Question

Why is it so that religious differences created social division in Northern Ireland and failed to do the same in Netherlands?Explain.

Answer 1

In Northern Ireland the religious differences were overlapping.This kind of division takes place when social differences overlap with other differences. These social division cause harm to democracy and can even weaken the basic foundation democracy. When one social difference become predominant over any other differences lead to disintegration of country because people will start to think that they belong to different communities.


Netherlands had cross-cutting differences i.e., people have common interest on one issue but have different opinion on different issues. Cross-cutting difference are easy to accommodate. In Netherlands, class and religion cut cross each other. People were all Christians but were divided into catholic and protestants but both class were equally likely to be rich or poor. 

Answer 2

Northern Ireland:Overlapping social difference refers to the case when one social difference becomes more powerful, due to the impact of another. Here Protestants and Catholics.

Netherland:The cross-cutting social difference is the situation when a social difference is compromised with another.

Here protestants and Catholics.

MARK AS BRAINLIEST