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Like with Haute Couture, in political science there are also fashions. In the 1990s party system change was the flavour of the day, and Peter Mair its uttermost pontiff. The popularity of the topic fadde away with the new century, especially after the 2008 Great Recession made buzzwords like populism and democratic backsliding, among others, more fashionable. Departing from Mair's, 2001 book chapter on the topic, and using Mair's conceptual and methodological tools, this paper revisits the sister concepts of party system freezing and party system change, showing to what extent fears about never-ending change and party system collapse are really true. While cleavage structures have changed, electorates are in disarray, and parties are in constant turmoil, party system change in Western Europe is still the exception (e.g. Ireland), rather than the rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The civil service is a creation of the state and not of any social or economic forces and has no organic relationship to society. Therefore, when a new state is established a new civil service is also demanded. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the First World War, the civil service of the defeated imperial regimes was dealing with this reality. In Ireland, a parallel process of state destruction and state-building occurred. However, unlike the post-Versailles states, the Irish Free State achieved remarkable stability despite experiencing a civil war. It has been proposed that one reason for that stability was that the government of the new state maintained the civil service of the former regime and so ensured continuity in the administration. By reconstructing the experience of the civil service in the period of the Irish revolution that view is challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are more than 2,000 interest groups in Ireland that play a key role in policy development. This paper explores which of these groups have access to Irish policymaking across various political arenas. It does so by examining original data from 2018, gained through large-N survey research on over 300 active interest groups, including business groups, firms, professional organisations, NGOs, citizen groups and consultancies. The analysis focusses on four key venues of policymaking which lobbyists seek to influence: the media, government departments, the Dáil and state agencies. We find that lobbying access in Ireland is similar to other West European countries, but also different. Organisations with higher organisational capacity and that hire revolving door lobbyists are more likely to be frequent visitors of almost all arenas compared to other groups. This is similar to existing accounts of bias in lobbying access reported in other countries. However, in contrast to scholarship focussing on other European political systems, access is not biased in favour of economic groups. The analysis fills an important empirical gap in the quantitative study of lobbying and adds an otherwise understudied perspective of non-state actor engagement in Irish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the policy ambitions of political incumbents and the organisation of the state administration to achieve them is complex and fluid, and cross-sectional studies provide useful but limited insights into how this relationship is evolving. There is evidence that the challenge of managing and coordinating the modern state's stock of public policies is under considerable pressure, however, arising from the accumulation of increasingly diverse policy responsibilities. In the Westminster/Whitehall administrative tradition, the primary actor for managing these endeavours is the ministerial 'department', which acts as the central organisational entity for formulating and coordinating public policy measures, and accounting for their implementation. In this paper, drawing on a data-set spanning a century of Irish public administration () and other sources, the changing profile of ministerial departments between 1922 and 2022 are examined in longitudinal perspective to illuminate the incidence and content of policy portfolio accumulation, and the political and administrative responses to these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public employment services (PES) have undergone significant change since 2011, reshaping the roles of the market, state, and community sector within Ireland's mixed economy of welfare. The post-crisis years saw the replacement of FÁS with a new network of one-stop-shop Intreo activation services, and the procurement of new employment services for the long-term unemployed through competitive tendering and Payment-by-Results. This process of marketisation is now being extended to other PES currently delivered by community organisations under block grants, such as Local Employment Services and Job Clubs. We position Ireland's PES landscape as a strategic action field wherein various providers compete with one another for position, power and resources during episodes of contention. Applying this lens to the ongoing reform of activation policy and PES institutions, the paper considers how the recent trajectory of PES marketisation has remained politically contentious. It examines the strategies of various providers and policy actors in shaping the politics of reform, focusing especially on the position of community organisations within the field and the degree to which they have been able to strategically mobilise against marketisation. Lessons are drawn about the nature of Irish politics and policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the analysis of policy making processes in the Irish context. It offers original insights into recent policy changes in Irish activation and social housing policy which, over the period of austerity, were subject to significant institutional reshaping and structural reforms including marketisation. A three I's framework tracing the interaction of key ideas, institutions and interests isolates dynamics informing the implementation of marketisation in these sectors and allows insights into how policy is shaped by key variables including markets, civil society and international actors. Attention is drawn to the different pathways to, and implementation of, marketisation in the different sectors. Marketisation reforms were largely implemented in PES and activation reforms, but marketisation pathways had different fortunes when it came to meeting social housing need. The paper explores why this is the case and suggests issues of scale and degrees of financialisation are important factors informing