Abstract

Ethnic conflicts have become increasingly common in the world we live in, some of which ultimately result in bloodshed. Russell Hardin’s One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict, published in 1995, offered an alternative view to the prevailing explanations of ethnic conflict as the result of behavior motivated by emotion. Hardin shook up the field by proposing that group identification, conflict, and violence could be understood from a rational choice account. This chapter seeks to analyze the Northern Ireland case from this perspective.