In-group unity rhetoric lets parties signal anti-deal activism when attention is elsewhere.
Evidence
The emphasis on intra-group unity may provide an opportunity to recommit to core-group goals. Thus the DUP portrayed themselves ‘uniting unionism’ and ‘having reached out to other unionists’, while the rival UUP were ‘a sorry picture of disharmony and disunity’ (DUP, 1998c). Such ‘recommitment programmes’ may involve public campaigns and an opportunity to give the impression of anti-peace process activism at a time when the mainstream peace process may be attracting most national and international attention. — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 54
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the Kenya/Zambia authoritarian case the reader is comparing — here recommitment signalling is a strategic move even in a democratic/pluralist NI context, suggesting outbidding mechanisms operate regardless of regime type. — connects to: The DUP disciplined internal message unity for effective outbidding campaigns. — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 94; Western media presented a divided coalition as a unified people’s uprising — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 491
- QUESTION: The ‘give the impression of anti-peace process activism’ framing is fascinating — could the same logic of performative extremism while quietly accommodating operate in DUP’s later de facto power-sharing? Worth chasing.