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Contentious Rituals and Intergroup Relations: Parading in Northern Ireland

Rickard, Kit; Hollenweger, Giovanni; Weber, Sigrid; Bakke, Kristin M; (2025) Contentious Rituals and Intergroup Relations: Parading in Northern Ireland. British Journal of Political Science , 55 , Article e135. 10.1017/S0007123425100835. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

In some divided societies, identity-based groups engage in ‘contentious rituals’, such as public parades or commemorative events, to cultivate the group’s collective social memory and build solidarity. We examine whether and how such rituals perpetuate group divisions in post-conflict societies, drawing on evidence from a case study of parading in Northern Ireland. Every year, contentious parades in this post-conflict society have the potential to raise tensions between the two major communities, Catholics and Protestants. Using a mixed-methods design, we show that parades in Northern Ireland are detrimental to intergroup attitudes. Our research design relies on compiling geolocated data on over 55,000 parades (2002–22), analyses of both nationally representative longitudinal surveys (2003–19) and an original survey fielded in 2022, and insights from qualitative fieldwork conducted during the height of the parading season in 2023.

Type: Article
Title: Contentious Rituals and Intergroup Relations: Parading in Northern Ireland
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123425100835
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123425100835
Language: English
Additional information: This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Keywords: Rituals; Northern Ireland; post-conflict society; intergroup relations
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Political Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10217211
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