Diaspora Movements, Social Networks, and Civil Wars: The Irish-American (Dis)connection and the Northern Ireland Troubles
Item
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Title
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Diaspora Movements, Social Networks, and Civil Wars: The Irish-American (Dis)connection and the Northern Ireland Troubles
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:e3e99bedeba7:11682
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identifier
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12257
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Creator
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Zach, Danielle A.,
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Contributor
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Susan L. Woodward
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political science | International relations | Sociology | civil wars | diaspora | Irish-Americans | Northern Ireland | social movements | social networks
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Abstract
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Armed insurgents often seek material and other forms of support from communities beyond the borders of contested states. Situating long-distance, grassroots financing of rebel groups as a form of social movement, this dissertation examines patterns of transnational radicalism among diasporic populations with regard to "homeland" civil wars. The study is conducted within a dynamic, multilevel framework that analyzes: (1) the nested political opportunity context (i.e., domestic, international, and transnational) within which militants must mobilize for "the cause"; (2) the availability of potential resources, especially socio-organizational ones; and (3) the strategic capacity (skill and social capital endowments) of movement leaders. It devotes significant attention to social network properties and mechanisms that facilitate collective action.;More specifically, the dissertation investigates patterns of Irish-American support for the Provisional Irish Republican Army's campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. It asks why financing for the republican movement was very modest (although significant) given the vast size of Irish America, and in comparison to other "groups" with respect to their "homeland" wars. This dissertation argues that coordinated suppression among a triad of governments with robust state capacity (the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland) created legal risks and costs to supporters and limited the movement's reachability beyond tightly-knit communities. At the same time, these Irish "urban villages" were dissipating as a result of exclusionary US immigration policy, an economic boom in the Republic of Ireland, and upward social mobility in the United States. Socioeconomic integration coupled with few new immigrants led to the disintegration of moral economies, occupational desegregation, spatial dispersion, and an emaciated organizational infrastructure.;Yet how the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid)---the main republican fundraising arm in the United States---endured for the three-decades-long conflict in the face of these countervailing challenges from above and below presents a second puzzle. The study argues that the leadership's network-building strategies explain the organization's resilience. While Noraid actively cultivated interpersonal ties among the Irish in the United States and across the Atlantic, movement leaders pursued three strategies at the organizational level that would prove crucial to Noraid's longevity (centralization, co-optation of existing communal institutions, and brokerage, especially with building trades unions).
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Political Science
