the trou-bles on their own lives.6 In our survey,consistent with other data, Catholics re-port su�ering more from the troublesÐinexperiencing violence and intimidationand most especially with respect to housesearchesÐthan do Protestants.7 This dif-ferential experience may help account forthe greater disposition of Catholics to beconstitutionally and institutionally ¯ex-ible that our data also suggest.

The events and experiences of the con-¯ict cannot, of course, be expected to havesoftened communal relations betweencultural Protestants and cultural Catho-lics. Table 2 shows what sorts of mixingare endorsed by the two communities.These data provide some evidence of aProtestant fear of assimilation. Protes-tants are far less integrationist in theirattitudes to intermarriage than are Catho-licsÐalthough there is less of a di�erencebetween the cultural communities on thedesirability of living in a mixed neigh-bourhood, and no signi®cant di�erencewith respect to school choice. On balance,though, it appears that the Protestantcommunity believes more strongly thanthe Catholic that it is important to patrolits social boundaries.8 But even amongCatholics the evidence of desire for inte-gration or assimilation is by no meansuniversal.

This resistance to either assimilation orintegration itself points to the appropri-ateness of consociational strategies ofcon¯ict resolution in this region. Integra-tion or assimilation work best whereminorities wish to be integrated intocommon citizenship and are happy tobe assimilated (acculturated or fused)into the dominant culture, and wherethe relevant minority is an immigrantminority. Integration or assimilation alsowork best when the dominant majority isopen to integration and assimilation.These conditions have not existed and


Table 1: During the troubles, were you ever. . .

All (%) Catholic (%) Protestant (%)

In explosion 25 26 24In hijacking 8 11 7In a riot 23 28 20House searched 13 20 10Relative killed/injured 20 22 20Known killed/injured 55 58 55Victim of violence 14 16 12Intimidated 18 23 13(N =) (950) (334) (523)

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do not exist in Northern Ireland. Con-sociation, by contrast, works best wherecommunities wish to maintain their dif-ferences without having strong integra-tionist or assimilationist ambitionstowards the respective others; wherethere is an existing (or emerging) balanceof power between communities; whereno community can successfully controlor conquer the others through war; andwhere external parties to the region pro-mote accommodation rather than antag-onism.9 Arguably these conditions areemerging in Northern Ireland.

A further condition pointing towardsthe need for a settlement that is linked toexternal, and not just internal, relationshas been the strong resistance towardsthe adoption of more far-reaching consti-tutional change among the Protestantmajority in Northern IrelandÐits insist-ence on the Union; and the strong pre-ference among Catholics and Nationalistsfor (at least) some linkages to the Repub-lic of Ireland. Northern Ireland appears torequire a consociational settlement thatpreserves the Union, so long as there ismajority consent for the Union, whilelinking Northern Ireland to the Republic.During the intense phases of the con¯ictthere have been several attempts to assessthe viability of di�erent constitutionalsettlements. Elsewhere we have devel-oped a more complex instrument forassessing the public's views that was

used to assess constitutional preferencesin surveys in 1994 and 1996.10 Thesestudies indicated that even when Protest-ant respondents were o�ered a widerange of options from which to choose,their preferred outcome was, overwhel-mingly, continuation of the status quo.The question used to measure prefer-ences with respect to the constitutionalstatus of Northern Ireland in the 1998survey includes only a limited set ofexplicitly o�ered choices, but it doeshave the bene®t of long-term replicationin other surveys. Table 3 shows thatProtestants remain uncompromising onthe constitution.

This is an old story; but, importantly,there is no change in this message even inthe post-Agreement climate. Catholics,by contrast, vary, and are less sure oftheir constitutional preferences. There isa minority who support the Union; othersare Nationalists; but there is no overallmajority of opinion. Protestants are also alittle more likely to explicitly declarethemselves as Ùnionists' (75 per cent)than are Catholics to call themselves`Nationalists' (66 per cent). The messagefrom these and other data is clear: Pro-testants are implacable on the Union, notsurprisingly because it is the status quo.This a�rmation has not weakened evenin the face of a much greater level ofpeace, the making of the Agreement, theemergence of the Assembly, and the


Table 2: Communal divisions


Would you mind or not mind if one of your close relatives were to marry someone of a di�erentreligion?Wouldn't mind 70 85 57

If you had a choice, would you prefer to live in a neighbourhood of only your own religion, or in amixed-religion neighbourhood?Mixed religion 65 67 62

And if you were deciding where to send your children to school, would you prefer a school withchildren of only your own religion, or a mixed religion school?Co-education 49 49 47

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development of a long-term rapproche-ment between the United Kingdom andthe Republic of Ireland. (This does notmean, of course, that Unionists are a uni-form bloc: we know from past work,including our own, that they are dividedabout how best to maintain the Union.Nor does it mean that Nationalists areintrinsically more satiable and malleable:we know from past work, including ourown, that Nationalists' preferences arepartly conditional upon their expecta-tions.)

These patterns of preferences neverthe-less clearly constrain the parties thatrepresent the di�erent segments of theelectorate. There is a greater basis amongthe Catholic community for compromiseon the part of their elected representa-tives, not least because any improve-ments in the position of Catholics andNationalists can be seen as improvementson the status quo; Protestants, by con-trast, are more likely to punish compro-mise from their representatives thatappears to threaten the Union. Evidencesupporting this interpretation is shown inFigure 1 and Table 4.

Figure 1 shows where the electorateperceive themselves to stand in relationto their political representatives on theissue of the maintenance of the Unionwith the rest of the United Kingdom

compared with reuni®cation with theRepublic.

This combined information on theplacement of both self and party on thekey constitutional dimension of NorthernIrish politics provides a remarkably sharppicture of extreme Protestants andmoderate Catholics. First, there is awell-de®ned and shared view of partypositions on the union±uni®cation di-mension among all sections of the electo-rate. With respect to self-placement onthis constructed scale, Catholics are farmore centrist (as are self-declared Nation-alistsÐto declare oneself a Nationalistdoes not necessarily imply a commitmentto uni®cation with the Republic of Ire-land, either immediately or later). Indeed,Catholics, on average, are slightly morecentrist than the SDLP is thought to be byCatholicsÐas are SDLP supporters them-selves. By comparison, Protestants areextreme on the Union, and very close towhere their parties are seen to lie. Thepreferred position of Protestants is there-fore not one that would encourage theirparty representatives to engage in mod-eration of their position on the Union.This fact of political life in NorthernIreland is further indicated by the ratherlimited endorsement of compromisegiven to their political leaders by theProtestant electorate when compared


Table 3: What should the long-term policy for Northern Ireland be?

