Resistance and Civil Society

Author: Bill Rolston

The article considers in detail a particular aspect of the political murals painted by the republican movement in Northern Ireland, namely their references to international themes rather than solely Irish matters. These murals are seen as an instance of solidarity with people in struggle elsewhere—against imperialism and state oppression—and thus represent recognition by Irish mural painters of their affinity to liberation movements elsewhere. As such, the phenomenon points to the potential of subaltern nationalism to be progressive. Finally, the article briefly considers the difficulties facing the other main mural tradition in Northern Ireland, that of the loyalists, to engage in a similar process of recognition and solidarity.

Author: Bill Rolston

The ability of popular music to link in with and advance popular progressive politics has, at times, been beyond doubt. Take Jamaica in 1978. Political violence between armed gangs loyal to prime minister Michael Manley and opposition leader Edward Seaga was rife. Bob Marley performed at a peace concert in Kingston where he brought Manley and Seaga on stage. Standing between them and holding their hands high, he and his group, the Wailers, sang `One Love'. It was, says Denselow, `one of the great, strange moments of political pop history'.

Authors: James Gobert and Maurice Punch

Corporate crime and organisational deviance raise complex legal issues. An initial problem likes simply in indentifying when such wrongdoing has occurred. Here, whistleblowers can perform a valuable service. However, publicizes cases suggest that they often pay dearly for their candour, encountering unfair sanctions at work. In Britain, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 seeks to protect “good-faith” whistleblowers from employer reprisals. In the wake of this legislation, the authors examine whistleblowing from a socio-legal perspective, asking what motivates whistleblowers, how do institutions respond to them, can legislation adequately protect them, and what effects will PIDA have on whistleblowing, employment practices, the culture of the workplace and, ultimately society.

Authors: Claire Hackett and Bill Rolston

The article examines the potential and limitations of storytelling for victims of political violence. It rejects the view that storytelling is unproblematic, a way for victims to ‘get things off their chest’. It examines a wide range of literature on storytelling and testimony, from the Holocaust through to contemporary transitional societies. In particular, attention is focused on the experience of victims and survivors telling their stories in formal settings such as truth commissions and trials in South Africa and the former Yugoslavia, as well as at unofficial storytelling processes in Northern Ireland. The authors look at the potential of storytelling as resistance to injustice and conclude that while unofficial processes of storytelling present opportunities for collective solidarity, the stories often go unacknowledged by the wider society. Conversely, they also conclude that, while official mechanisms of truth recovery can ensure wide legitimacy for the stories of victims, this is often at the cost of marginalizing the storyteller and the story.

Author: Susan Marks

This article addresses some questions that underlie debate about the role of international organisations in relation to democratization and about the implications of that role as regards the emergence of a norm of democratic governance.