Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy: Jerusalem and Northern Ireland

by Stacie E. Goddard

Overview

In Jerusalem and Northern Ireland, territorial disputes have often seemed indivisible, unable to be solved through negotiation, and prone to violence and war. This book challenges the conventional wisdom that these conflicts were the inevitable result of clashing identities, religions, and attachments to the land. On the contrary, it was radical political rhetoric, and not ancient hatreds, that rendered these territories indivisible. Stacie Goddard traces the roots of territorial indivisibility to politicians’ strategies for legitimating their claims to territory. When bargaining over territory, politicians utilize rhetoric to appeal to their domestic audiences and undercut the claims of their opponents. However, this strategy has unintended consequences; by resonating with some coalitions and appearing unacceptable to others, politicians’ rhetoric can lock them into positions in which they are unable to recognize the legitimacy of their opponent’s demands. As a result, politicians come to negotiations with incompatible claims, constructing territory as indivisible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521439855
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/21/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Stacie Goddard is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and a faculty associate in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Previously, she was a Fellow at the Belfer Center, a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, and a Fellow at the Center for International Studies at Princeton University and the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. Her articles have appeared in International Organization, International Security, International Theory, and the European Journal of International Relations.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Constructing indivisibility: a legitimation theory of indivisible territory; Part I. Constructing an Indivisible Ireland: 3. Home rule: a divisible Ireland; 4. Ulster will fight: the orange card and an indivisible Ireland; Part II. Jerusalem, the Eternal, Indivisible City: 5. Dividing the holy city; 6. Jerusalem, indivisible; 7. How Northern Ireland became divisible (and why Jerusalem has not); Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

Stacie Goddard’s book makes a sophisticated contribution to the literature on legitimacy in international politics and takes an especially significant step forward in bridging rationalist and constructivist approaches to international conflict and cooperation. Goddard deftly uses network theory to develop hypotheses about the effects of legitimation rhetoric on bargaining, and she provides a pathbreaking articulation of the causal mechanisms at work in the process by which certain territories come to be seen as indivisible.”
– Mlada Bukovansky, Smith College

“Decision-makers, negotiators, and students of Middle East politics should take heed as Goddard pulls away the religious veil obscuring the Jerusalem dispute. Her compelling and meticulously researched analysis shows that this conflict, like the violence over Northern Ireland, is not God-made but very much man-made.”
– Ron E. Hassner, University of California, Berkeley, Author of War on Sacred Grounds

From the Publisher