Decommissioning in Northern Ireland and Lebanon
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Time: Wednesday 5 September 12:30-14:00
Place: CMI, Main meeting room
Since the 1998 Belfast Agreement brought unionists and nationalists together in Northern Ireland, the issue of decommissioning has dominated the British and Irish government's efforts to implement it. In Lebanon, Hizballah's outlier status as both political party and Islamist militia has placed it at the centre of the regional confrontation between the US and Iran, which threatens to plunge the country into civil war. So why has the issue of decommissioning proved so difficult and divisive in these two deeply divided societies? In this lecture, Dr Michael Kerr (LSE) addresses this question and assesses what impact the internationalisation of the arms issue has had in either case.
Dr Kerr specialises in ethnic conflict regulation and power-sharing in divided societies. His research interests focus on conflict in the Middle East and Europe. Dr Kerr is currently writing a political history of British direct rule in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. He lectures on political Islam. Dr. Kerr is Leverhulme Research Fellow at the International History Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Selected publications:
Kerr, Michael. 'Approaches to power-sharing in Northern Ireland and Lebanon.' In Ireland and the Middle East: Trade, society and peace. Edited by Miller, R. Irish Academic Press, 2007.
Kerr, Michael. 'The philosophy of Lebanese power-sharing.' In Breaking the cycle: Civil wars in Lebanon. Edited by Choueiri, Y. Centre for Lebanese Studies, 2007.
Kerr, Michael. Imposing power-sharing: conflict and coexistence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon. Irish Academic Press, 2005.
Kerr, M. Transforming unionism: David Trimble and the 2005 general election. Irish Academic Press, 2005