The intra-national struggle to define "Us": External involvement as a two-way street

Abstract

Three perspectives on the causes of communal conflict are visible in extant work: a focus on ancient hatreds, on leaders, or on the context that leaders "find" themselves in. Leaders therefore have all the power to mobilize people to fight (or not to) or leaders are driven by circumstantial opportunities or the primordial desires of the masses to resist peace or coexistence with historical enemies. Analysts who focus on leaders or context recognize that external actors affect internal conflicts, but little systematic research has explored the processes relating the domestic politics of nationalist mobilization to factors in the international arena. How does the international arena affect the competition among leaders? How do skillful leaders draw in external actors to lend credibility to their own views? This article asserts that leaders compete to frame identity and mission, and explores the degree to which international factors affect whose "definitions of the situation" are successful in precipitating mobilization shifts among potential followers. A unique finding of this longitudinal study of Northern Ireland is that the role played by international institutions and actors is affected by how domestic actors perceive, cultivate, and bring attention to the linkages between the two spheres.