1989 1991 1993 1994 1995 1998

Protestant (%)Remain part of the UK 93 93 89 89 86 87Reunify with Ireland 3 3 9 9 6 7Independent state 1 1 1 1 1 1Majority choice ± ± ± ± ± 1Other/Don't know 3 25 4 5 2/5Catholic (%)Remain part of the UK 32 36 36 24 34 22Reunify with Ireland 56 53 49 60 56 47Independent state 0 0 0 1 1 3Majority choice ± ± ± ± ± 5Other/Don't know 11 10 15 14 8 5/19

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with that extended by Catholics, asshown in Table 4. On the question ofprinciple or compromise, Protestant in-¯exibility is apparent: less than halfwould endorse compromise by theirparty representatives, compared withmore than two-thirds of Catholics.

This, then, is the context within whichthe politicians had to construct an agree-ment. Promising, in so far as the publicswere ready for peace, but unpromising inso far as Protestant intransigence on theUnion placed limits on their politicians.In 1996, as the inter-party negotiationsbegan, Catholics and Nationalists weresigni®cantly more likely to support the

proposed negotiations than Protestantsand Unionists.11 We asked then: `Whyshould moves for discussion be rejectedin disproportionate numbers by Union-ists?' We responded: `The natural answeris that for some Unionists negotiationsrepresent a path to compromise, andthus to unwanted concessions.' Thesame survey data showed signi®cantevidence of di�erences between Protes-tants and Catholics on the substantiveissues at stake in the negotiationsÐandacross several issues the likely absence ofconcurrent majorities.

But an agreement was made, and thenendorsed in a referendum. We believe


0

2

4

6

8

10

SFSDLPAllianceSelfUUPDUP

Northern Irelandshould unify withthe Irish Republic

straightaway

Northern Irelandshould never leave the UK

AllProtestant

Catholic

Figure 1: Self and party placement on the national question: extreme Protestants andmoderate Catholics

Table 4: Principle or compromise: Protestant in¯exibility?

Do you think that generally speaking, the leaders of the party to which you gave your ®rst preference voteshould stick to their principles, or should they be willing to compromise?


Stick to principles 40 28 50Willing to compromise 55 69 44Don't know 4 3 6

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that what made the settlement viable onthe Unionist side was the prospect ofNationalists, north and south, endorsingthe legitimacy of Northern Ireland, andthe UnionÐalbeit subject to revision by afuture majority; and what made it viableon the Nationalist side was the internalconsociational deal, the linkage of theAgreement's institutions to the Republic,and the emerging prospect that Unionismcould no longer be a dominant blocwithin devolved institutions. In review-ing the pre-negotiation preferences ofNorthern Irish public opinion in 1996,we concluded that `we do not think it isbeyond the wit of politicians or policy-makersto bundle the issues considered separately herein such a way that the entirety of the relevantpackage might meet with majority non-rejec-tion across both communities. But, for thatto happen, party leaders . . . must havecon®dence that it will be worth theircareers to sign up to such a package.'12

We believe that these conditions weremet during 1996±8. The process of nego-tiation helped shift some parties and theirpublics in the direction of historic com-promises, and that suggests that politi-cians did manage to bundle issuestogether in creative ways. Let us turn tothe referendum to see if this reasoning isjusti®ed.

The referendum

The hard-line views of most Protestantsand Unionists in 1996 did not providepromising material on which to constructa consociational deal, in which they

would be required not only to sharepower with Nationalists in Northern Ire-land but to work within confederal rela-tionships with the Republic of Ireland.The achievement of a cross-communalmajority in the referendum was necessaryfor the establishment of the Assembly.What explains thisÐas we now know itto beÐsuccessful outcome?

First, a word of caution is necessary: aswe might expect, Protestants were lesssupportive than were Catholics of theBritish±Irish (Good Friday) Agreement.In Table 5a we can see that, amongProtestants, support was more likely tobe partial than complete. Yet again, asubstantial proportion of those who op-posed the Agreement were also mixed intheir views. Table 5b shows that eventhose Protestants who voted `Yes' in thereferendum were far more likely to haveconsidered a di�erent (i.e. No) vote (30per cent compared with only 7 per cent ofCatholics). Moreover, this Protestantscepticism was not based in ignorance:more Protestants read the Agreementthan did Catholics, presumably re¯ect-ing, among other things, their greaterconcern about its implications for theUnion. Table 6 shows the proportions ofProtestants and Catholics who reportreading the Agreement.

Despite their extra homework, Pro-testants on balance were a little lessinformed than Catholics, and Unionistswere less informed than Nationalists; and`No' voters were less informed than `Yes'voters. Table 7 presents the results of aquiz about the contents of the Agreement


Table 5a: Endorsement of the Agreement


Support all 15 33 4Support but dislike some 53 58 49Can't support but like some 18 3 28Oppose all Agreement 8 0 13Don't know 6 6 5

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which asked whether the following state-ments were true or false:

. No key decision can be made by theAssembly unless 40 per cent of bothUnionist and Nationalist representa-tives agree.

. Northern Ireland has the right to be-come part of a united Ireland if amajority of people in Northern Irelandvote to do so.

. Prisoners will not be released if theparamilitary organisations to whichthey belong have not decommissionedtheir weapons.

. Parties which win a signi®cant number

of seats in the Assembly are guaranteeda place in the Northern Ireland Execu-tive so long as they keep to the condi-tions of the Agreement.

. The commission on policing could re-commend the creation of a new policeforce to replace the RUC.

. Parties with links to paramilitaryorganisations that have not decommis-sioned their weapons are not allowed aplace on the Northern Ireland Execu-tive.

Levels of knowledge about the Agree-ment were rather high given the di�cultnature of some of the questions asked in


Table 5b: Did you think seriously about voting di�erently?

`Yes' voters (%) `No' voters (%)

Catholic Protestant Catholic Protestant

Did not 90 39 ± 32Did 7 17 ± 10

Table 6: Who has read the Agreement?


