We the People
Chekist has had an interesting sequence (also here and here) on civic Unionism over on Three Thousand Verts of Loneliness that was picked up last month by United Irelander (with, for UI, a pretty interesting comments thread) and has timed its latest installment most appropriately for tonight. It's been an interesting series, probably more interesting than UI has allowed, but I do find it somewhat problematic.
On the specific level of the posts, I am suspicious of the robustness of the civic defence of Ulster Unionism. Purely civic philosophies that are attached to place are highly difficult to maintain. A civic philosophy would simply suggest that one ought to lend one's allegiance to be the available state that best meets the values one believes ought to be embodied in a state: democracy, rule of law, civic freedoms (formally and informally) etc. So one can be a Unionist for nothing more than the pragmatic reason that, assuming Paris is too far away, Westminster rule delivers on these norms to a greater degree than Dublin rule does.
The natural difficulty behind this sort of argument is that it is vulnerable to constant demands for a re-evaluation of the merits of both states (a strategy that UI leaps at). The moment Ireland best meets your political norms your allegiances ought to switch.
I sincerely doubt that this is a possibility many Unionists hold to, however. In fact, while it's probably right that the primary reason behind the rise of loyalist culturalism is that it is tracking the success of Irish cultural nationalism, it must also be to do with the fact that the pragmatic economic and social reasons for rejecting Irish unification are becoming ever more difficult for Unionists to sustain.1
I suspect that allegiances in general are quite a bit stickier than civic patriots let on. States are like families: they have to become highly abusive before we head off to find something better. And sometimes not even then. Though things can get that bad, as evidenced by past Irish emigration and current emigration from Africa's kleptocracies, if we're to explain the general stickiness of people's allegiances, at least in the medium term, we're going to have to turn towards the attractions of deeper nationalisms than the civic tradition is comfortable with.
This places the more civic-minded (as opposed to culturally-minded) in the inenviable position of holding a political philosophy that describes how people ought to be in the world while simultaneously acknowledging that there is little evidence that this is how people can be. Wanting people to be more patriotic and less nationalist is a good thing. It's a huge and generally unpalatable leap, however, from having aspirations for society to devising of programmes that might encourage a shift in prevailing norms. Social engineering never looks very good.
Anyway, back to Ulster Unionism. Chekist wants an inclusive Unionism that is engaged with the rest of the UK. Which is a very good thing to my mind. One ought to actively engage with the state at all levels. But that doesn't really answer the driving question for Northern Ireland - what is Northern Ireland to be? If Unionism was entirely civic, then Unionists would simply shrug their shoulders at the border question, essentially leaving their judgements to an index along which performance on various norms will be measured. The fact that I don't suppose very many people actually do that reveals that, at best, Ulster Unionism is part of an across-the-UK soft British nationalism. More likely, it's very much a local variant on British nationalism. And that Unionism certainly has borders.
Of course, none of this is by way of a defence of Irish nationalism. Quite the contrary. I'm simply making the point that societies have a terrible habit of seeing themselves as being more than the sum of their individual parts. Many nations have argued that their sentiments are different, more rational, but I'm genuinely sorry to say that I know of none where the claim is particularly credible. For the most part, the force of 'shining city on a hill' arguments lie not in the city's merits but in who lays claim to the hill.
1 That said, as the health of the Irish economy and the sanity of Irish society has improved, the argument for a United Ireland has looked ever more incoherent from the southern side of the border.
Navigation
Recent blog posts
Recent comments
- Thanks Paddy, not that you'll
5 days 17 hours ago - That's a facetious remark
6 days 7 hours ago - I friend is a submariner
2 weeks 19 hours ago - Off to look at it now Fergus.
2 weeks 2 days ago - Thanks Fergus. I think it's
2 weeks 2 days ago - In the latest issue of the
2 weeks 2 days ago - We didn't tell the EU to
2 weeks 2 days ago - Maybe so, but experience
3 weeks 4 days ago - Imagine if there were vast
3 weeks 4 days ago - Thanks Stefan. I'll take a
3 weeks 5 days ago
Comments
Chekist:
Thanks for the comment on my blog and for your thoughts here Ciaran.
You raise some interesting points and I will attempt to address them in more detail whenever I get a free half hour. Just a general thought though. I don't think civic narratives are as rootless as perhaps you suggest. Although primarily cleaving to the institutions and values propogated through them, the shared history these institutions give us, the culture and ethos which grow up around them, provide a sense belonging and coherence. What differentiates this identity from identities fostered by nationalism, is that there is no necessity for an ethnic or religious core.
Incidentally I attempted to link your extremely interesting blog to my site, but alas blogger is not playing ball at the moment.
Ciarán:
Thanks for the comment and the (attempted!) link Chekist.
You're right that shared history, a long-standing tradition of toleration or the like might give people good grounds for having pride in the institutions of a specific state. But the pride of a civic patriot stops being all that civic once they refuse the equal validity of similar or identical claims from citizens of other states (well, the plausible ones anyway).
