Columbia International Affairs Online

CIAO DATE: 9/07

Culture and Conflict

Culture and Conflict

No. 56 - Winter 2005

Military Forces And Internal Security: Northern Ireland as a metaphor

Is the example of Northern Ireland being transposed to the international level through the interventions of the military within national boundaries? Indeed, there is much more at stake in the participation of the military in domestic security than what seems to be presupposed by the institutional and bureaucratic discourse. It finds in the example of Northern Ireland its most thought-provoking illustration. A reflexive approach to “Northern Ireland as a metaphor” allows shedding new light on the contemporary discourses on the state of emergency. This issue of Cultures & Conflits tries to grasp the moments at which the military wants to get involved in internal security and the protection of the boundaries, mobilizing for this purpose the discourses of the professionals of politics. The authors try to show in this issue how the recourse to the argument of an existential threat becomes a justification for measures that are derogatory to the individual rights, for restrictions to civil liberties and even sometimes for a state of emergency. They illustrate the short-lived illusions of the security discourses and the coercive agencies. They show that in order to reinstate, if not peace, at least a cease-fire, a political logic of mediation is required. But would a Good Friday agreement at the international level be possible?