All in detail 20 17 23Parts in detail 28 26 30Skimmed through 24 23 25Did not read 28 34 22

Table 7: Knowledge of the contnts of the Agreement

% correct answers

All Catholic Protestant

40% rule 53 60 49United Ireland 68 74 64Prisoner releases/decommissioning 30 31 29Assembly seats/Executive formation 70 72 71Policing commission 29 27 29Paramilitaries/Executive 47 45 51Mean score correct 2.95 3.18 2.85

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our quiz!13 Some validation of the quiz'sstatus as a measure of knowledge wasgiven by the presence of a reasonablystrong and positive relationship betweenquiz scores and the possession of highereducational quali®cations, having a pro-fessional or managerial occupation, beingmale rather than female, and being ìnter-ested in politics'Ðbackground variablesthat successfully predict scores on similarquizzes about political knowledge admi-nistered to the British electorate. Reassur-ingly, respondents who reported havingread the Agreement achieved muchhigher scores on the quiz than thosewho did not.

We can therefore argue that the ideathat if Protestants knew what was actu-ally in the Agreement they would havebeen even more sceptical than they were(and are) is not supported: `Yes'-votingProtestants were a little more informedthan `No' voters, as were those whoswitched from a `No' to a `Yes' voteduring the run-up to the referendum.This is consistent with an analysis ofthose who switched to `Yes' comparedwith those who stayed with `No': thischange occurred most frequently amongeducated and middle-class respondents.

The reasons for Protestant reticenceand doubt are not di�cult to ascertainfrom our survey evidence: Protestantssimply see far more bene®t for National-ists from the Agreement than for Union-ists (see Table 8). The reasons forProtestant endorsement of the Agreement

can better be identi®ed by considering thelikely consequencesÐfor peace and a�u-enceÐof an Agreement compared to con-ditions in a world without one. Table 9shows that substantial proportions ofboth Catholics and ProtestantsÐthoughmore of the former than the latterÐbe-lieve the Agreement will bring peace andprosperity. Table 10 shows referendumvotes by views on the bene®ts from theAgreement. It can be seen that Catholicsvoted `Yes' regardlessÐsupport was notconditional, at least in the terms exam-ined here (peace and prosperity).14 Incontrast, Protestant `Yes' voting wasstrongly related to belief in a positivepay-o�. Without it, support was weak.Thus perceived collective self-interest ap-peared to play some role in swingingProtestants behind the `Yes' camp.15

The Assembly vote of June1998

The positive referendum outcome pro-vided the mandate for the Assembly elec-tions. However, it did not guarantee thatany resulting Assembly would have acomposition that enabled it to functione�ectively. The Assembly election resultwas subject to considerable uncertainty,given the closeness of the referendumvote among the Protestant population,the obvious doubts about the implicationsof the Agreement held by that section ofthe electorate, and the ensuing strident


Table 8: Who bene®ts from the Agreement?Question: Thinking about the Good Friday Agreement, would you say that it bene®ts Unionists morethan Nationalists, Nationalists more than Unionists, or that Unionists and Nationalists bene®t equally?


Unionists a lot more 2 2 2Unionists a little more 3 6 2Nationalists a lot more 24 5 37Nationalists a little more 12 10 14Equal bene®t 46 66 33Don't know 11 11 11

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opposition to the Agreement amongprominent `No' UnionistsÐnot to men-tion that the election was held in the`marching season', and that the referen-dum turnout (especially among generallymore moderate non-voters) was higherthan for the Assembly election.

The use of STV re-introduced an intri-guing element of guesswork into theassessment of the outcome of the election:how would lower order transfers a�ectthe respective blocs and the larger par-ties? On the Nationalist side the SDLPinformally recommended that voters

should transfer their lower-order prefer-ences to pro-Agreement parties, as didsome prominent individuals and civilsociety organisations. But there was noformal pre-election agreement betweenparty elites that attempted to encouragetransfer agreements among voters, eitherwithin blocs or across blocsÐwith thepartial exception of the `No' Unionistparties, Ian Paisley's DUP and RobertMcCartney's UKUP.

What was the outcome? First, the elec-torate did use the STV system to expresssecond and lower-order preferences, and


Table 9: The perceived bene®ts of the AgreementStatement: The Agreement will(a) lead to a lasting peace in Northern Ireland


Strongly agree 3 5 2Agree 30 44 20Neither 22 23 20Disagree 26 14 35Strongly disagree 8 2 13Don't know 11 12 10

(b) bring prosperity


Strongly agree 7 10 5Agree 48 58 41Neither 17 15 18Disagree 14 6 20Strongly disagree 4 1 6Don't know 9 9 9

Table 10: The bene®ts of the Agreement and voting

Catholic Protestant

Yes No Yes No

The Agreement will:lead to a lasting peace in Northern IrelandAgree 100 ± 84 15Not agree 98 ± 50 49bring prosperityAgree 100 ± 77 22Not agree 98 ± 39 59

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this was re¯ected in our sample. Only 8per cent of voters (5.5 per cent of thesample) were `plumpers' who opted forone party choice only. The median num-ber of votes cast was four and the modalnumber was three. So people used theirability to express preferences beyondtheir ®rst choice party or candidate, buthow? Genuine cross-communal transfers,i.e. a Nationalist ®rst preference followedby a lower-order pro-Agreement Union-ist preference, or a pro-Agreement Un-ionist ®rst preference followed by alower-order pro-Agreement Nationalistpreference occurred, though not on amassive scale.16 About 10 per cent of thevoters made a transfer from Unionist toNationalist, and vice versa, at one ormore points in their preference order.Unsurprisingly, `Yes' voters were thosewho switched across blocs. Transferswere far more numerous, however,within blocs, and from pro-AgreementUnionist and Nationalist parties to theAlliance party and the Northern IrelandWomen's Coalition.

This picture should not surprise us.STV played a modest role in `vote-pooling', encouraging some inter-ethnicaccommodation, with voters in one blocrewarding moderation in the other bloc,or rewarding the òther bloc' in prefer-ence to hard-liners within their own bloc.But much more fascinating in this par-ticular election was the extent of transfersamong Unionist voters between pro- andanti-Agreement party candidates. Thiswas far more prevalent than any other

form of transfer among Unionists (seeTable 12).

