Protestant Disillusionment with the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement

Abstract

The period since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement has witnessed a degree of electoral polarisation that dwarfs any previous period during the current Troubles in scale and intensity. This has been attributed to Protestant disillusionment with the Agreement and the political institutions it established. The results presented here using a wide range of public opinion polls support this view. Protestants are much more pessimistic of both current and future relations between the two communities than are Catholics. The increasingly negative view of Protestants, particularly in terms of future community relations, is reflected in declining support for the Agreement. Protestants who believe that relations between the two religious communities in five years time will be worse than they are now are significantly more likely to vote against the Agreement. This is the case even among previous Protestant supporters of the Agreement.