different pathways to and experiences of marketisation of social policy, with, in both sectors, important consequences for social policy and human rights. Issues of ideology, centralisation, international f(actors), timing and scale are important variables in shaping different pathways to marketisation with consequences for likelihood of political resistance to such processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the We the Citizens project of 2011, Ireland has begun to establish itself as a world leader in the use of national deliberative fora for considering policy change. In many ways, it marks a radical departure from the tightly-controlled, executive-dominated parliamentary politics of Dáil Éireann. Thus far, innovative deliberative processes have had a direct influence on two hugely transformative moral/social referendums: the marriage equality referendum of 2015 (recommended by the 2013–14 Convention on the Constitution) and the abortion referendum of 2018 (recommended by the Citizens' Assembly in 2017). With the extensive recommendations of the recent Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality, there may yet be more deliberation-led social transformation to come. This paper considers the involvement and influence of women in Ireland's deliberative processes and their contribution to the country's ongoing social transformation. Particular attention is paid to the much greater descriptive representation offered by these sortition-formed assemblies compared to Ireland's electoral bodies, and their record of delivering 'woman-friendly' outcomes is assessed. Consideration is also given to the possibility that these processes may resolve some of the tension between descriptive and substantive representation through women's direct participation in deliberative decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demands for accountability are a prominent feature of contemporary public life. Although much academic attention has focused on perceived denials of accountability and blame avoidance in various political, administrative and transitional justice contexts, there has been much less analysis of blame acceptance and efforts to provide accountability. This paper explores attempts to provide such accountability through the medium of public apologies. It considers accountability as an iterative process that is intrinsically linked to perceptions by target audiences. Our analysis draws on a survey of 1007 citizens across the island of Ireland and public attitudes to apologies reflected in focus groups with a stratified sample of the general population. We find that the public appetite for apologies is strong and that they are generally valued as a core element of accountability provision. Public evaluations of such apologies are nonetheless modulated by a range of intersecting variables. In the concluding section we consider these various dynamics and reflect on how viewing public apologies as a complex dialogic process can inform broader conceptual understandings of accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Brexit becomes reality, concerns are growing over environmental degradation due to differences in environmental policies on both sides of the border. At the same time, post-conflict peace occupied by neoliberal ideas remains fragile. However, there is no research that explores the nexus between environmental cooperation and peacebuilding in the Irish context. To narrow this loophole, first, this essay engages with the theory of environmental peacebuilding and sheds light on the role of environmental cooperation as an instrument for peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. Then, it proposes three models for environmental peacebuilding that likely fit in the Irish context. While not singling out one most feasible model, the paper concludes that the island of Ireland already has institutional arrangements and resources to implement any of the proposed models. Building a sustainable peace requires an approach to not only facilitate good relationships between divided human communities, but also resolve the human-nature conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares different strategies of legitimation deployed by the nationalist movements in the Balkans and Ireland in the 19th and early twentieth century. In contrast to the traditional accounts that posit nations and empires as mutually exclusive projects, I show how imperial and nationalist discourses can reinforce one another. The paper zooms in on the changing dynamics of imperial and national legacies by exploring how specific social movements strategically deploy concepts such as the 'small' or 'greater' nation to facilitate different nationalist projects. By contrasting the historical experiences of the Balkan states and Ireland I show how geopolitical and historical contexts shape the complex and contradictory relationships between imperial and the national projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most of the twentieth century the Irish party system was stable and unchanging, centred on Fianna Fáil, Europe's most electorally successful political party. That system suddenly collapsed in 2011 when Irish electoral politics became unusually volatile, ending decades of one-party dominance and leaving democratic elections unable to provide for government choice and accountability. This paper traces this transformation of the party system, unmasking the altered dynamics of the country's electoral competition, through a focus on its long-dominant natural party of government. It concludes by considering the challenges and prospects for Ireland's party democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 20 years academics referring to the constituency caseload of Teachta Dálas (TDs) have in the main been forced to use data that were collected and analysed during a period which is now of limited comparability. This paper presents an analysis of twenty-first century TDs and their caseload. An analysis of how technological advancements and societal changes have altered the caseload of TDs will be explored. This is relevant because some had argued that the modernisation of society would decrease their level of constituency work. A profile of the constituents who contact TDs and the nature of their cases will be presented as will an outline of how they divide their time. Furthermore, this paper will also assess how TDs view their role as a broker and how influential their intervention can actually be in representations made on behalf of their constituents. This paper sets out to bridge the gap between research conducted during the 1970s and 1980s and the present day. Furthermore, it intends both to dispel and to enhance many long-held perceptions regarding the Irish TD. