Irish republicans and Basque abertzales: to what extent is the Irish peace process an effective model for a Basque peace process?

Abstract

This thesis will attempt to explore and identify what it sees as the essential components of the peace process in Northern Ireland in its political and historical context and assess the extent of its applicability to a Basque peace process. In exploring the usefulness of the Irish peace process as a model for the Basque context, a thematic approach will be adopted to include a comparison of the British and Spanish states and the changing nature of nationalism, and separatist nationalism in particular.
The thesis intends to stand in part as a dialectic which will interact with what it sees as some of the ideological assumptions around conflict resolution theory which include the primacy of the state and the questioning of any response to any challenge to its legitimacy.
The thesis will analyse how the objectives of the political groupings associated with the Provisional IRA and ETA have been transformed and will reach conclusions around the extent to which this shift has been accompanied by a move away from
fundamental constitutional change as an objective for republicans, and increasingly abertzales, to new, albeit ambiguously stated, objectives around self-determination.
The extent to which the objectives of the separatist nationalists and the other political groupings involved such as the Unionists and the constitutional nationalists in the North, the constitutional nationalists and Spanish-based parties in the Basque Country are or would be compromised, or indeed abandoned, in reaching an accommodation with the state will determine how and for whom peace process has been, or could be, truly effective.