The rules of hijacking: coercion and consent in the urban statelets of the IRA

Much of the political violence literature emphasizes the importance of coercive power and penetrative capacity in securing both local control and local support in times of conflict. But armed groups sometimes enjoy extensive support even where a state has high levels of control. This paper examines the way in which the Provisional Irish Republican Army balanced coercion and consent in the Catholic urban neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland, the ‘urban statelets of Belfast and Derry’ as one British civil servant referred to them in 1976. Drawing on the memoirs of combatants and civilians, interviews with former IRA members, private papers and state archives it shows how the IRA regularly used coercive power against people in supportive areas but that there were important limits to this coercion. It argues that the need to maintain popular support, local legitimacy and an identification with the local community severely inhibited IRA actions, narrowing their strategic and tactical options, limiting their operational capacity and shaping their actions at the micro-level. It points to the delicacy of the balance between coercive power and legitimation in the securing of local control by armed insurgents and the importance of local sentiment and political opinion as a source of power for insurgents even where levels of state control are high.