Damien Bolger

Damien.Bolger@ul.ie

This project examines the six implementation bodies established through the Belfast Agreement 1998. These bodies operationalize a number of agreed areas of cross-border cooperation, under the political supervision and guidance of the North South Ministerial Council. With a remit that encompasses the full island of Ireland, these bodies therefore have a somewhat unique place in the all-island administrative and governance network. This study assesses the impact of the implementation bodies in administration and governance between systems of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland through a new-institutionalist perspective and provides at a micro level, an in depth examination of the implementation bodies, and assesses them as bodies within a burgeoning administrative and governance system, whilst also assessing them as effective policy instruments within a public policy process. At a macro level, this study forwards the concept of providing a means to measure the embeddedness of institutions in society, specifically adding to discussions on the institutionalisation of public bodies. Such a mechanism to measure the embeddedness of institutions provides an important foundation to understanding much about political and administrative institutions. Commonly, the concept of embeddedness is much more implied than explicitly presented. This study serves the purpose of providing a means to measure embeddedness, and utilises the implementation bodies as a cases for this measurement. This study presents a pragmatic mixed method approach, utilising both inductive interviewing and deductive statistical measurement through questionnaires as the most prevalent methods. This cross-national small-n comparative case study methodology, framed by the new-institutionalist paradigm builds an understanding of the individual implementation bodies and also the bodies comparatively, at an administrative level. The contexts within which it is set includes the ongoing peace process, the continued pursuit of reform and the economic crisis that has afflicted the public finance directly in both jurisdiction of the island of Ireland. The continued use of the implementation bodies then is predicated as much on non-core service delivery as it is on providing a means to manage and settle a conflict area. In summary this study provides an in-depth study of the implementation bodies, which more often than not are dealt with in descriptive ways when being discussed, and rarely if at all discussed from the viewpoint of public administration and public policy.