Politics of Antagonism

Written during the Northern Ireland peace process and just before the Good Friday Agreement <i>The Politics of Antagonism</i> sets out to answer questions such as why successive British Governments failed to reach a power-sharing settlement in Northern Ireland and what progress has been made with the Anglo-Irish Agreement. O'Leary and McGarry assess these topics in the light of past historical and social-science scholarship in interviews of key politicians and in an examination of political violence since 1969. The result is a book which points to feasible strategies for a democratic settlement in the Northern Ireland question and which allows today's scholars and students to analyse approaches to Northern Ireland from the perspective of the recent past.