The article contributes to debates on the relationship between the state and ‘the people’ in post-national contexts, specifically those characterised by intra-state conflicts. The article critically theorises the articulation of this relationship in the Good Friday Agreement as part of the Northern Irish peace process. It employs the concept of ‘state universality’ to examine the way in which the state-people relationship is constructed on the basis of the recognition of multiple peoples, establishing the universality of the state in a postnational fashion. The article also draws on the work of Claude Lefort to examine the implications of this form in terms of political representation, arguing that the recognition of multiple peoples at stake in the Good Friday Agreement is predicated on the particularisation of the two communities, thus divesting political representation of the dimension of universality.
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