In spite of significant structural changes in Irish society, North and South, core social and political divisions persist and constitute a formidable obstacle to a peace settlement, a conference in Waterford heard at the weekend. The 14th annual conference of the Political Studies Association of Ireland was addressed by a range of speakers engaged in political analysis in Irish and overseas universities.
Several papers focused on the Northern peace process and concluded, in the main, that while the self-perceptions of both communities have shifted, polarisation remains intense.
Mr John Doyle, of Dublin City University, suggested that mainstream unionist attitudes remain inimical to any sort of "middle-ground" solution.
There was no evidence, for example, that any significant grouping of unionist political elites was willing to engage on the issue of reform of policing, he asserted.
Unionists, mainstream or moderate, did not accept that there were genuine grounds for grievance by which nationalists could justify their withholding of support from the RUC.
"They accuse nationalists of failing in a fundamental duty of citizenship and therefore feel justified in withholding full, inclusive citizenship rights from nationalists," he stated in a paper on Ulster unionism, security and citizenship.
"Yet reform of policing is absolutely central to any conceivable model of `parity of esteem' which is likely to have any impact on the political situation. Policing is one of the most `structural' of the issues of inequality. It is also one of the most important from the perspective of the nationalist community."
Proposals which assumed the most likely outcome in the North to be the creation of some sort of common cause between moderate unionists and moderate nationalists, excluding more militant groups on either side, had seriously underplayed the extent to which mainstream unionism saw constitutional nationalism not just as a rival but as subversive, he said.
The unionist elites entering political negotiations still brought with them a view of citizenship which saw all reform as threatening to the constitutional status quo. They saw all nationalists as a relatively undifferentiated enemy.
"The mainstream unionist model of security and citizenship may not be the most optimistic starting point for negotiations for a political settlement, but negotiations about issues of equality and for a political settlement cannot progress unless there is a clear understanding of the unionist position," he concluded.
In a joint paper, Ms Jennifer Todd, of UCD, and Mr Joe Ruane, of UCC, suggested that while the balance of power between the Protestant and Catholic communities was now more even, power struggles between them had persisted and indeed intensified.
Although the peace process showed that new opportunities for accommodation and resolution had emerged, the opportunities for resolution could be grasped only when the conditions underlying communal power struggle had been more fully dismantled, their paper suggested.
The effect of the major social and economic changes, and British government policy changes, in the last 30 years had been to increase class-based divisions and tensions within the two communities. But still greater changes, in the Republic as well as Northern Ireland, would be necessary if the conditions of this power struggle were to be dismantled and the way opened to an agreed political settlement.
A paper by Mr Mark McGovern, of Edge Hill University College, Omskirk, argued that the "pan-nationalist" strategy represented a flawed conception of conflict resolution through conflict management. It misconceived a number of the root causes of social and political division and was unlikely to meet even the minimal aims it had set itself.
"It is the changing nature of contemporary capitalism that has led to a shift in the political economy of Irish nationalism, both North and South, but that shift is not one designed or intended to resolve the problems facing working class people in either state," his paper concluded.
Mr John Coakley, of UCD, suggested that the character of the Protestant minority in the Republic has undergone a fundamental shift from British to Irish ethnic allegiance, in a wider context of value and attitudinal change.
Recent survey data showed that Southern Catholics thought they had much in common with Southern Protestants, "and the social psychological distance that separates them from Northern Catholics is, strangely, greater than that which separates them from the English", he said.