C. Wright Mills and the Ending of Violence

C. Wright Mills and the Ending of Violence

Palgrave Macmillan books by the same author ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN NORTHERN IRELAND 1600 1998 (with Gareth Higgins, 1998) CAN SOUTH AFRICA SURVIVE? (editor, 1989) POLICE, PUBLIC ORDER AND THE STATE (with Adrian Guelke, Ian Hume, Edward Moxon-Browne and Rick Wilford, 1988 and 1996) RESTRUCTURING SOUTH AFRICA (editor, 1994) Other books by the same author A-Z OF SOCIAL RESEARCH (co-editor with Robert Miller) AFTER SOWETO: An Unfinished Journey (1986) BLACK AND BLUE: Policing in South Africa (1994) CRIME IN IRELAND 1945 95 (with Bill Lockhart and Paula Rodgers, 1997) ETHNOGRAPHY (2000) INSIDE THE RUC (with Kathleen Magee, 1991) MOSLEY S MEN (1984) THE ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY: An Oral History (1990)

C. Wright Mills and the Ending of Violence John D. Brewer Professor of Sociology Queen s University Belfast

John D. Brewer 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-0-333-80180-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-42139-8 ISBN 978-1-4039-1409-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781403914095 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Brewer, John D. C. Wright Mills and the ending of violence / John D. Brewer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Mills, C. Wright (Charles Wright), 1916 1962. 2. Violence Northern Ireland. 3. Violence South Africa. 4. Peace Sociological aspects. I. Title. HN398.N6B74 2003 303.6 09416 dc21 2003048276 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03

In memory of my mother, Eileen Margaret 1929 2002 and my aunt, Mary Josephine 1911 2002

Contents Preface and Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Conflict, Violence and Peace 1 1 C. Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination 17 2 The Historical Specificity of the Peace Process 45 3 Individual Biographical Experiences and Peace 71 4 The Intersection of Politics and the Social Structure 109 Conclusion: The Sociological Imagination and the Peace Process 151 Bibliography 179 Index 191 vii

Preface and Acknowledgements This book argues that it is possible to develop a sociological framework to explain the emergence and progress of the peace process in Northern Ireland and South Africa, two ethnically structured societies that, when put in the long perspective of history, began at roughly the same time to dismantle centuries-old division and conflict. One of the best North American-based writers on Irish affairs, Padraig O Malley (2001: 279), in commenting on these two societies, doubted that comparisons could be usefully drawn between their peace processes because, as he eloquently phrased it: each beats to the rhythms of its own contradictory impulses, distortions of reality, warped perceptions and insatiable demands for revenge that are the legacy one generation bequeaths the next. I argue to the contrary and suggest that the discipline of sociology lacks something if it does not at least try; it evacuates its proper terrain when ceding public issues to analysis by other social sciences. In attempting a sociological analysis I use a framework drawn from Charles Wright Mills s account of the sociological imagination, which I believe can be used to hold the two processes together and explain the emergence, progress and oscillating fortunes of the peace process in both countries. Despite the manifold differences there are between the two societies and the obvious variation in the details and events in their peace processes, I argue that there is equivalence between the two processes in the way that they can be understood sociologically. Mills s framework is normally condensed to describe an approach that combines individuals and society in a dynamic relationship capable of explaining all social life. This is very oversimplified and involves a misreading of his famous book The Sociological Imagination. In truth the sociological imagination is distinguished by the view that the discipline must demonstrate the intersection between individual biographical experience, history, social structural changes, and developments and events in the political process. Sociology can all too readily be divorced from politics, and the sociological imagination needs to hold together real human experience, the social structure and events in the political process. It is a similar failing to separate ix

x Preface and Acknowledgements sociology and history. Therefore, while focusing on the ending of violence in Northern Ireland and South Africa, this volume simultaneously addresses itself to clarifying Mills s depiction of sociology. The book is not intended as an exhaustive history of the negotiations that led to the settlements in both countries, or of each country s political conflicts and history. Nor is the book a review of the various political models that shaped their respective constitutional reforms or an analysis of political events in the post-settlement period. The literature on all these topics is voluminous and while some of this is well worth repeating, this is not the place. Only a few of the references to this vast literature by political scientists and historians will be cited. What the book offers instead is an interpretative history what the Scottish Enlightenment in the eighteenth century used to call a conjectural history of the peace process in both societies based on a particular kind of sociology. In using the term conjectural history the intention is not to aggrandise my arguments by equating them with the wonderful treatises by Scots such as Adam Ferguson, John Millar or Adam Smith, which in majestic broad sweeps took in the history of society in its various stages. My purpose in deliberately using this term is twofold. It was precisely through writing conjectural histories that the Scots arrived at a kind of proto-sociology and thus it seems fitting to apply this term when attempting to write a sociology of the South African and Northern Irish peace processes. Above all, the kind of sociology that was envisaged by Charles Wright Mills was, in my view, exemplified two centuries before in the work of the Scots, particularly Adam Ferguson and John Millar. This was a kind of sociology that took in topics including human nature (what we now call agency), the social structure and politics, all couched within a historical perspective. This study uses the peace process in South Africa and North Ireland to champion a particular way of doing sociology. If you like, the book makes a rescue attempt. It seeks to save analyses of the peace process from the dominance of political science perspectives by using Mills s conception of sociology s imagination. Thus, a particular kind of sociology is used to see if it illuminates our understanding of the peace process, while these events are used to throw light on the utility of Mills s approach to sociology. The book is based on an idea I first developed in a conference paper in 1999 entitled A prolegomenon towards a sociology of the peace process in Northern Ireland and South Africa. The paper was

Preface and Acknowledgements xi delivered at the conference on South Africa: Transition to Transformation, held in Dublin, 4 5 March 1999, and was organised by the South African Embassy in the Irish Republic. A word of thanks is owed to the then Ambassador, Pierre Dietrichsen, for bringing our group of scholars together. My colleagues on that occasion included Jack Spence, Adrian Guelke, Sandy Johnston, Jesmond Blumenfeld, Mark Shaw, Kanya Adam, Heather Deegan, Roger Boulter and Charles Villa-Vicencio. I am grateful for their comments on the original paper, especially those of Jack Spence. I am particularly in debt to Palgrave Macmillan, and especially Tim Farmiloe, who have patiently waited for this manuscript since 1999 while the demands of administration kept me from writing. My tenure as Head of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at Queen s University of Belfast came to an end in July 2002 after nine long years and I am grateful to the University for awarding me a sabbatical which at last allowed me the opportunity to complete the manuscript. I absolve the following colleagues, who kindly read some or all of the manuscript, from any responsibility for its remaining faults: John Eldridge, Anthony Marx and David McCrone. I am also grateful for years of long discussion with Steve Bruce about this project and Northern Ireland generally. Above all, I am grateful to the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge for awarding me a Visiting Fellowship in Michaelmas 2002 2003, from where I have written most of the manuscript. Finally, I offer a word of love and thanks to my children, Bronwen and Gwyn, who in the course of various acknowledgements have grown from beautiful toddlers to wonderful adults. This book is for them, and their Nan and Great Aunt Mary, with much love and fond memory. Cambridge, December 2002