Book Review: People Power? The Role of the Voluntary and Community Sector in the Northern Ireland Conflict,by Feargal Cochrane and Seamus Dunn. Cork University Press,Cork, 2002

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Civil Society and the Northern Irish Peace Process

Alternative accounts of the Northern Irish peace process are analyzed. It is noted that neither Unionist nor Republican accounts accord a significant or positive role to civil society in the reaching of a political settlement. It is only in what might be called the metropolitan liberal perspective that influence is attributed to the role of civil society in achieving a settlement. Two junctures at which civil society, centered on the third sector, played a prominent role in the peace process are analyzed: the Opsahl Commission before the launch of the peace process in 1993 and the nonparty Yes campaign during the referendum on the Belfast Agreement in May 1998. The paper then goes on to discuss why the influence of civil society has declined since the referendum, and draws attention to the conflict between the top-down implications of the consociational nature of the Belfast Agreement and the bottom-up promotion of political accommodation through civil society.     

The origin of white supremacy in South Africa: An interpretation

White supremacy in South Africa had its beginning in the initial Dutch colonial settlement of the Cape. The first Dutch settlers brought with them a vision of colonialism in which Europeans were superior to non‐Europeans, and could behave in colonies in ways that were not tolerated at home. The colonial idea of racial slavery corrupted early Cape officials before there were any slaves, and made the introduction of slavery inevitable. Marriages between white men and non‐European women were tolerated at the Cape as elsewhere in the Dutch colonial realm, but raciallymixed couples were not welcome in the Netherlands. The racial exclusivity of the Dutch home community gained ground at the Cape as its European settlers began to see themselves as a home community away from home, and sought to emulate home standards in so far as this was practicable in an overseas colonial setting.