Abandoning Historical Conflict?:Former Paramilitary Prisoners and Political Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

Drawing on over 150 interviews with republican and loyalist former prisoners, this is a major analysis of why Northern Ireland has seen a transition from war to peace. Most accounts of the peace process are `top-down', relying upon the views of political elites. This book is `bottom-up', analysing the voices of those who actually `fought the war'. What made them fight, why did they stop and what their lessons are for other conflict zones?

Using unrivalled access to members of the armed groups from both sides of the communal divide, the book offers a critical appraisal of one-dimensional accounts of the onset of peace. It critiques arguments that Northern Ireland's peace process was grounded in a `mutually hurting stalemate' and `ripeness', arguing that such portrayals downgrade the political and economic aspects of conflict. Military statemate had been evident since the early 1970s and offers little in explaining the timing of the peace process. Moreover, republicans and loyalists based their ceasefires upon very different perceptions of transformation or victory.

Based on a Leverhulme Trust project and written by an expert team, Abandoning historical conflict? offers a new analysis, based on subtle interplays of military, political, economic and personal changes and experiences. Combined, these allowed combatants to move from violence to peace whilst retaining core ideological beliefs and maintaining long-term constitutional visions.

Many former prisoners now act as ambassadors for peace in Northern Ireland. Knowledge of why and how combatants switch to peaceful methodologies, amid widespread scepticism over prospects for peace, is essential to our understanding of the management of global peace processes. Abandoning historical conflict? is essential reading for policy-makers, academics, students and anyone with an interest in how war can become peace

Peter Shirlow is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at Queen's University Belfast
Jonathan Tonge is Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool
James McAuley is Professor of Sociology and Irish Studies at the University of Huddersfield
Catherine McGlynn is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Huddersfield