As the year 2017 began, a political crisis in Northern Ireland caused the collapse of the power-sharing administration for which provision had been made in the Belfast Agreement of 1998, and which had been in office for a... [ view full abstract ]
As the year 2017 began, a political crisis in Northern Ireland caused the collapse of the power-sharing administration for which provision had been made in the Belfast Agreement of 1998, and which had been in office for a decade. Previous crises in the power-sharing administration had been sparked by the very issues that the Belfast agreement had been designed to resolve, such as conflict over ethnic symbols, disagreement over the administration of the justice system and disputes over the process of paramilitary disarmament. What is striking about the new crisis is that the central issue was not one that obviously separated the two communities (the Protestant or unionist community, about 50% of the population, and the Catholic or nationalist community, about 45%). It concerned instead the administration of a renewable energy heating scheme, a so-called “cash for ash” arrangement by which participants in the scheme agreed to introduce wood pellet-fired heating systems in return for a subsidy that in effect paid 160% of fuel costs. The irony that the government collapsed over a sustainable energy scheme that apparently cut across the interests of the two communities raises important questions about the tension between sustainable development and the pursuit of settlement in post-conflict societies.
Our object in this paper is to explore this tension further in the context of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16, which focuses on “the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, the provision of access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels”. More specifically, certain of the targets associated with this goal have particular relevance here: the reduction of corruption and bribery, the development of effective, accountable and transparent institutions, the encouragement of responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making, and the promotion and enforcement of non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development. These targets have obvious relevance for a wide range of societies that face the challenge of development, but are particularly important in ethnically divided societies, where one group has typically enjoyed a position of socio-economic, cultural and political dominance, with all the implication this has for corrupt behaviour, absence of transparency, minority exclusion from decision making, and discriminatory practices. It was precisely the monopoly enjoyed by one community in Northern Ireland in these respects that sparked the conflict in Northern Ireland; and the Belfast agreement in 1998 was an effort to rectify this. In this paper we trace the subsequent tensions that indicated imperfect acceptance of these principles, and we assess the continuing salience of Sustainable Development Goal 16 for Northern Ireland’s future evolution. In particular the ability of the power sharing arrangement to introduce policy that induces the necessary economic, social and political transitions needed to achieve a sustainable, inclusive and prosperous society in Northern Ireland.
