In this refreshingly different look at politics in Northern Ireland, the authors argue that the time has come for a completely new perspective. After reviewing the political conflicts of the last two decades, they conclude that there are repeated failures of understanding between the internal political actors in the North and their supposed external allies. The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Framework documents are recent illustrations of the British government's desire to minimalise its presence in the North - a policy likely to be continued by Labour, and of the gap between the Irish government's rhetorical commitment to nationalism and the reality of contemporary politics in the South.The authors maintain that neither unionists nor nationalists have a perspective which can engage with the real economic and political conditions of the 1990s. Though not sanguine about the prospects for change, they argue the need for the development of a modern democratic politics in the North, which can move beyond the present stalemate.