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Political parties often employ the rhetoric of electoral mandates, claiming that the people who voted for them endorsed their policies. However, the level of voter-party issue congruence may vary across parties, issues, and elections; and the views of certain types of voters may be better represented by their party than others. This paper puts forward a series of hypotheses to explain variation in issue congruence, relating to how well-informed voters are about party policy, the role of non-policy determinants of vote choice, and the nature of policy competition between parties. The hypotheses are tested using data from surveys of voters and parties conducted during the 2020 general election and the 2019 European Parliament election in Ireland. Congruence is found to be higher when a party is particularly associated with an issue. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, for whom non-policy attributes play a significant part in voters' assessments, are found to have lower policy congruence with their voters overall than other parties. While there is no evidence that certain socio-demographic groups are systematically more or less well represented by their parties across all policy areas, some gaps in representation are identified, particularly in relation to so-called 'cultural' issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether variation in the social background characteristics of political elites is associated with variation in intra-party attitudes. The skewed distribution of gender, age and social class among political elites may substantively affect the distribution of political attitudes within a legislature compared to society as a whole. Although it is well established that party affiliation is the strongest predictor of attitudes within a legislature, social background may structure attitudes within political parties. This paper tests the extent of intra-party social background effects using a case study of Ireland, where inter-party attitude variance is low. It finds that gender and social class are the strongest social background predictors of intra-party attitudes, thus justifying a wider social focus on demographic rates of political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines how Ireland's political parties responded to the implementation of legislative gender quotas for the first time at the 2016 Dáil election. Using a dataset that includes biographical and electoral information on all candidates for the 2007, 2011 and 2016 general elections, we assess whether the profile of candidates nominated in 2016 differed from previous elections. Although many parties 'balanced the books' by nominating fewer inexperienced male candidates, the evidence suggests that some parties engaged in 'sacrificial lamb' strategies when it came to the selection of women candidates. In 2016, women non-incumbents nominated by Fine Gael were significantly less experienced and less able to raise funds than in previous elections. In addition, women non-incumbents nominated by both Fine Gael and Labour in 2016 were significantly more likely to run non-competitive races even after controlling for party, experience, funding support and other factors. The paper concludes that political parties are not homogenous and respond differently to gender quotas depending on the available political opportunity structure (POS). In 2016, this POS was shaped by electoral context, party resources, male incumbency and resistance to gender quotas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from economic protectionism to free trade in the late-1950s saw the Irish government embark on a project to improve the state's image abroad. Up to that point, the state had endured a tempestuous relationship with British newspapers and the adoption of free trade necessitated a new rapport to encourage positive coverage of the industrialisation project. The key components of this strategy were the courting of British newspapers through state sponsorship of special supplements, facilitating visits by British journalists to industrial sites, and providing interview access to senior ministers. Such actions constituted the state's first exercise in nation branding and represented a sea change in how it interacted with British media. This article offers an analysis of this project to project an image of a modern, industrial Ireland for overseas consumption. It finds that the project was only partly successful: while much coverage highlighted the state's economic modernisation, this was often accompanied by commentary that was critical of the lack of social change. It also finds that the tensions present in this initial nation branding project also characterised later nation branding projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For almost a century, unionists won a majority of seats in every election to Northern Ireland's regional parliament or assembly. That unbroken run came to an end in March 2017 when unionists became a minority in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time. Much scholarly analysis of this new dispensation characterises it as part of a long-term shift away from the binary politics of ethnonational division and majoritarianism as support grows for parties aligned with neither unionism nor nationalism. This paper offers an alternative analysis that emphasises the persistent importance of constitutionally related majorities. It argues that the emergence in 2017 of a non-unionist majority in the Assembly removed the last vestiges of a dominant party system that had endured in one form or another since the establishment of Northern Ireland. It marks the birth of a new party system, bringing about a much more fundamental shift in the dynamics of political competition than is generally understood. Rather than moving the politics of Northern Ireland beyond constitutional questions, it brings those questions to the forefront, with profound implications for the long-term relationship between Northern Ireland on one hand and the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Candidate gender quotas were passed into law in the Republic of Ireland in 2012. This paper examines support for this quota amongst three different groups: local election candidates, a sample of professionals and the general public. Using responses from three different datasets, we identify the key ideological, partisan and demographic predictors of support for the quota. We find that the best predictors of support for the quota are, not surprisingly, the gender of