The net result of transfers among Un-ionists appears to have bene®ted the pro-Agreement parties. As we can see fromTable 13, the bene®ts of STV for pro-Agreement Unionist parties are shownin the changing distribution of votes aswe move from ®rst to fourth choices.17

STV plainly aided ethno-national accom-modation in the way intended by itsadvocates: it enabled a minority of Na-tionalists and Unionists to transfer lower-order preferences to respectively pro-Agreement Unionists and Nationalists,and enabled moderate Nationalists andmoderate Unionists to transfer lower-order preferences to the òthers'ÐtheAlliance party and the Women's Coali-tion. STV also aided the consolidation ofthis settlement in another way. The exist-ence of STV means that Nationalists havebeen able to reward Sinn Fein for becom-ing more moderate by giving them ®rst-preference votes that they would neverhave won when the Republican move-ment was still fully committed to war,and also by giving them lower-orderpreferences that they would otherwisenot have received at any point fromSDLP voters. (SDLP voters now transferto Sinn Fein in signi®cant numbersÐ45 per cent of their terminal transfers goto Sinn Fein when that party is still in therunningÐwhereas in the past the Alli-ance party could expect to pick up mostof the SDLP's voters' lower-order prefer-ences.) In the long run, this change in


Table 11: Preferences (at any point in the preference schedule) by community

Voted for All (%) Catholic (%) Protestant (%)

UUP pro 31 < 9 47UUP anti 10 < 1 16DUP 22 < 3 38Alliance 22 < 21 21SDLP 27 < 58 7Sinn Fein 15 < 38 2No vote 30 < 31 29

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electoral logic may prove very importantin locking Sinn Fein into the Agree-mentÐthough at the cost of squeezingthe Alliance, the major party of theòthers'. In so far as STV works to rewardmoderate and accommodating beha-viour, this pattern may nevertheless beseen to be a vindication of its capacity toameliorate ethno-national cleavages.

But the real surprise was the un-intended impact of STV: the transfersfrom `No' Unionist party candidates to`Yes' Unionist party candidates, whichexplains much of the success in creatingthe requisite Unionist concurrent major-ity in the Assembly. How should this beinterpreted? In one sense, it could beconstrued as rational voting by `No' Un-ionist voters: they used their preferenceschedules to say they preferred `Yes butsceptical' Unionist candidates to Nation-alist candidates of whatever kind. Butrationality at the level of their votingpreference schedules did not take intoaccount the rules of the Assembly: from

the perspective of `No Unionists' whowant to destroy the Agreement it wouldhave been better to have had more `YesNationalists' in the Assembly and fewer`Yes Unionists'. In another sense, thispattern might even be construed ashyper-rational: by making some elected`Yes Unionists' know that their electiondepended upon transfers from `No Un-ionist' voters, the said candidates arelikely to prove less accommodating toNationalists in the Assembly. This e�ectmay well be happening, but we are scep-tical of whether it was intended by therelevant voters. There is at least one otherpossibility: `No Unionist' voters, habitu-ated to transferring between the majorUnionist parties, did not calculate theunintended consequence of their trans-fers to `Yes Unionists'. That is our sur-mise, though we cannot prove it.

The long-run consequence of this eventis likely to be threefold. First, if theAssembly survives, the `No Unionist'parties will encourage their voters to


Table 12: Transfers from ®rst preferences

Transferred to First preference votes (%)

UUP pro UUP anti DUP Alliance SDLP Sinn Fein

UUP pro 73 60 44 33 17 4UUP anti 23 ± 9 12 2 ±DUP 31 27 78 1 6 ±Alliance 37 ± 3 27 35 12SDLP 13 6 3 31 88 56Sinn Fein 4 ± 1 1 41 84None 6 4 5 25 10 1(No) (144) (26) (110) (45) (160) (69)

Table 13: The consequences of transfers for the anti-Agreement Unionist bloc

Votes

1st pref. 2nd pref. 3rd pref. 4th pref. 5th pref. 6th pref

Unionist pro 25.8 24.4 23.3 15.4 9.2 7.5Unionist anti 27.5 23.8 21.1 9.5 4.9 4.4No preference ± 7.6 17.7 46.8 64.0 74.8

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plump for `No Unionist' candidates only.Second, `No Unionist' parties are likely torun more candidates to give their votersmore people to whom to transferÐthough this may back®re on them if itspreads their vote too thinly. Lastly, `NoUnionist' parties will particularly targetthose members of the UUP and the PUPwhom they think were dependent, ormight be dependent, upon `No Unionist'transfers for their election. But, if all thishappens as suggested, pro-Agreementparties and candidates will also haveincentives to respond equally strategic-ally. In short, the institutional impact ofSTV may not have worked in quite theway intended, but it resulted in a positiveoutcome for the Assembly, and may do soagain.

So can the Assembly work? Are itsconcurrent majorities viable?

Public opinion and theviability of a consociationalarrangement

As we have made clear, a central featureof consociation is cross-communal con-sensus; without this, any proposed insti-tutions and practices would lacklegitimacy and probably prove ine�ec-tual. To relate these ideas to the patternsof response we previously used the ideaof looking for the presence, or otherwise,of `concurring majorities' across the twomain blocs in public opinion polls orsurveys.18 Where both blocs agree wecan infer that there is a concurring major-ity. However, we took an additional step,®rst adopted in our paper assessing theextent of concurring majorities on a widerange of issues relevant to consociationalarrangements. This is as follows. Giventhe presence of sizeable proportions of`Don't know/Can't choose' responsesamong samples of voters, a simplemajority within a bloc is likely to be anunnecessarily harsh test of concurrence:`Don't know' and `Can't choose' may

indicate an openness on the part of re-spondents that is clearly not the same as astraightforward rejectionÐthough it maymask many things other than òpenness'.Our argument is this: given negotiations,and compromises in the formulation ofthe options for the region, it may well bethat the `Don't knows' might be per-suadable in the direction of com-promiseÐthough we recognise that theymay equally be amenable to the intransi-gents within their own ethno-nationalbloc. We therefore use a further measureof concurrence in addition to that ofmajority agreement across both commu-nities: the presence of a majority that isnot opposed to an idea across both com-munities (which we label `majority non-opposition'). Rather neatly, perhaps tooneatly, we would claim this measuregives us an approximation at the electorallevel of the weighted majority rule thatcan be used in the Assembly if there is noconcurrent majority.20

Inevitably, the sophisticated, nuancedand legalistic nature of the British±Irish(Good Friday) Agreement does nottranslate easily to a set of survey ques-tions. There has to be a process of sim-pli®cation, which in turn introduces apotential lack of validity into the itemsused to measure public views on theproposals. As with all surveys conductedby CREST, however, the questionnairewas pilot-tested on a number of respon-dents, and their reactions and those ofthe interviewers to the problems encoun-tered in the interview were addressedbefore the main survey was ®elded.This is no guarantee of validity, but itsafeguards against the more obvious pit-falls the survey might encounter.

