Teaching, Language & Reference

US diplomacy and the Good Friday Agreement in post-conflict Northern Ireland

by Richard Hargy

Description

Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss, as autonomous diplomats in the George W. Bush State Department, were able to alter US intervention in Northern Ireland and play critical roles in the post-1998 peace process. Their contributions have not been fully appreciated or understood. The restoration of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government in 2007 was made possible by State Department-led intervention in the peace process. There are few references to Northern Ireland in work examining the foreign policy legacy of the George W. Bush presidency. Moreover, the ability to control US foreign policy towards the region brought one of George W. Bush's Northern Ireland special envoys into direct diplomatic conflict with the most senior actors inside the British government. This book will uncover the extent of this fall-out and provide original accounts on how diplomatic relations between these old allies became so fraught.

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Reviews

This book provides an essential revision of the post-1998 period in Northern Ireland and the significance of US involvement in the region. The George W. Bush administration's intervention from 2001 to 2007 was decisive and remains undervalued and misunderstood. Throughout this time the State Department managed American intercession with responsibility for strategy falling to two special envoys: Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss. The Good Friday Agreement was one of the twentieth century's least expected peace settlements. The accord, however, did not deliver immediate stability to Northern Ireland. The institutions of the agreement lay paralysed within a few short years and the country was in fragile and deeply entrenched ethno-nationalist stalemate. This book pioneers a new scholarly approach to this period. It combines a rigorous analysis of the contemporary development of the State Department and Policy Planning Staff, the context of US foreign policy between 2001 and 2007, and the political roller-coaster that was Northern Ireland post-1998. Fascinating insights from important political and diplomatic actors are provided, many of whom offer accounts that hitherto have not been heard. It will also be shown how State Department-led intervention in Northern Ireland strained the "special relationship" even as it enjoyed a resurgence under George W. Bush and Tony Blair. This is a fascinating and unreported occurrence in the history of post-conflict Northern Ireland. In May 2007 the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement were restored. This book reveals how this would not have happened without the strategic interventions by two State Department diplomats.

Author Biography

Richard Hargy is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at Queen's University Belfast.

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date May 2025
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781526184627 / 1526184621
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatPrint PDF
  • Pages200
  • ReadershipCollege/higher education; Professional and scholarly
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions234 X 156 mm
  • Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 6305
  • SeriesKey Studies in Diplomacy
  • Reference Code16783

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