The Business of Building Peace: Private Sector Cooperation across the Irish Border

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The sustainability of cross-border peacebuilding initiatives is increasingly pertinent in a context of reduced public funding (national and European), yet the potential contribution to be made to this from private sector cooperation remains under-explored. This paper brings together quantitative data on cross-border trade with qualitative evidence from business leaders in the Irish border region in order to examine the nature of cross-border cooperation within the private sector and its possible connections to peacebuilding. We analyse this evidence in the light of three theses: spillover, contact and business-based peacebuilding. The first part of this paper assesses the conditions for cross-border business cooperation in Ireland, including funding support for economic development, European integration, and (post-Agreement) institutional change. The second part examines the particular contributions made by the private sector to peace, centring upon consciously nonpolitical motivations (such as pragmatism and profit), networking and leadership. Unlikely peacebuildersUp to now you haven't heard of me at all in the, if you like, activity of peace making or joining North and South because I am a business person and we were simply there to make stuff in the North and sell it into the South and make a few bob out of it. 1If the private sector is ever considered in relation to peacebuilding it is usually in one of two roles: providing the means to facilitate material development 'up and out' of conflict or (in a less direct way) as a locus of actors with significant influence in their local communities. Lederach's (1997) conception of business people as fitting into the 'middle range leadership' bracket is a typical one: they are there as pillars of the community, and if they engage and 9 / Hayward-Magennis: business ver 9 (12)-editors -9.2-invest in local 'normalising' processes it is hoped that others will follow. In order to test the extent to which this private sector 'peacebuilding' contribution has wider (political) significance, this paper traces the development of commercially-driven business cooperation in light of the patterns of North-South trade and public sector or international investment in cross-border business. To do so, it draws on quantitative data on trade flows and investment patterns as well as qualitative data in the form of the verbal accounts of key business leaders associated with cross-border cooperation prior to and during the peace process, including contributions from 13 key business leaders, plus additional comments from another five politicians and civil servants from both sides of the border who have been particularly supportive of cross-border economic initiatives.3 The fact that we are looking at the Irish border rather than the Irish Sea as the critical state boundary in this study means that our focus rests less on British and Irish state policy and institutions than on more directly cross-border influences, including EU initiatives and North-South institutions.For theor...

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“…During the height of the so‐called Troubles, a militarised and policed border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland made cross‐border trade difficult. As a result, the Border region is economically disadvantaged compared to other parts of the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland is economically disadvantaged compared to other parts of the United Kingdom (Hayward & Magennis, 2014, pp. 157–158).…”

Corporate Social Responsibility and Peacebuilding: Analysis of a multinational company from Colombia

“…The notion of peacebuilding found its conceptual origin in theoretical studies about conflict (Hayward and Magennis, 2014). In this respect, Galtung (1976) understands peacebuilding as that in charge of providing the conditions for positive peace sustainability, intervening war's structural causes.…”

“…Now, the past decade has been set as a period in which the studying on the business's sector participation in peacebuilding has intensified (Bond, 2014;Oetzel, Westermann-Behaylo, Koerber, Fort and Rivera, 2010;Prandi, 2010b;Rettberg, 2010;2016). However, despite growing political, business and acadeic interest surrounding the business-peace relationship (Ford, 2015), relatively little is known about business leaders' role in peacebuilding processes (Hayward and Magennis, 2014) and the behavior of big business actors, who serve as a reference for other companies (Llorente, Palou, Rivas, Prieto, Miranda and Navarrete, 2012).…”

Irish construction cross border trade and Brexit: Practitioner perceptions on the periphery of Europe

“…Irish Cross-border cooperation has been credited as making a vital contribution to building prosperity and peace on the island of Ireland, particularly in the underdeveloped border region (Hayward and Magennis 2014). Cooperation between companies also reaps other benefits towards development, such as knowledge exchange and increased innovation (Roper 2006).…”

“…This is not to say that the Irish land border does not act as a fault line dividing the economies of the North and South of Ireland in economic terms; it separates the more dynamic South, the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland (de Mars et al 2016). The Northern economy has growth levels which lag behind those of the more dynamic south (Hayward and Magennis 2014). In 2003, public spending was 67% of GDP in the North, compared to 34.5% in the South (CSO 2003).…”