Respondents' views on the issues aris-ing from the British±Irish Agreementwere addressed by the following ques-tion:

`Now I would like to ask you about your ownviews on some of the proposals contained inthe Good Friday Agreement . . .


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. `the guarantee that Northern Irelandwill remain part of the UK for as longas a majority of people in NorthernIreland wish it to be so;

. `the creation of North±South bodies;

. `the setting up of a Northern IrelandAssembly;

. `the removal of the Republic of Ire-land's constitutional claim to NorthernIreland;

. `the creation of a commission into thefuture of the RUC;

. `decommissioning of paramilitaryweapons;

. `the early release of prisoners;

. `the requirement that the new Execu-tive is power-sharing;

. `that nobody with links to paramili-taries that still have weapons shouldbe allowed to be a government minis-ter;

. `that prisoners should not be releaseduntil the paramilitaries have handed intheir weapons.'

The pattern of cross-communal concur-rence with the relevant issues, whether inagreement or in non-opposition, can beseen in Table 14.

The answers to these questions can beinterpreted as follows. First, most of thesepropositionsÐthe guarantee that North-ern Ireland will remain part of the UK aslong as a majority so wish; the setting upof a Northern Ireland Assembly; the de-commissioning of paramilitary weapons;the requirement that the new Executivebe power-sharing; that nobody with linksto paramilitaries that still have weaponsshould be allowed to be a governmentminister; that prisoners should not bereleased until paramilitaries have handedin their weaponsÐreceived clear concur-rent majority support. Second, the cre-ation of North±South bodies receivedmajority agreement among Catholicsand majority non-opposition among Pro-testants (only 29 per cent were opposed),as did the creation of a commission intothe future of the RUC (40 per cent of

Protestants were opposed). Third, theremoval of the Republic of Ireland's con-stitutional claim to Northern Ireland re-ceived majority agreement amongProtestants and majority non-oppositionamong Catholics (28 per cent opposed).Lastly, on the early release of prisonersCatholics were evenly splitÐ35 per centvs 33 per centÐwhile Protestants werestrongly opposed.

We can conclude that, on the whole,and rather remarkablyÐespecially giventhe evidence of intransigence we haveseen on the part of the Protestant majorityin Northern IrelandÐthe main points ofthe Agreement receive a high degree ofconcurrent endorsement. This is evenmore surprising when we rememberthat ®eldwork took place around thetime that Drumcree IV was in full swing.There is positive agreement with every-thing, except on releasing prisoners anddecommissioningÐand both Catholicsand Protestants in general rejected therelevant components of the Agreement,so that even when opposing the implica-tions of the Agreement there was concur-rence between the views of the twocommunities!21

The data also suggest that DavidTrimble's insistence that the IRA decom-mission its weapons before the NorthernExecutive can be formed including SinnFein members, though textually unwar-ranted by the Agreement, was tappinginto both Unionist and Nationalist sup-port at the time of our survey, though, aswe shall see, this concurrence did not last.

Though the Assembly is one device formanaging ethno-national di�erence,much of its routine functioning will ad-dress `normal' public policy questions;and in this respect it can be seen that inmany ways the Northern Irish electo-rateÐCatholic, Protestant and othersÐisrather unexceptional in its expectations ofand involvement with the Assembly.Table 15 shows that the issues consideredimportant for the Assembly to tackle arerather like those in Great BritainÐthey


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are domestic (jobs, health education andthe like), not obviously constitutional orconcerned with national or sectarianissuesÐthough the question-design maybe the key factor in getting this result.

These issues can provide part of theexplanation for Protestant and Unionistinvolvement in, and acceptance of,

power-sharing arrangements, which formany of them is a major concession to theNationalist community. The promise ofthe Assembly, especially in the light ofdevolution elsewhere in the United King-dom, can be sold to them on grounds ofgood governance, normality, and evennew Britishness.


Table 14: Views on propositions contained in the Agreement


NI remain in UKAgree 86 71 96Neither 11 22 3Disagree 3 8 3North/South bodiesAgree 64 86 47Neither 18 11 23Disagree 18 3 29NI AssemblyAgree 83 88 80Neither 12 10 13Disagree 6 2 8Republic's constitutional claimAgree 63 42 78Neither 23 31 16Disagree 14 27 6Policing commissionAgree 50 74 34Neither 25 21 26Disagree 25 5 40DecommissioningAgree 89 83 93Neither 7 12 4Disagree 3 5 2Prisoner releaseAgree 18 34 7Neither 22 32 15Disagree 60 33 77Power sharingAgree 72 86 62Neither 20 13 25Disagree 8 1 13Paramilitaries/ministersAgree 75 53 88Neither 13 22 6Disagree 13 24 5Prisoners/decommissioningAgree 74 57 84Neither 12 23 10Disagree 11 20 5

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(Almost) one year on: appraisal

Some may say: `But that was then; whatabout now?' What has happened to pub-lic opinion in the dispute-strewn monthsthat have passed since the remarkablesummer of 1998? How has support forthe Agreement and the Assembly fared inthe light of protracted negotiations whichhave failed to see the Agreement deliv-ered in full, or on time?

In the wake of the 1998 elections Pro-testants/Unionists expressed low levelsof satisfaction and considerable disillu-sion with the workings of the politicalsystem in Northern Ireland. Table 16shows that as many as 20 per cent fewerProtestants than Catholics thought the

Assembly election was conducted fairly.They were also less likely to agree thatparties `care what ordinary people think'and more likely to feel that voting `won'tmake a di�erence'. Moreover, there werehigher levels of dissatisfaction with theworkings of democracy in Northern Ire-land among Protestants; a quite di�erentpattern from that observed in previoussurveys.

To add to this gloomy picture, Table 17shows that Protestants were far lessoptimistic about the impact of the Assem-bly on long-term peace in NorthernIreland than were Catholics. But werethey right? Have the months since thesummer of 1998 undermined popularendorsement of the Agreement? Has the


Table 15: What is important to Assembly voters?

