Legacies of Wartime Order: Punishment attacks and social control in Northern Ireland
Channel: War Studies KCL
Date: 27/11/2020

Chair: Dr Keiran Mitton, Senior Lecturer in International Relations

Speakers: Kristin Bakke is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at University College London and Kit Rickard is a PhD Candidate at University College London

Many armed groups create informal institutions to maintain social order during conflict. The remnants of these informal institutions form a key challenge for governments in post-conflict societies in their attempts to re-establish themselves as credible state authorities. The persistence of paramilitary groups’ informal ‘justice’ systems in the form of so-called ‘punishment attacks’ in Northern Ireland, more than 20 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, offers insights into the legacy of wartime institutions.

We argue that armed actors can benefit from the social control these institutions grant them long after the conflict ends and both armed actors and civilians are socialised into relying on them. Building on research on wartime institutions, criminal governance, and post-war state-building, we examine how the informal ‘justice’ systems created during the Troubles (1968-1998) remain in the fringes of post-war society, drawing on historical works, interviews with stakeholders, geo-coded data on punishment attacks, and survey data.