The Erosion of Consent: Protestant Disillusionment with the 1998 Northern

Consociational solutions to communal conflict depend crucially on the consent of the participants to the new institutional arrangements. The most recent attempt to solve the Northern Ireland conflict, the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, initially attracted majority support from Protestants, but since then consent had steadily declined. All Protes-tant opponents of the Agreement share a strong underlying view that it unduly benefits nationalists at the expense of unionists. In addition, those who are generally disillusioned with the Agreement identify north-south bodies, reform of the police, and powersharing as major concerns. By contrast, those who were initially supportive of the Agreement but who have become disillusioned since 1998 identify the dysfunctional nature of the Assembly and Executive as a major cause of their dissent. The results suggest that Protestant consent for the Agreement will only return if and when the political institutions it created are seen to operate efficiently. Since 1972 there have been eight separate attempts to establish a devolved, power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. All have been loosely based on the notion of consociationalism – an association of communities – using a model pioneered b