Importance (%)

1st pref. 2nd pref. 3rd pref.

Cath. Prot. Cath. Prot. Cath. Prot.

Improve NHS 37 41 20 29 24 17Reduce Protestant discrimination 0 5 5 8 4 5NI leave UK 6 0 6 1 3 0Improve education 11 6 26 27 26 27Stronger voice in UK 3 11 3 12 6 16Reduce Catholic discrimination 11 2 17 4 7 2Increase employment 31 35 23 19 28 31Don't know ± 0 ± 1 2 1

Table 16: Political alienation among Protestants?


The last election was conducted fairlyAgree* 70 83 63

Political parties in Northern Ireland care what ordinary people thinkAgree 45 48 40

Who people vote for won't make a di�erenceAgree 21 14 25

On the whole, how satis®ed are you with the way democracy works in Northern Ireland?Not satis®ed 42 35 48

*Agreement = score 1 or 2 on 5-point scale

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Assembly lost its lustre in the eyes of theNorthern Irish electorate? On 22 and23 April 1999 Ulster Marketing Servicescarried out a survey of a `fully represent-ative' sample of 1,052 adults chosen at 50randomly selected locations in NorthernIreland. From their results we can discernsome important messages.

First, the population of Northern Ire-land are generally less con®dent of peacein 1999 than they were in 1998. Table 18shows that members of both communitieshad become more doubtful that the As-sembly would guarantee long-term peaceby April 1999. Moreover, the majority of

Protestants still perceive that Nationalistshave gained more from the Agreementthan have Unionists (see Table 19).

There are, of course, di�cult questionsfacing the Agreement, in particular thedecommissioning of weapons. Again, asin 1998, there was a concurrent majorityagreement on the need for decommis-sioning. But, by contrast, letting SinnFein members into the Executive withoutprior decommissioning is supported byCatholics in the face of overwhelmingProtestant opposition (see Table 20).22

An Executive without Sinn Fein is notlikely to serve a useful consociational


Table 17: Protestant pessimism about the future of the Assembly and its impact on the`political deadlock in Northern Ireland'


The Agreement has ®nally broken the political deadlock in Northern IrelandAgree 46 69 41Disagree 29 15 40

The Assembly will never lastAgree 25 14 34Disagree 42 54 34

Table 18: Con®dence that there will be long and lasting peace in Northern Ireland

Protestant (%) Catholic (%) Total (%)Apr 99 Jun 98 Apr 99 Jun 98 Apr 99 Jun 98

Very con®dent 2 3 6 16 4 8Fairly con®dent 17 32 37 66 26 47Not very con®dent 45 43 41 15 43 31Not at all con®dent 32 20 13 2 24 12Don't know 4 2 3 1 4 2

Base: All respondents.

Table 19: Who has gained most from the Northern Ireland Agreement?

Protestant (%) Catholic (%) Total (%)

Unionists 2 7 4Nationalists 53 10 35Both gained equally 25 43 37Neither 17 22 19Don't know 4 6 5


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role. The resolution of this issue is funda-mental to the e�ective continuation of theAssembly, and public opinion does notpoint towards any immediately likelyconcurrent agreement.

The problems confronting the new As-sembly would appear to abound. Nonethe less, despite these di�culties, andrather intriguingly, there has been in-creased support for the Agreement amongProtestants: we can see from Table 21 thatbetween 1998 and 1999 there were far

more switchers to support than awayfrom it. Even more impressively, asTable 22 shows, there is cross-communalmajority agreement on the importance ofworking to ensure the survival of theAssemblyÐeven DUP supporters gavemajority support (55%) to this aim!23

On the positive side, we can add to thisthe high levels of satisfaction expressedby both communities with the dual prem-iers, Seamus Mallon (57% from Protes-tants and 81% from Catholics) and David


Table 20: Does a Sinn Fein member of the Assembly have the right to be a member of theExecutive?

Protestant (%) Catholic (%) Total (%)

If no IRA decommissioning hastaken place

11 77 39

Only if IRA has decommis-sioned weapons or explosives 70

19 48

Not under any circumstances 18 2 12Don't know 1 2 1


Table 21: Voting inclination if a referendum were to be held tomorrow

Protestant (%) Catholic (%) Total (%) How voted last May (%)

Yes No

Yes to accept Agreement 58 92 73 91 19No to reject Agreement 39 5 25 7 80Don't know 2 2 3 2 1


Table 22: Views on your politician's policy concerning the Assembly

Total DUP PUP UUP Alliance SDLP Sinn FeinParty support (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

Work to ensure survival ofAssembly as an institution

73 55 65 77 84 89 82

Co-operate with Assemblyonly when it advances theirown principles

15 19 28 15 10 7 13

Work to bring the Assemblyto an end

6 15 3 3 0 2 3

Don't know 7 11 5 4 6 2 2


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Trimble (61% and 65%), and of dissatis-faction with Paisley (52% and 84%). Theseresults indicate cross-community satis-faction with the major pro-Agreementleaders, and concurrent majorities dissa-tis®ed with the major anti-Agreementleader.

There is also continuing cross-commu-nal agreement that the Agreement pro-mises relative peace and wealth. Table 23ashows a dramatic though not unexpecteddi�erence in expectations of peace withand without an Agreement. Even moreinterestingly, Table 23b shows thatNorthern Ireland's prosperity is also per-ceived to depend crucially on the main-tenance of the Agreement. And there isan overwhelming cross-communal ma-jority in favour of the appointment of anExecutive. When asked if it was accept-able `that an Executive should not beformed at all', almost no one (9 per centof Protestants and 3 per cent of Catholics)expressed agreement.

All of these indicators suggest thatpopular endorsement and legitimacy ofthe Assembly and the Agreement appearto be extremely robust. Moreover, evensome of the apparently tricky issues arenot perhaps as divisive as could beexpected. Although replacement of theRUC is not supported with a concurrentmajorityÐbecause of overwhelming Prot-estant oppositionÐits restructuring is, inprinciple, a possible strategy: this obtainsmajority agreement among Catholics andat least majority non-opposition amongProtestants (though 44 per cent wereopposed). The question-wording on theprospects for police reform could havebeen better, but we can conclude thatalthough the Independent Commissionon Policing established by the Agreementwill have its work cut out, it will not beimpossible to propose reforms to policingthat have some prospects of producingconcurrent non-majority opposition inboth blocs.


