This essay is about the Northern Ireland Conflict and the Belfast Agreement. Its focus is on the development in Northern Ireland politics after the implementationof the Agreement which was ratified in a referendum. The essay is a case studywhich analyzes the progress towards an Assembly Government and Powersharingbetween the unionists and the nationalists/republicans. The development is analyzed with Robert D. Putnam's theory of Two-Level Games? The essay first analyzes the changes in the unionist society where the opinion towards the agreement has been negative which depends on the concessions made by the unionist.

On the 8th of May 2007 a local power-sharing goverment consisting of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was formed in Northern Ireland. The aim of this dissertation is to explore why the DUP, who in the past have opposed all forms of power-sharing decided to form a goverment and take active part in a power-sharing agreement. The study is based on a consociational theoretical framework developed by Arend Lijphart and further developed in a Northern Irish context by John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary. Using this theory the study seeks to understand the broad conditions surrounding the DUP's power-sharing. After a description of consociational theory and the road leading up to the Belfast Agreement,three possible explanations for power-sharing, based onconsociational theory are discussed.