the respondent and being a feminist. There is a weak effect for left-wing ideology and partisanship and for beliefs regarding the causes of women’s absence from political life. Overall, the results suggest that resistance to the quota is still relatively strong amongst both potential candidates for Dáil Éireann and the Irish electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with how minor parties and independents act once they have won election to the parliament. Using a dataset of all votes in Dail Eireann from 1937 to 2007 the rate of agreement with Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour for each independent and minor party candidate is calculated. Based on theories of the behaviour of parties and independents a number of hypotheses are formulated and tested. The conclusions of the paper are that minor parties are very likely to vote against the government when they are not a part of it and that for independents the particular typology matters. When independents are needed by the government, not only those independents needed but the entire body of independents are significantly more in agreement with the government than when they are not needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainability of cross-border peacebuilding initiatives is increasingly pertinent in a context of reduced public funding (national and European), yet the potential contribution to be made to this from private sector cooperation remains under-explored. This paper brings together quantitative data on cross-border trade with qualitative evidence from business leaders in the Irish border region in order to examine the nature of cross-border cooperation within the private sector and its possible connections to peacebuilding. This evidence is analysed in the light of three theses: spillover, contact and business-based peacebuilding. The first part of this paper assesses the conditions for cross-border business cooperation in Ireland, including funding support for economic development, European integration, and (post-Agreement) institutional change. The second part examines the particular contributions made by the private sector to peace, centring upon consciously non-political motivations (such as pragmatism and profit), networking and leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The stability of Irish democracy since 1922 is often a cause for contentment with lines of succession drawn from 'Grattan's parliament', O'Connell's popular movement, and the achievements of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) at Westminster through to Dáil Éireann. The IPP certainly disrupted the Commons, yet Irish politics was also shaped by the 'mother of parliaments' – MPs mastered parliamentary procedure and home rule legislation drew on British and colonial parliamentary models. By 1918, the party's machine and parliamentary behaviour were rejected as much as British rule – but as Michael Laffan suggested, Sinn Féin triumphed by beating the home rulers at their own game. However, the 1922 constitution gave generous expression to the sovereignty of the people, and for judicial review. But, within short succession, facility for popular initiative was overridden. Ironically, the Irish Free State would never be amended by popular will or judicial review but by parliamentary majority in 25 amendments as the people only voted to adopt it in 1922 and replace it in 1937. In practice then, it was closer to a vision of Dicey's supremacy of parliament dogma that prevailed, so much so, that Seán Lemass acrimoniously proclaimed in 1934: 'this is a sovereign assembly'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of Saorstát Éireann (the Irish Free State) in 1922 did not herald a fundamental overhaul of the administrative machinery inherited from Whitehall and Dublin Castle. Path dependent continuities in legislation and executive orders underpinned the new dispensation. At the same time, a process of evolutionary change, which we call 'administrative greening', was underway. Drawing on data in the Irish State Administration Database (ISAD), and building on our analysis in Biggins, J., MacCarthaigh, M., & Scott, C. (2024). Priming the state: Continuity and junctures in the foundation of the Irish administration. Irish Political Studies, we explore these dynamics of both continuity and change in the formative years of the new state's public administration. In so doing, we attest to patterns of normative production and reproduction, illustrated with reference to a number of legislative and administrative examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Irish War of Independence, 1919–21, and the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922 the Irish Free State left the United Kingdom. Its leaders had been revolutionaries, whose explicit objective had been to overturn British authority in Ireland. Whilst the British ceded control of most of the island to the new state, an Anglo-Irish, Protestant, elite remained. The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) was the most prominent institution of it. As such, it might be expected that relations between the RDS and the new Irish state would be adverse. However, they were excellent. Drawing largely on the recently catalogued RDS archive, this article explains a seeming incongruity. It does so with general reference to the theme of agricultural development and specific reference to the agendas of the RDS and the new state; the role of key figures; the British foot-and-mouth disease crisis of the 1920s; and the response to partition. It also tests the academic discourse on what the Irish Revolution represented in socio-political terms, and the position of the former Protestant plutocracy in post-independence Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A principle of continuity was baked into the political and legal instruments underpinning the embryonic Irish state. At the same time, a process of evolutionary change we call 'administrative greening' was initiated, which we examine here and in Biggins, MacCarthaigh, and Scott ([2024b]. Greening the Irish State: Early Legislative and Administrative Dynamics. Irish Political Studies, XXX, XXX). In this first article, we highlight the extent to which these dynamics shaped the formative or 'priming' years of the new state and its politics. We interrogate this from both political and legal angles. The pre-existence of British administrative bodies and norms constrained the Irish revolutionary parliament (Dáil Éireann), the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and the Constitution of Saorstát Éireann in 1922. The early leaders of the vulnerable state understood they