Table 23a: Level of violence if . . .

Agreement remains in place (%) Agreement is brought to an end (%)

Total Protestant Catholic Total Protestant Catholic

Increase 13 17 8 71 71 70Stay the same 56 58 52 19 20 18Decrease 25 18 34 7 5 9Don't know 6 7 5 4 4 4


Table 23b: Future prosperity if . . .

Agreement remains in place(%) Agreement is brought to an end (%)

Total Protestant Catholic Total Protestant Catholic

More prosperous 55 50 59 6 6 7Remain the same 35 39 31 25 29 21Less prosperous 6 6 6 63 60 67Don't know 4 5 4 6 5 5


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Conclusions

What, then, are the implications of thestate of public opinion for elite pact-makers and the two governments? Thethemes that have emerged from this ex-tensive assessment of Northern Irish pub-lic opinion and voting behaviour over thelast year are numerous, but the ®rst, inparticular, is evident: among the generalpublic, the Nationalists are not the prob-lem with respect to stabilising the Agree-ment. Catholics and Nationalists mayreport having su�ered more in the`troubles', but they are more ready tocompromise; and consequently they con-strain their parties to compromise signi-®cantly. Secondly, Protestants andUnionists, by contrast, are more exclusi-vist, more extreme in their nation-stateidenti®cation, less supportive of compro-mise, and, in the wake of the Assemblyelection, more politically alienated. Theygive no impetus for their parties to com-promise on the Union. They believe thatthe Agreement does not bene®t them asmuch as Nationalists. They are divided,but they are pragmatic: on balance theysee the Agreement as bringing prosper-ity, and peace.

Third, and remarkably, most of theissues negotiated and agreed in theAgreement turn out to be viable, that isthey enjoy cross-communal public sup-port. The Assembly itself may also beworkable as long as STV transfers keepthe `No' segment in a legislative minorityamong Unionists. Certainly, the ®ndingof more support for the Assembly amongProtestants in 1999 than in 1998 is ahealthy sign. So public opinion providesclear pointers about what will and won'twork, though it will not and does notdetermine measures in any direct fashion.In the main, it is positive towards theAgreement: Protestants, who are compara-tively more stubborn, exclusionist and ex-treme, and do not constrain their partiesto adopt centrist positions, may buy intothe pay-o�s of an Agreement. And they

appear to be willing to do so to a greaterextent over timeÐon the basis of twopoints of comparison. The major bone ofcontention among the public, as in theparties, is on the linkage of Executiveformation to prior decommissioning ofweapons by paramilitaries. Public opin-ion o�ers no guide to resolving this im-passe. It does suggest that if the impasseis resolved then the choppiest waters willhave been successfully navigated. And ifthe shifts in public opinion between 1996and 1998 are anything to go by, somefurther creative bundling of the issuessurrounding Executive formation, de-commissioning and demilitarisation maybe able to make this consociational settle-ment more durable than its predecessor,the ill-fated Sunningdale Agreement of1973±4.

Ten years ago one of us highlighted theobstacles to a successful consociationalsettlement in Northern Ireland:

(i) the absence of the necessary motiva-tions among political elites;

(ii) the absence of su�cient autonomyof political elites from their sup-porters necessary to make compro-mise possible; and

(iii) the absence of intra-bloc stabilitywhich might underpin the willing-ness of political elites to make andsustain compromises.24

Since then, condition (i) has materia-lised: hard-line republicans and hard-lineloyalists have accepted the premises of aconsociational settlement, though the Un-ionist bloc is divided on this choice. Con-dition (ii) has partly been bypassedbecause some of the public, especiallyamong Nationalists, have wanted theirleaders to compromise, and some of thepublic, especially among Unionists, havebeen persuaded that the alternatives toconsociation are worse. It is condition (iii)that remains most problematic. TheNationalist bloc does not display straight-forward internal stability, for there issigni®cant competition between Sinn


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Fein and the SDLP; but unlike ten yearsago, it occurs in a world of a moderatedSinn Fein platform. The Unionist bloc, bycontrast, has become more fragmentedand is still characterised by high levelsof intra-bloc electoral competition, whichdoes not facilitate making and sustainingcompromises. The stabilisation of thepro-Agreement Unionists is vital to themaintenance of this settlement. The di�-culty is that it cannot be obtained byunwinding those features of the settle-ment, both procedural and substantive,that have made it acceptable to Repub-licans.

Appendix: The NorthernIreland Referendum andElection Survey

The Northern Ireland Referendum andElection survey was conducted by RES.Surveying started on 30 June 1998, ®vedays after the Assembly elections. Ap-proximately 40 experienced interviewerswere used. Respondents were selectedusing the Postal Address File (PAF) inconjunction with a Kish grid for within-household selection. The ®nal responserate was a reassuringly high 71 per cent.

Notes

1 More generally, consociation involves thefollowing institutional arrangements: ex-ecutive power-sharing; proportionalityrules throughout political institutionsand the public sector(s); community self-government in cultural, educational andreligious (or non-religious) matters; andminority veto-rights. See Arend Lijphart,Democracy in Plural Societies, New Haven,Yale University Press, 1977.

2 For full details see Brendan O'Leary, `TheNature of the British±Irish Agreement',New Left Review, 233, 1999, pp. 66±96.

3 Descriptions of the workings of the singletransferable vote (a system of preferentialvoting in multi-member constituencies)can be found in most guides to electoralsystems; see e.g. Rein Taagepera andMatthew Soberg Shugart, Seats and Votes:The E�ects and Determinants of ElectoralSystems, New Haven and London, Yale

University Press, 1989, pp. 26±8, or DavidFarrell, Comparing Electoral Systems, HemelHempstead, Prentice-Hall, 1997, ch. 6. Itwas a `re-adoption' because in the 1996election to the Northern Ireland PeaceForum the Conservative governmentchose an electoral formula that was trulybyzantineÐa pure region-wide party-listsystem (with a Droop quota followed by ad'Hondt divisorÐmathematically equi-valent to pure d'Hondt) topped up with20 reserved seats, with two to be given toeach of the parties that ®nished in the topten of the region-wide vote-share. It waswidely criticized, though it did facilitatethe election of Loyalist parties (the PUPand the UDP) and the Women's Coali-tionÐparties that played a constructiverole in the inter-party and inter-govern-mental negotiations. Since 1973 STV hasbeen use in Northern Ireland for localgovernment and assembly elections, and


Table A.1: Technical details of the sampling and response rates

No. %

Total addresses issued 1,539Vacant, derelict and other out of scope 183In scope 1,356

Interview achieved 965 71.2Interview not achieved 391 28.8

Refused 188 13.9Non-contacted 165 12.2Other non-response 38 2.8

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since 1979 it has been used for elections tothe European Parliament. What was novelabout the June 1998 elections was that STVwas being used after an agreement hadbeen reached by Nationalist and Unionistpolitical elites.

