Consociation and Voting in Northern Ireland: Party Competition and Electoral BehaviorFor thirty years, Northern Ireland was riven by sustained ethnonationalist conflict over the issue of whether the territory should remain part of the United Kingdom or reunify with the Republic of Ireland. The 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement brought peace to the region by instituting a consociational government, which acknowledged the political differences between nationalists and unionists in Northern Ireland and established a legislative body