would have fuelled instability and uncertainty had they chosen to dispense with the existing public administration en masse post-1921. But this inheritance did not preclude administrative evolution either. We explore the mechanisms through which objectives of continuity and change were framed. In so doing, we place our narrative within a broader literature on path-dependency and critical junctures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research reported here sets out in some detail an experiment in deliberative democracy that took place in Ireland in 2011. The We the Citizens initiative featured a nationwide pilot citizens' assembly, the first of its kind in Ireland. It recruited a random selection of Irish residents to deliberate on specific issues relating to the economy and also reform in Irish politics. The paper explains the background to this, setting out how it was done and presenting some headline results. The results also tell us something about contemporary Irish attitudes to the political system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Analysis of the Irish state's administrative system is an unaccountably neglected area of systematic academic inquiry. This is all the more difficult to account for in view of the dynamic relationship between government actors and the public bureaucracy in realizing political goals. This paper identifies some distinguishing institutional features and dominant trends in Irish politico-administrative governance, and suggests avenues for future inquiry. The paper begins with an examination of the literature on administrative system change, with a focus on the New Public Management literature. Following this, the Irish case is profiled, identifying the evolution of ministerial departments and of state agencies by successive Irish governments, including patterns of agency creation and termination over time. Particular attention is given to the period 1989–2010, which has been one of quite rapid and complex organizational change within the state's bureaucratic apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New theoretical approaches to the state have posed challenges for the comparative analysis of the organizational features of states. The analysis of state bodies and state agencies has largely been confined to the sub-discipline of public administration, and has been resistant to the systematic classification that has made progress possible in other areas of comparative politics. This article argues that there is much to be gained by reconceptualizing state bodies in a comparative context. This paper profiles the classification system underlying the construction of the Irish State Administration Database (ISAD). This paper sets out a new approach to conceptualizing the organizational and functional features of states. ISAD not only provides a valuable research resource for work on the Irish state, but also can provide a framework for building a comparative research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is an introduction to the study of minor parties in Ireland. It tackles a number of themes that are explored in more detail by other contributors in this volume, including the influence of minor parties, their electoral performance and the factors explaining the level of variation in these two areas. As the title suggests, this paper is a schema for how this topic can be approached. In particular it answers some of the key preliminary questions that are necessary before any analysis into this area can be conducted. Such questions include determining the number of, and support for, minor parties in Ireland vis-a-vis their European counterparts. It is found that although competing in a smaller arena than other comparative parliaments, the impact of minor parties in Ireland has been considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minor parties (defined as those outside the three-party core of the party system) have been a distinctive feature of Irish political life since independence in 1922. Of the approximately 50 such parties to appear since then, though, only a few have become politically relevant, and even these parties have tended to go through a short life cycle. This paper describes the profile of parties of this kind, seeking to place Irish minor parties in categories that have emerged in the comparative literature, and classifying them in respect of origin, electoral performance, strategic self-placement, and ideological orientation. The paper concludes with an effort to explain the rise and fall of minor parties in Ireland in the light of generalisations in the comparative literature, where institutional factors (including, but not confined to, the electoral system) and social psychological considerations (including in particular the issues of declining party identification and disillusionment with existing parties) have played a particular role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ireland is often described as the odd country out in studies of west European politics. Its parties do not readily fit into the classical European definitions of party families. This paper estimates the positions of the parliamentary parties since 1937, based on a dataset consisting of all parliamentary votes from 1937 to 2006 using a Bayesian ideal point estimation framework. It is shown that party competition in the Irish parliament adheres to a government-opposition dimension, and that it is possible to distinguish only two blocs of parties in each period, one consisting of the parties supporting the government and one comprising the remaining parties as the opposition. It is argued that the estimated positions do not reflect party policy positions but are instead voting cohesion of two distinct blocs of the parliamentary parties. The findings are validated by a comparison with various expert surveys of Irish party positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On Friday, 13 June 2008, the Irish electorate for the second time in seven years rejected a European Treaty when they voted against the Lisbon Treaty. The rejection was in spite of sizeable support among Irish people for EU membership. This raises the question 'why would a country so supportive of EU membership reject a European Treaty?' This paper provides a detailed review of the 2008 Lisbon referendum campaign. It begins by outlining the political context to the referendum. Following on from this, it examines the main players on both sides of the debate and outlines the key issues and events of the campaign. The paper then provides an assessment of the diversity of factors that lay behind voters' decision to reject the Treaty before concluding with