Socio-ideological fantasy and the Northern Ireland conflict

This application of a Lacanian method of analysis has great potential for informing the way we understand and study all inter-religious and ethnic conflicts. It could be integrated with efficiency in peace building processes and thus deserves to be developed in the art of conflict management.

This application of a Lacanian method of analysis has great potential for informing the way we understand and study all inter-religious and ethnic conflicts. It could be integrated with efficiency in peace building processes and thus deserves to be developed in the art of conflict management.

Conducting a Lacanian-inspired psychoanalysis of some of the most candid interview materials ever gathered from former IRA members and loyalists, the author demonstrates through a careful examination of their slips of the tongue, jokes, rationalisations and contradictions, that it is the unconscious dynamics of socio-ideological fantasy, i.e. the unconscious pleasure people find in suffering, domination, submission, ignorance, failure and rivalry over jouissance, that lead to the reproduction of antagonism between the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland. In the light of this, he concludes that traditional approaches to conflict resolution which overlook the unconscious are doomed to failure and that a Lacanian psychoanalytic understanding of socio-ideological fantasy has great potential for informing the way we understand and study all inter-religious and ethnic conflicts.Whether you find yourself agreeing with the arguments in this book or not, you are sure to find it a welcome change from both the existing, mainly conservative, analyses of the Northern Ireland conflict and traditional approaches to conflict resolution.

Introduction1. Psychoanalysis2. Conflict resolution3. Explanations of the Northern Ireland conflict4. The real5. The imaginary6. The symbolic7. Loyalists8. Conclusion