Pragmatists versus dogmatists: Explaining the failure of power-sharing in Northern Ireland during the 1970s

Abstract

2This article argues that the failure of Northern Ireland's first power-sharing executive, and subsequent attempts to restore power-sharing during the 1970s, was the result of conflicting attitudes towards devolution among Northern Ireland's politicians.Traditional ideological divisions between nationalists and unionists were not the primary barrier to creating and sustaining cross-community institutions, as stressed in accounts of this period premised on consociational theory. Drawing extensively from archival sources, it argues that the split between the pragmatists from both communities, prepared to compromise their core principles and accept powersharing devolution within a United Kingdom (UK) framework, and the dogmatists (both nationalists and unionists) who refused to contemplate any compromise to their core position prevented a consensual political settlement emerging during the 1970s.

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