The troubles in Northern Ireland and theories of social movements

This volume focuses on a number of research questions, drawn from social movement scholarship: How does nonviolent mobilisation emerge and persist in deeply divided societies? What are the trajectories of participation in violent groups in these societies? What is the relationship between overt mobilisation, clandestine operations and protests among political prisoners? What is the role of media coverage and identity politics? Can there be non-sectarian collective mobilisation in deeply divided societies? The answers to these questions do not merely try to explain contentious politics in Northern Ireland; instead, they inform future research on social movements beyond this case. Specifically, we argue that an actor-based approach and the contextualisation of contentious politics provide a dynamic theoretical framework to better understand the Troubles and the development of conflicts in deeply divided societies.-- 1 Contextualizing the troubles : investigating deeply divided societies through social movements research, Lorenzo Bosi and Gianluca De Fazio -- 2 What did the civil rights movement want? : changing goals and underlying continuities in the transition from protest to violence, Niall Ó Dochartaigh -- 3 Vacillators or resisters? : the unionist government responses to the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, Erin-Beth Turner and Gianluca De Fazio -- 4 White negroes and the pink IRA : external mainstream media coverage and civil rights contention in Northern Ireland, Gregory Maney -- 5 'We are the people' : protestant identity and collective action in Northern Ireland, 1968-1985, Sarah Campbell -- 6 Ulster loyalist accounts of armed mobilization, demobilization, and decommissioning, Neil Ferguson and James W. McAuley -- 7 Social movements and social movement organizations : recruitment, ideology, and splits, Robert W. White and Tijen Demirel-Pegg -- 8 Movement inside and outside of prison : the H-block protest, Denis O’Hearn -- 9 'Mother Ireland, get off our backs' : republican feminist resistance in the North of Ireland, Theresa O’Keefe -- 10 'One community, many faces' : non-sectarian social movements and peace-building in Northern Ireland and Lebanon, John Nagle -- 11 The peace people : principled and revolutionary non-violence in Northern Ireland, Lee A. Smithe