an analysis of the potential responses of the government and the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note has two functions. It first sets the scene for this special issue using the 2020 Irish National Election Study (INES), which comprises several discrete data sets. The note also reports on findings from one part of the INES – an online poll of voters of polling day, which included a battery of questions related to attitudes and behaviours relevant to national politics. The note provides an empirical analysis of the vote choice in this election. Rather than taking a theory-testing approach, we use a more data-driven strategy and identify the key variables in the data set that are of relevance to an understanding of vote choice. Our findings support the views of other recent commentaries of Irish elections that Irish electoral politics is undergoing major transformation. The new electoral politics that is emerging is personified by a clear left vs. right divide in which strongly held ideological positions separate the voters of the main parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mainstreaming of climate change through processes of media communication and political advocacy carries with it an imagined public. Drawing on qualitative data from 11 focus groups and 19 life history interviews carried out in the Republic of Ireland1in 2010, the paper reveals a significant mismatch between the perceived characteristics of this imagined audience, and the practices and experiences of a socially embedded Irish public. Moreover, we observe the emergence of restrictive forms of discourse around climate change that leave little room for connecting with the topic, thereby serving to delegitimise it as a matter of public interest. Given the necessity for climate action and decarbonisation efforts that reach across diverse social and cultural arenas, we see potential for a broadening of public debate in line with key principles of deliberative democracy, with a view to achieving a more open and inclusive politics of climate change. Although we recognise the limitations of mainstream deliberative democracy thinking, including its inherent rationalism, we believe that its explicit commitment to inclusiveness and transparency offers a viable alternative to current disengagement and exclusion of citizens from meaningful climate change debate and action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines patterns of intra-organisational evolution and reform of Fianna Fáil as a party organisation before and after the 2011 Dáil election, widely considered an ‘earthquake election’ that fundamentally undermined Fianna Fáil’s status as the dominant party in the Irish party system. Electoral losses had triggered reform in Fianna Fáil prior to 2011, but such reforms tended to be minor, as the party expected its opposition status to be temporary. This orientation changed after 2011, as the party’s very foundation seemed threatened, having suffered a historic decline of its electoral support and membership. We argue that the post-2011 re-orientation can be usefully characterised as a movement away from organisational characteristics associated with the ‘cartel model of party organisation’ towards characteristics echoing more ‘traditional mass party structures’, an organisational model less dependent on state resources, and more able to generate loyalty through organisational means. Whether the 2011 reforms will lead to lasting change is likely to depend on whether, and if so how quickly, Fianna Fáil can reclaim its position as the major party of government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Citizens' Assembly, a form of deliberative mini-public, tasked 99 ordinary Irish citizens with the responsibility of deliberating on five topics, after which they made recommendations to government. Throughout assembly meetings members were presented with up-to-date accurate information from experts. 'How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change' was considered third by the assembly over two weekends. On the final day the citizens voted on thirteen strongly endorsed recommendations for government to act on. The release of the final report in April 2018 saw a further four ancillary recommendations added. There was considerable media coverage surrounding the Citizens' Assembly for this topic. This research undertakes a content analysis of four national media sources over fifteen-months; the Farmers Journal, the Irish Independent, The Irish Times and TheJournal.ie. We found that climate related reporting became more neutral in tone and more divergent in its relationship to evidence over the research period. There was a reflection of the key themes from the Citizens' Assembly in each media source, and themes changed through time for each publication. Two of the media sources examined increased their overall levels of climate reporting while the other two decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Northern Ireland seeks ways to deal with the memory of the conflict, artefacts associated with the period that can be ascribed with an aura of historical authenticity are placed on public display as yet another means to employ the past. These artefacts become another element of the media machine of commemorative projects, touchstones to the past, and agents in contemporary political activities. This paper considers the methods employed byIn Their Footsteps, an artefact-based initiative organised by groups and families seeking justice for conflict related losses. It takes the format of a memorial exhibition with objects, text and imagery intended to garner support for the political ambitions of their justice campaign. By critically investigating the methods employed by this initiative, insights are given to the use, meaning, symbolism and contribution of artefact display to the social processes of commemoration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ireland's tobacco control policy today is recognised as one of the strongest in Europe and the world, largely on the basis of its first-in-the-world general workplace smoking ban in 2004. However, it is insufficiently recognised that Ireland has persistently and deliberately developed tobacco control policies since the 1970s, a longer period than most countries. Using a five-fold analysis of factors influencing tobacco policy: agendas, socio-economic setting (including public opinion), networks, institutions, and ideas (including scientific information and diffusion), this paper explains policy development in Ireland over the long term. It demonstrates how a small country, not dependent on tobacco growing or a domestic tobacco