4 This study was funded by the Economicand Social Research Council, and con-ducted through the auspices of the Centrefor Research into Elections and SocialTrends (CREST). The questionnaire andsurvey were designed by Geo�rey Evansin collaboration with John Curtice ofCREST, and Bernadette Hayes andLizanne Dowds of the Queen's University,Belfast, together with advice from a rangeof experts on the region, including Bren-dan O'Leary.

5 We use the terms Catholic and Protestantto refer to cultural Catholics and culturalProtestantsÐthese labels imply no sugges-tion that the con¯ict is primarily religious;indeed we would argue vigorouslyagainst this thesis.

6 Such experience not only tells its ownstory, but can be expected to a�ect atti-tudes towards the treatment of prisonerswho have been sentenced for `scheduledo�ences' and the vexed issue of decom-missioning.

7 Despite this, Catholics are more likely tounderstand the reasons behind Loyalistviolence than vice versa: Catholics are al-most as likely to say they have `sympathywith reasons for the violence' with respectto Loyalist paramilitaries (20 per cent) asthey are for Republican paramilitaries (27per cent)Ða gap of only 7 per centÐwhereas Protestants are more one-sided:30 per cent have `sympathy with' thereasons for Loyalist violence, but only 12per cent report having some sympathy forNationalist violenceÐa gap of 18 per cent.

8 The greater exclusionist and anti-integra-tionist/assimilationist disposition amongProtestants occurs despite the generallymore negative experiences associatedwith the troubles reported by Catholics,which correlate at the individual levelwith opposition to integration.

9 For a discussion of the di�erence be-tween di�erence-elimination and di�er-ence-management approaches to con¯ict-regulation see John McGarry and Brendan

O'Leary, The Politics of Ethnic Con¯ictRegulation, London and New York, Rout-ledge, 1993, ch. 1.

10 Geo�rey Evans, `Northern Ireland duringthe Cease-®re', in R. Jowell, A. Park, L.Brook and K. Thomson, eds, British SocialAttitudes: The 13th Report, Aldershot, Dart-mouth, 1996, pp. 117±40; Geo�rey Evansand Brendan O'Leary, `Frameworked Fu-tures: Intransigence and Flexibility in theNorthern Irish Elections of May 30 1996',Irish Political Studies, 1997, pp. 23±47.

11 Evans and O'Leary, `Frameworked Fu-tures', p. 29, Table 2.

12 Ibid., p. 44 (italics in original).13 The summated quiz scores have an alpha

of 0.61, which for 6 items with dichoto-mous response categories is acceptable.

14 The survey did not include a question onwhether people thought the Agreementmade the Union safe/unsafe or a uni®edIreland more likely/unlikely.

15 More detailed multivariate analyses iden-ti®ed which aspects of the Agreementmost di�erentiated `Yes' and `No' voters.These will be considered elsewhere.

16 Our sample results are consistent with theprovisional analysis of actual votes byRichard Sinnott, who argues that the `keytests here are UUP to SDLP transfers whenthe Alliance Party was not available, andSDLP to UUP transfers when Sinn Feinwas not available. In the former case 36percent of UUP terminal transfers went tothe SDLP. Unfortunately [because of thecounting data] there is no direct measureof SDLP to UUP transfers . . . [but oneindirect measure suggests a] rate of trans-fer [that exactly matches that] going in theopposite direction': Richard Sinnott, `Cen-trist Politics makes Modest but Signi®cantProgress: Cross-community TransfersWere Low', Irish Times, 29 June 1998. Oursample transferred less (an e�ect of thearti®cial ballot in our design?), but in thecross-communal matching fashion sug-gested by Sinnott.

17 An analysis of the possible sources of fullcross-communal (Unionist to Nationalistand vice versa) switching in Assemblyvoting indicates that such voters aredi�erent in their attitudes towards therelease of prisoners and the Republic'sconstitutional claim from non-switchers.


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They are also more middle-class, educatedand supportive of compromise by theirleaders.

18 An idea ®rst advanced by Richard Rose,Ian McAllister and Peter Mair, Is There aConcurring Majority in Northern Ireland?,Glasgow, Strathclyde Papers in Public Pol-icy no. 22, 1978.

19 Evans and O'Leary, `Frameworked Fu-tures'.

20 In our earlier study we included the evenweaker criterion of plurality agreementrather than simple majority agreementwithin both communities as an optionÐwhich again might approximate weightedmajority support in the Assembly. Noissue in this study required us to use thisweaker criterion to generate somethingapproximating cross-community consen-sus, so it is not employed here.

21 The Omagh bombing occurred almost atthe end of ®eldwork, so it will not havea�ected the vast majority of responses tothese questions: after the bombing 26 ad-

dresses in the Omagh area were with-drawn from the survey and recorded asòut of scope'.

22 In 1998 Catholics did not in general en-dorse this practice. It could be that theCatholic position has changed since 1998,but it is more likely that this issue hasbecome explicitly focused on Sinn FeinÐwho are explicitly referred to in the UMSquestionÐrather than on the general prin-ciple of decommissioning and Executivemembership examined in the 1998 survey.

23 This level of support compares favourablywith the answers to a similar questionasked in 1998.

24 Brendan O'Leary, `The Limits to CoerciveConsociationalism in Northern Ireland',Political Studies, 1989, pp. 562±88; cf. ErikA. Nordlinger, Con¯ict Regulation in Di-vided Societies, Occasional Papers in Inter-national A�airs, no. 29, Cambridge, Mass.,Harvard University Centre for Interna-tional A�airs, 1972.


Documents

Northern Irish Voters and the Britishâ€“Irish Agreement