Northern Ireland

In this book, Frank Wright looks at the Northern Ireland problem, and compares it with the problems of other societies, past and present, which have suffered a similar kind of intractable, communal violence. In particular, he examines Lebanon, Cyprus, French Algeria, U.S. Deep South prior to desegregation and Bohemia in the early decades of the 20th century. He argues that the common factor is that these are all societies of the frontier, where colonial expansion of one sort or another reaches its limit. The result is a dominant population of colonizers who are locked in a permanently adversarial relationship with a dominated native population. In every case, formal power lies in the hands of a remote metropolitan authority but in practice is devolved to local institutions controlled by the dominant colonizing group whose only means of maintaining social and political control is the continued domination of the natives and their exclusion from political power. In other words, frontier colonial societies depend upon discrimination and segregation for their very existence.
Frank Wright looks at the other societies under review and considers how they have dealt with their conflicts, comparing the Northern Ireland experience with each of them in turn. His book underlines an important point: that some political arrangements are both chronically unstable and fundamentally irreconcilable. In such societies, the best is the enemy of the good. The search for the "best" solution makes any solution at all practically impossible.
 
In this book, Frank Wright looks at the Northern Ireland problem, and compares it with the problems of other societies, past and present, which have suffered a similar kind of intractable, communal violence. In particular, he examines Lebanon, Cyprus, French Algeria, U.S. Deep South prior to desegregation and Bohemia in the early decades of the 20th century. He argues that the common factor is that these are all societies of the frontier, where colonial expansion of one sort or another reaches its limit. The result is a dominant population of colonizers who are locked in a permanently adversarial relationship with a dominated native population. In every case, formal power lies in the hands of a remote metropolitan authority but in practice is devolved to local institutions controlled by the dominant colonizing group whose only means of maintaining social and political control is the continued domination of the natives and their exclusion from political power. In other words, frontier colonial societies depend upon discrimination and segregation for their very existence.
Frank Wright looks at the other societies under review and considers how they have dealt with their conflicts, comparing the Northern Ireland experience with each of them in turn. His book underlines an important point: that some political arrangements are both chronically unstable and fundamentally irreconcilable. In such societies, the best is the enemy of the good. The search for the "best" solution makes any solution at all practically impossible.