industry but also having only a small research and bureaucratic capacity, has managed to create a strong tobacco control policy. Even though it is a European Union member, Ireland has utilised diffusion of research and policy in the English-speaking world, especially paying close attention to the USA, to develop its position as a world policy leader in tobacco control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On Saturday, 10 November 2012, the Irish electorate voted to accept a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which would strengthen the constitutional rights of children. The 31st Amendment was passed by a margin of 16 per cent, with 58 per cent of voters in favour and 42 per cent against. The result was much closer than initially expected. It was hoped that holding the referendum on a Saturday would boost electoral participation, particularly among young people, but turnout on the day proved disappointingly low at 33.5 per cent. This report provides an account of the 2012 Children's Referendum campaign and result. It begins by summarising the context behind the referendum and then outlines the key issues, events and players in the campaign. After mapping the national result, the paper draws on market research to understand the various factors grounding voter choice and turnout. The report concludes with an explanation as to the current legal standing of the amendment following a petition to the High Court to have the result annulled. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Whereas numerous recent studies have explored the structural and procedural ability of national parliaments to provide oversight of transnational issues such as European integration, the nature of individual parliamentarians' interest in foreign policy is a subject that has received little attention. The general assumption is that electoral incentives and informational deficiencies dissuade parliamentarians from actively engaging politics beyond the domestic realm. This paper suggests an analysis of parliamentary questions as a method for measuring individual parliamentarians' interests in foreign policy. Applying this technique to the Dáil uncovers evidence that, contrary to theory-derived conventional expectations, some parliamentarians do seek to monitor the government's foreign policy agenda. While conventional explanations of legislative role-orientation only weakly predict variations in observed behaviour, elite interviews identify lobbying by interest groups and foreign governments as the motivation for some Irish parliamentarians' engagement in foreign affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In June 2008, the Irish electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum. Sixteen months later, voters went back to the polls and overwhelmingly backed the Treaty in a rerun referendum with 69 per cent voting ‘yes’. What explains this change of heart? This report provides a detailed review of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland. The paper argues that the switch from ‘no’ to ‘yes’ is explained not only by the changed economic circumstances the country faced but also by the guarantees secured by the government from their EU counterparts on the issues of tax and the EU Commissioner, a more informed electorate and a better campaign from those advocating a ‘yes’ vote. This conclusion undermines the view that the referendum was simply ‘second order’ in nature and that national political considerations such as the economy were the sole factors in explaining the switch from ‘no’ to ‘yes’. The report also concludes that ‘campaigns matter’ in Irish EU referendums because of the unfamiliar partisan configuration that voters are faced with. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe not to offer some form of suffrage to its citizens who live abroad permanently. By contrast, it has been a front-runner in the trend towards providing more liberal voting regimes for resident non-citizens, as since 1963 it has allowed all residents for the previous 6 months to vote and stand in local elections. This paper considers the normative case for and against external voting, the current comparative context of its increasing provision among European countries and the range of ways in which voting rights abroad combine with the extensibility of citizenship by descent abroad. Addressing the Irish case, it argues that there is no basis for a general right to vote for external citizens, but that, none the less, persisting connections and the rate of return migration give some reason to grant votes to first-generation emigrants, if differently weighted from those of resident citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

People do political violence for a reason. That is, the tactic of violence is resorted to in order to achieve a purpose. So what might lead the perpetrators of political violence to abandon its use and embrace peaceful democratic political activity? From the perspective of the perpetrator, the answer will lie in the nature of the ends/means relationship and the re-evaluation of the usefulness of particular means to achieve a given end. This paper explores the Irish Republican Movement's ‘transition to democracy’ and its apparent adoption of a different interpretation of democracy that no longer prioritises simple majoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The internet has been expected to modify the very nature of the political discourse by delivering a democratic surplus. It has frequently been regarded as the medium though which the right balance between participation and representation can be achieved. The vary nature of the medium has generated great levels of interest and debate on what type of political activity could be performed online. This paper studies the heuristics of online participation in Ireland and, by addressing the issue of who participates online, it investigates the type of scenario that can be expected to develop in the near future. Using survey data from the Irish National Election Study 2007, this article offers an insight on the process of gathering politically relevant information online and on whether such an activity may lead to further political engagement. Evidence of quite limited but possibly escalating forms of online engagement is found. