McGarry, John
Professor of Political Studies and Canada Research Chair in Nationalism and Democracy
Queens University
Ontario
Canada
O'Leary, Brendan
Lauder Professor of Political Science and Director of the Solomon Asch Center for the study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania
Print publication date: 2004 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online:
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-926657-9
doi:10.1093/0199266573.003.0013
This chapter builds on the arguments presented in John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, Policing Northern Ireland: Proposals for a New Start (Belfast: Blackstaff 1999), arguments that were widely seen as influencing the findings of the Independent Commission on Policing (the Patten Commission). The chapter analyses the Commission's report and the controversy surrounding its implementation by Secretary of State Peter Mandleson. It discusses the relationship between the struggle over police reform and the stalemate in Northern Ireland's political institutions, and argues that the successful completion of policing reform is essential to the Agreement's consolidation. Keywords:RUC,
policing,
policing reform,
Patten Commission,
accountable,
impartial,
representative,
control