Political Radicalization in the Making: the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, 1968-1972 Open Access

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the radicalization of contention in Northern Ireland during the "Troubles" between 1968 and 1972. Three arenas of contention - intra-movement dynamic, movement-countermovement interactions and the structure of opportunities/threats available in the political system - are examined to explain the radicalization of the Civil Rights Movement and the ignition of political violence in those years. The radicalization of contention is explored through Quantitative Narrative Analysis (QNA), an innovative methodological approach that relies on computer-assisted story grammars (the Subject (S) - Action (A) - Object (O) sequence and their modifiers) to parse narrative texts. The research strategy is to unveil social actors, their interactions and tactics within contentious events. Relying on 2,097 entries from a three-volume chronology of contentious events in Northern Ireland, I compiled a relational database of 6,036 semantic triplets detailing "who did what, when, where, why and how". The analysis of these data via sequential network models allows the reconstruction of the nature and evolution of the interactions among the main political actors involved in the "Troubles". In particular, four distinct phases of the conflict are unveiled through network models of violence, indicating how and when the conflict radicalized, and how actors shifted their strategies of contention. Archival data are used to further specify how mechanisms of radicalization, such as intra-movement competition, political outbidding, hostile counter-mobilization, repression, object shift and boundary activation, engendered the conflict, thus illustrating why actors radicalized their requests and tactics.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
The Conflict in Northern Ireland .................................................................................................... 3
Radical Contentious Politics ........................................................................................................... 8
Arenas of Contention .................................................................................................................... 11
Intra-Movement Dynamics ....................................................................................................... 12
Intra-Movement Competition ............................................................................................... 12
Political Outbidding .............................................................................................................. 13
Movement-Countermovement Interactions .............................................................................. 16
Opportunities/Threats in the Political System .......................................................................... 19
Radical Scenarios .......................................................................................................................... 23
Methods to Study Contention ....................................................................................................... 27
Dissertation Plan ........................................................................................................................... 31
Chapter 2: Northern Ireland as a Site of Contention .............................................................. 33
Social Relations of Conflict and Network Models. .................................................................. 34
Civil Rights Protests and Civil Disturbances (August 1968-July 1969)............................... 35
The Outbreak of Ethnic Antagonism (August 1969-January 1971) ..................................... 40
The Resurgence of Paramilitary Activity (February 1971-July 1971) ................................. 45
Armed Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency (August 1971-December 1972) ...................... 48
The Landscape of Contention: GIS Models.............................................................................. 56
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 59
Chapter 3: The Emergence of the CRM and its Opponents in 1968...................................... 60
Stormont System of Power ........................................................................................................... 60
Origins of the Civil Rights Movement.......................................................................................... 63
In Search of Constitutional Redress: The Precursors of the CRM (1963-1968). ..................... 63
The Birth of the CRM in Northern Ireland: The Militant Route (1968). .................................. 67
Reactions to Civil Rights Mobilization......................................................................................... 71
Unionist Perceptions and Reactions to the CRM. ..................................................................... 71
RUC's Perceptions and Policing of the CRM........................................................................... 74
The Unionist Government and the CRM. ................................................................................. 79
"Not an Inch!" Loyalist Reactions to the CRM ........................................................................ 82
Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 88
Chapter 4: 1969 and the Historical Context of the Troubles .................................................. 90
People's Democracy and the "Long March" ................................................................................ 91
February Elections and Contained Contention ............................................................................. 97
Back to the Streets: the Radicalization of the CRM ................................................................... 103
The Summer of 1969 and the Onset of the Troubles .................................................................. 112
The Battle of the Bogside. ...................................................................................................... 116
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 118
Chapter 5: The Troubles and Ethno-national Contention .................................................... 121
The Radicalization of Contention ............................................................................................... 122
Hostile counter-mobilization .................................................................................................. 122
Socialization to Violence. ................................................................................................... 123
Object Shift. ........................................................................................................................ 125
Repression. .............................................................................................................................. 130
Legitimation of Political Violence. ..................................................................................... 131
Boundary Activation. .......................................................................................................... 134
The Aftermath of August 1969 ................................................................................................... 138
Political Outbidding in the CRM. ........................................................................................... 141
The CRM and the Issue of Violence. ...................................................................................... 146
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 151
Epilogue .................................................................................................................................... 153
A Contentious Politics Approach to the Troubles ...................................................................... 154
The Four Phases of the Conflict.............................................................................................. 159
Why Was This Time Different? Civil Right Contention and the Troubles ............................ 164
Methodological Appendix ........................................................................................................ 172
Methodological Approach .......................................................................................................... 173
Quantitative Narrative Analysis .............................................................................................. 175
Software for QNA: PC-ACE. ............................................................................................. 179
Sources of QNA Data ............................................................................................................. 179
Data Validity ....................................................................................................................... 184
Data Reliability ................................................................................................................... 188
Retrieval and Analysis of QNA Data. ..................................................................................... 189
Network Analysis................................................................................................................ 191
Spatial Analysis .................................................................................................................. 193
Limits of QNA ........................................................................................................................ 194
Archival Data .......................................................................................................................... 196
Appendix A: Story Grammar .................................................................................................. 199
Appendix B: Coded Output ..................................................................................................... 206

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Sociology
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Sociology, General
Keyword	"Troubles" Civil Rights Movement Political Violence Northern Ireland Radicalization
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Franzosi, Roberto, Emory University
Committee Members	Boli, John E, Emory University Oliver, Pamela, University of Wisconsin at Madison Hicks, Alexander, Emory University

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