The problem I'm highlighting arises when one actually has a literal choice to make between between membership of two states with roughly identical institutional characteristics. Pride in specific institutions might be entirely valid but might still not provide good grounds in and of itself for choosing, say, Britain over Ireland.
If Ireland was somehow proven to have superior institutions, then one might maintain pride in British institutions, as one might have good thoughts about a trustworthy old car, but still conclude that it's time for a change.
That said, while I don't see the informative value of pride here, there might be good reasons for being a 'moderate boundary conservative,' so to speak. There would be very good reasons for recognising and accounting for the disruption caused to people by change in and of itself. There might well be benefits to territorial stickiness (though surely not a total refusal to contemplate change) even if we could somehow prove that Ireland was a better place to be than the UK.
For the moment, as I see it, the NHS remains the primary institutional reason for NI remaining in the UK. Apart from that Mexico looks pretty American to me!
oneill:
Ciaran
If you remove Ulster from "Unionism", are their strong social and economic reasons for people in Scotland and Wales voting to maintain the Union?
I think so, and at that particular moment, those people who did vote to maintain the Union for those reasons could be classified as "civic unionists". I guess in Scotland there would be still a small minority, who, for reasons of religion or whatever, would vote for the Union for cultural reasons, the same maybe in England and Wales, doing so for reasons of sentimentality or tradition.
In NI, I'd reckon the majority of those who vote for either the DUP or UUP, do so solely for cultural reasons. If the Border Referendum were to pop up tomorrow, I reckon they'd be joined by another 20/25 % of the population voting to maintain the link, the latter could be logically classified as "civic unionists".
In each case, I think you're right, these unionists are not unionists primarily out of patriotic conviction, but for pragmatic reasons. And if these pragmatic reasons were to alter drastically, then their civic "unionism" would also change.
If, as a Unionist, you cannot imagine any scenario where, despite the economic and social conditions dictating otherwise, you'd leave the UK, then you can not claim to be fully a civic unionist- that's not to say you are hanging onto the link for religious or ethnic reasons, simply that the pride in *your* nation, its history and institutions would, in some circumstances, override other more objective reasons for seeking independence or unity with the ROI.
At the minute, economically and socially NI is better placed within the UK. You mention the NHS, the other social services are also better in NI, from what I've heard. Economically, in the short to medium-term, the ROI couldn't afford to keep us in the way to which we have become accustomed, with a 65% public sector or whatever it is and our extremely dodgy economic structure.
As a liberal secularist, I would also have nothing to gain from NI switching from being a socially conservative region ((but controlled and occasionally monitored by a liberal secular centre (Westminster)) to a socially conservative region controlled by a still socially conservative centre (Dublin). If those two factors ever changed, would I look seriously living within a UI? I honestly don't know (proving that there is still a bit of cultural unionism in my psyche!!).
It's all been a bit muddled this, probably I should think about doing a longer post as well!
Chekist:
Ciaran I can see your point as regards an extremely strict reading of civic politics. My argument would be that civic unionism is slightly more nuanced than you allow. Whilst cleaving primarily to institutions and values, civic unionism doesn't negate an identity being built around these shared structures.
It is the assumption that a state should be built round an ethno-national core that a civic discourse dissents from, not from the notion of that state having any residual core. That is not to say that a civic discourse isn't more receptive to arguments for a United Ireland from an economic, constitutional perspective (because it should be). The ethno-national origins of the Republic of Ireland would be a strong disincentive however.
You are certainly right to highlight an element of boundary conservatism in civic unionism. I would be inclined to such a conservatism myself. I do not like to see established and successful multi-national states broken up for no greater purpose other than to satisfy tribal nationalism. ButI am also instinctively drawn to multi-national constructs, including the EU.
Chekist:
Incidentally, is your blog called Draw Breath or is that the host, just to clarify my link.
Ciarán:
Hi Chekist and O'Neill. The blog is indeed called Draw Breath. I'll have a stab at answering both of your points as best I can over the next day or two. In the meanwhile back to work!
CW:
Some interesting points raised here, but the grim reality is that as long as the tribal faultlines which divide NI society down the middle remain, ethnic or cultural unionism/nationalism will always triumph over their "civic" counterparts. The day when a Catholic votes DUP or when a Protestant votes SF for economic or practical rather than "cultural" reasons is still a long way off. It's no surprise that Labour still refuse to organise in NI. Still it will be interesting in years to come how recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and elsewhere will vote as they integrate further into society and what the mainstream partes will do to attract their vote.
Ciarán:
Hi there: I've replied to the issues raised in a long new post here!
Ciarán:
Sorry CW: I was so busy writing the other post that I didn't see your comment. What I would say to you is that you are of course quite right, but I don't think any of us think that, by reading us, people will throw off their ethno-nationalist shackles.
The discussion we're having here is more along the lines of a moral debate: how ought a person who regards themselves as a civic unionist regard the constitutional position of NI? I take a roughly civic patriotism = moral cosmopolitanism line. Chekist and O'Neill are more sympathetic with attachments to specific states than I.
We're not thinking about how tribalism can be defeated, or at least not within the confines of this discussion.
Post new comment