This book gives an innovative account of communal identity in Northern Ireland and its relationship with a changing landscape. It argues that the development of a multi-level polity in the European Union (EU) and the sustained Anglo-Irish commitment to political process in Northern Ireland are twin dynamics shifting the political context for Ulster Unionist and northern Irish Nationalist identities. In this changing context, the modern emphasis on objectivity and territorial parameters delimited by the nation-state are beginning to be displaced by a postmodern concern for the representation...

By focusing on the possibilities for change created by the dynamics of European integration and the Anglo-Irish political process, this book provides a refreshing account of communal identity in Northern Ireland. The book argues that such a shift in conditions has major implications for Northern Irish Nationalist and Ulster Unionist identities.

Scholars across the humanities and social sciences are increasingly examining the importance of European integration and Europeanisation to changing notions of local, regional, national and supranational identity in Europe. As part of this interest, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, political scientists and others have paid particular attention to the roles which EU policies and initiatives have played in the construction of local, regional and national identity in Europe, and in the reframing of various forms of culture. This volume provides the first multidisciplinary look at the...

Cross-border cooperation is integral to the peace-building objective of the EU. Yet, 25 years of such cooperation has often failed to translate into connecting people across borders. This study assesses the significance of cross-border cooperation for addressing Europe's conflict wounds and examines its prospects in an enlarged EU of 28 members.