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At no time in history has the number of women elected to Dáil Éireann surpassed 14 per cent of the total membership. In spite of significant social changes, the use of a proportional electoral system and no obvious bias among voters, the number of female TDs remains stubbornly low by international standards. This paper examines why, if the prospects for women's election are relatively good, so few women end up in public office. Using both aggregate and survey data, the issues of incumbency advantage, the electorate's attitudes and the candidates' differing experiences of the political process are explored. The evidence suggests that, all else equal, female candidates have as good a chance of being elected as their male counterparts, and the real difficulties in achieving equitable representation lie elsewhere, in the candidate emergence and nomination stages of the election game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Committees are the backbone of any modern legislature. Membership of committees is in most parliaments a gift within the reach of the party groups. Yet, both theoretically and empirically, little is known about committee allocation in parliaments. Using theories from the literature of the US Congress, a framework for analysis of the committee assignments in Dáil Éireann is presented. Empirically, the contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it analyzes what factors influence the allocation of Teachta Dálas (TDs) to Dáil committees. Second, it analyzes to what extent the participation of TDs in committee changes over time. The former analysis corroborates results found in other parliaments; few factors seem to have an influence. The latter analysis confirms that the participation of TDs changes over time and seems to be tied in with the changing scope and influence of the committee system. The analyzes rely on a data set consisting of all committee assignments in the Dáil since November 1982 until June 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The county as the main source of local identity has a key influence on public life in the Republic of Ireland, and amongst other things is reflected in Dáil constituencies, vote transfer patterns, and as the basis for local government. Previous proposals around territorial reform and recent experience with attempted reconfigurations of the county structure (and in particular reviews of county boundaries) suggest that the county is one of those aspects of Irish political life that is highly resistant to change. Contemporary and future debates over public service reform and consolidation, as well as over urbanisation, metropolitan governance and the economic importance of ‘city regions’ will perhaps frame the next phase of debate over the future of the county. However, based on past and more recent proposals for local government reform and boundary change, any future proposals for territorial restructuring are likely to be mediated by a requirement to respect traditional county loyalties. Planning reforms and efforts to place a greater focus on urban-led growth may be challenged by the status of the county as a central and enduring source of identity for most Irish citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the comparative study of party organisation and party systems Irish parties have long been considered as deviant. While this might, in certain respects at least, be a proper description for the major Irish parties, the Irish Green Party mirrors the transformation from a loose protest movement opposed to 'conventional politics' into an established force in the Irish party system - most visible in its current government participation - that a range of Green parties in other European countries have already experienced. This paper analyses this transformation by focusing on the party's organisational evolution from its foundation in 1981 until 2009. One of the core findings is that its growing political relevance was accompanied by a shift towards a stronger professionalisation of party elites, which pushed for a streamlining of intra-organisational procedures. This development empowered the party in public office and thereby centralised the party organisation, a finding in line with theories on new parties' long-term evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability under the Thirty Year Rule of British and Stormont government papers for the early stages of the Troubles has made it possible for existing analyses of the role of key actors to be reassessed. This article uses the reports of successive UK Representatives to cast new light on the nature of British policy in the 1969-71 period. It argues that a view of the dynamics of the conflict as between an entrenched and discriminatory majority and an oppressed minority led to an underestimation of the depth of Protestant fears and the deepening of the regime's legitimacy crisis with its own supporters. The result was persistence with a policy that achieved the worst of both worlds: a regime incapable of stabilising itself and an increasingly militant and radicalised Catholic population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role of the Irish defence forces in 1969-70 as the Irish state reacted to the emergence of the Northern troubles. Ireland had never envisaged using its army to take by force what Britain would not concede through negotiation. In the absence of an obvious external threat, and because of the legacy of the 1924 army mutiny, the state maintained only very small and ill-equipped forces, trained exclusively for conventional warfare and actively discouraged from any strategic or tactical study of Northern Ireland. The gun-running plans and other clandestine schemes promoted by an army intelligence officer and disclosed in the 1970 arms crisis were correctly interpreted in London as a conspiracy led by two ambitious ministers impatient at the relative restraint of government policy, rather than as the secret element of a two-pronged Irish policy of overt reasonableness and covert destabilisation of Northern Ireland. The article also maintains that there was no possibility at any point of a military coup against the Lynch government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British government has a fraught relationship with former combatants in Northern Ireland. It simultaneously benefits from former combatants' peace-building efforts, whilst being reluctant to grant them statutory recognition and funding. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with politically motivated former loyalist combatants and statutory representatives in Belfast, this paper explores the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between them. It argues that a lack of legitimacy is the biggest obstacle to good working relationships, and that positive engagement may be crucial in order to promote the implementation of peace in the most difficult to reach and volatile constituencies in Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]