Peace by procedure: civil servants, metagovernance and the Northern Ireland peace process

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how Irish and British civil servants contributed to structuring the political and procedural conditions for peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. It asks what kind of governance architecture enabled compromise across conflict lines and who was responsible for its design and operation. The article conceptualises these officials as metagovernors – actors who shape the frameworks through which governance occurs – in a context marked by territorial contestation and institutional fragility. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a qualitative design combining extensive archival research with semi-structured elite interviews to trace how civil servants in Dublin and London co-produced governance environments between the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998). It draws on insights from public administration, peacebuilding and conflict management to develop a metagovernance lens tailored to divided societies. Findings – British and Irish civil servants played a central, though often overlooked, role in enabling the peace process. Beyond implementing policy, they actively designed relational, procedural and spatial infrastructures that facilitated cross-border cooperation, managed institutional trust and embedded compromise into the evolving architecture of peace. The paper introduces the concept of structures of continuity to capture the informal yet enduring bureaucratic practices that sustained coordination across moments of political rupture. Originality/value – This paper repositions civil servants as strategic actors in conflict management and peacebuilding. It advances a novel analytical framework that integrates metagovernance theory with empirical research on territorial conflict, offering transferable insights into how bureaucratic agency, institutional memory and elite communication shape peace processes.