The Politics of Legitimacy: Struggles in a Belfast Community

Abstract

Frank Burton, lecturer in sociology at the City University of London, spent the period of September 1 972-April 1 973 in a workingclass Belfast Roman Catholic community, to study the ideological basis of political violence within the context of Belfast. This book contains the report of his experiences and analyses. Burton defines ideology as representations of the objective structure of a society that dominate the consciousness of a class or social (p. 1). He distinguishes between the total and the partial ideology, the former being the dominant categories of the Roman Catholic population, and the latter being the active program of a political movement, in this case the IRA. Burton starts his analysis with a description of the Roman Catholic community, which he sees characterized by a strong sense of social solidarity. This solidarity is greatly promoted by the dichotomy between those whom he lumps as and the Roman Catholics. He seems to disclaim any particular urban model since, as he tells us, Belfast, though industrial city, remains a cluster of Protestant and Catholic urban villages, precisely because pockets of Protestants and pockets of Catholics stand in opposition to one another (p. 3). He does not, however, tell us what, if any, significance or structural uniqueness an urban village has in relation to, say, isolated village. The community within Belfast upon which Burton concentrates is Anro, a section whose political significance lies in its ability to withstand and absorb external assaults. The solidary of Anro is partially both effect and a cause of the division that exists between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Apart from the social solidarity, the main ideological components in this already very old struggle are

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