Constitution Unit publishes new report on reforming Northern Ireland's governing institutions

Over a quarter of a century since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Northern Ireland is rightly celebrated around the world as offering a model for how to build a lasting peace. Yet the governing institutions established through Strand One of the Agreement – principally, the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive – have had a mixed record of success.

For much of the period since 1998 they have not functioned, including two recent spells between 2017 and 2020 and between 2022 and 2024. Some people – especially supporters of political parties identifying as neither nationalist or unionist – have come to view the institutions as operating inequitably. And there are widespread concerns about weaknesses in governance and poor delivery of public services.

Reform of Stormont: Options for Discussion by Dr Conor J. Kelly, Professor Alan Renwick and Alan Whysall provides a technical analysis of possible reforms that have been or might reasonably be proposed and that can plausibly be said to preserve the Agreement's underlying principles. It offers no view on the desirability of these reforms.

The report groups possible reforms into four categories: the process of Executive formation, other aspects of the Executive, the Assembly and other Strand One institutions. In each case, it examines what can be said about the reforms' likely effects. It also sets out key actors' views towards possible changes and discusses how reforms would come about. And it examines arguments for and against temporary reforms to allow some form of democratic government to continue if the institutions were to collapse again.

In the absence of any other systematic listing and assessment of reform proposals, this report sets out to inform some of the conversations that are already taking place about reforming the ways in which Northern Ireland’s devolved government works.

Two of the report's authors, Professor Alan Renwick and Alan Whysall, will be at an event discussing its findings on 28 April at Queen's University Belfast. They will be joined by leading experts, Professor Katy Hayward and Director of Pivotal Ann Watt, to explore the ideas and possible ways forward set out in the report.

Sign up to attend the event

Key links:

• Reform of Stormont: Options for Discussion – read the report.
• 'Reform of Northern Ireland’s governing institutions: new report on options' – read a summary of the report on our blog.
• Reform of Stormont – find out more about the project that this report forms part of.
• Read other recent Constitution Unit research on Northern Ireland, including work on Northern Ireland’s political future conducted between 2022 and 2024, our 2023 report on Perspectives on the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and our 2021 Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland.