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The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of cross‐communal cooperation and its contribution to peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland through the opinions of 752 respondents.

A multivariate analysis of the respondents' opinions was gathered through a Public Opinion Survey (MBU 2006), which addresses the issue of physical separation of the Catholic and Protestant communities in the context of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Findings indicate that religion is a key variable in any discussion of the sustainability of the Northern Ireland peace process in relation to cross‐community initiatives, social and economic integration as well as existing divisions between both communities. Moreover, professional and skilled worker respondents disagreed that the impacts of physical separation between both communities supports the peace process. Catholic Nationalists and respondents from Belfast city and the Western region of Northern Ireland were less likely to perceive the physical separation of both communities as negatively impacting the peace process.

The implication for practice necessitates that the liberal peacebuilding model includes hybrid approaches to harness external economic aid in post‐accord societies that are inclusive of local people, ideas and concerns.

The value of the paper to practitioners and policymakers is that the research on the impact of external economic aid on cross community conflict must include the triangulation of both qualitative and quantitative methods to fully grasp its complexity.

In my book, Rural Rebels, I examined the nature of two protest movements in Kenya and discussed their determinants. Here I will attempt a more general explanation of protest movements in colonial Kenya addressing the question of why they clustered among certain tribes and in certain areas and not in others. The fact that movements were not randomly distributed throughout the country but clustered, suggests that any explanation of causation that focuses merely on culture contact, or on colonialism or one of its aspects, is inadequate because these are not sufficient causes in themselves. The questions that need to be answered are, under what conditions does colonialism or culture contact lead to the occurrence of protest movements? Any adequate explanation should be able to account for their appearance in one area, and absence in another, within a particular country. Secondly, within tribes and particular areas, what are some of the factors involved in support for, and opposition to, colonialism? Third, why was the protest movement such a common response? The following analysis tries to answer these questions, however tentatively.