PIRA ambivalence: legitimacy and riots

Recent research into the dynamics between insurgencies and their supportive communities has increasingly devoted attention to forms of ‘rebel governance’ which often helps maintain control, but which also opens up new challenges for the insurgents (Arjona et al 2015; Arjona, 2017, Mampilly, 2011, 2015; O’Connor, 2019, 2021; Wood, 2015; Bosi & Malthaner, 2015). Another incipient line of research focuses on the role of legitimacy (Brenner, 2017; 2019, Malthaner, 2015; Schoon, 2017; Schlichte & Schneckener, 2015; Duyvesteyn, 2017, Worrall, 2017; Malthaner & Malesevic, 2022; Podder, 2017) as it is considered that this facilitates coercive control and strengthens compliance (Mampilly, 2011). This growing body of research provides us with valuable concepts for understanding the dynamics of interaction between armed organisations, or insurgents, and their supporters. However, despite the advances in the field, as Bosi and Malthaner note ‘what was missing in many studies on violent insurgencies was an examination of the relationship between civil wars and other (“lesser”) forms of political violence’ (2015: 447). Riots, as a lower form violence have not received much attention in the field of civil wars and insurgencies. In the present paper, I analyse the relationship between the Provisional IRA and their constituency in relation to riots during the conflict known as ‘the troubles’ (1969-1998) drawing on 19 in depth life stories with riot participants, as well as an in depth but focused analysis of the newspapers An Phoblacht, Republican News and the merged publication An Phoblacht/Republican News (usually known as AP/RN) between 1970 and 1998. The empirical focus of the paper is the analysis of two cases, the anti-interment anniversary riots that took place every August in urban areas of the North, and the mass-scale riots that happened in reaction to the death of hunger strikers after the refusal of the Margaret Thatcher’s government to confer political status to prisoners. The analysis of these cases suggests that the PIRA rather than categorically rejecting the use of riots, maintained an ambivalent relationship with their constituency in relation to their deployment. This ambivalence ranges from a complete rejection under threat of punishment to encouragement and praise. Finally, I will offer an interpretation of my results arguing that riots posed a strategical dilemma for the PIRA in relation to legitimacy, as riots could confer legitimacy upon them against their adversaries, but internally could challenge the capacity to maintain control in nationalist areas.