Contested Transparency and the Fragile Peace: Secrecy and Openness in Northern Ireland
06 May 2025 15:00 to 16:30 at 106, 43 Gordon Square/Teams
How can openness and secrecy shape the past, present and future of Northern? Explore this pressing question with Birkbeck's Ben Worthy.
Tuesday 06 May 2025 15:00 to 16:30 at 106, 43 Gordon Square/Teams
This seminar asks how openness and secrecy can shape the past, present and future of Northern Ireland. Transparency is a key component of Northern Ireland’s ‘fragile peace’ (Cochrane 2021). But how could it help or hinder in a divided society? Transparency could, on the one hand, operate as a ‘window’ on the new institutions of peace, providing much needed democratic accountability and legitimacy, while helping move politics towards a less essentialist or divisive place. On the other hand, it could serve as a political ‘weapon’ for either side, subjecting peace process institutions to challenge, manipulation, and division, which could undermine and de-legitimise them and presents dangers, as seen in the leak of Police Service of Northern Ireland data. .
This seminar offers some preliminary findings and thoughts on a new project and chance to discuss where we are and what the future might hold. It is hybrid, in-person and via Teams.
Image: Karte: NordNordWest, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de