Irish Elections Research Articles

Brexit and prosperity but defeat: the economic vote conundrum in the 2020 Irish election

ABSTRACT At face, Ireland's economy had staged a remarkable recovery by 2020 since the devastating impact of the Global Financial Crisis. The economy was the fastest growing in Europe, unemployment had reached record lows, and Ireland's debt was back to its lowest level since 2009. The traditional economic voting model assumes voters punish outgoing governments for poor economic performance by voting against them but rewards incumbents for a sound economy by voting for them. Nevertheless, Irish voters delivered a stunning rebuke to the Fine Gael government in 2020, registering an incumbent administration's sixth-worst performance since 1932, raising questions about the applicability of the economic vote. Using the 2020 Irish National Election Study, our contribution unpacks this apparent puzzle. We uncover that macroeconomic conditions were less rosy than at first sight, a pattern recognised by voters. We find the economic vote was alive and well, with voter economic perceptions, and their views on income redistribution (and taxes/spending) having a potent effect on the vote. Brexit, as an economic issue, however, was not influential in shaping the vote. The Fine Gael challenge, and the answer to the conundrum, was most voters perceived the economy was lackluster and the government was on the wrong side of economic policy preferences of most voters.

Predicting vote choice in the 2020 Irish general election

ABSTRACT 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.

Are Irish voters moving to the left?

ABSTRACT The Irish party system has been an outlier in comparative politics. Ireland never had a left-right divide in parliament, and for decades, the dominant centrist political parties competed around a centre-right policy agenda. The absence of an explicit left-right divide in party competition suggested that Irish voters, on average, occupy centre-right policy preferences. Combining survey data since 1973 and all Irish election studies between 2002 and 2020, we show that the average Irish voter now leans to the centre-left. We also show that income has recently emerged as a predictor of left-right self-placement, and that left-right positions increasingly structure vote choice. These patterns hold when using policy preferences on taxes, spending, and government interventions to reduce inequality as alternative indicators. We outline potential explanations for this leftward shift, and conclude that these developments might be anchored in economic inequalities and the left populist strategies of Sinn Féin.

The electoral commission, disinformation and freedom of expression

This commentary examines how the prospective electoral commission could play a role in combatting disinformation in the run-up to Irish elections. While legislative debates have pointed to the potential role of the commission in protecting elections from anti-democratic actors who disseminate false electoral claims, no clear mandate has detailed how this could manifest. This ambiguity is exacerbated by Ireland’s electoral statutory framework, which has struggled to adapt to the challenging digital realities of contemporary electoral engagement. While the emergence of disinformation and related digital exigencies represents a potential for regulatory scrutiny, this must be considered alongside Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Article 40.6.1 of the Irish Constitution, both of which protect the right to freedom of expression. In positing how the new commission could counter electoral disinformation, a natural starting point is to probe how such functions are shaped and limited by this fundamental right. Moreover, the reluctance of the Irish judiciary and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to accept regulatory interference with political expression means that restrictions on the dissemination of information in the run-up to elections must be treated with delicacy when shaping the commission’s potential functions in this critical area.

Thomas Wentworth’s Irish electoral strategy, 1634

ABSTRACT Thomas Wentworth (1593–1641) came to the Lord Deputyship of Ireland with a background in Yorkshire and English politics. His ruthless, divisive and barely legal electioneering in Yorkshire was always on behalf of fellow members of the local gentry and invoked class issues. His behaviour during his time as President of the Council of the North prefigured his government of Ireland. Wentworth’s 1634 Irish election campaign built on his predecessors’ strategies, sending conciliatory signals to Catholics while conducting a strong operation, in defiance of the king’s orders, for the return of officials, soldiers and his own dependents, many of a lower social class and unconnected with their constituencies. He relied heavily on Irish privy councillors for the success of his campaign and lied to English politicians about the election results and parliamentary proceedings. His coercive treatment of parliament and its members during and after the sessions and his ruthless favouring of his clients and vindictive treatment of those who opposed him led him to over-reach himself and set a course for his downfall and execution.

Sentience and salience – exploring the party politicization of animal welfare in multi-level electoral systems: Analysis of manifesto discourse in UK meso elections 1998–2017

ABSTRACT This study explores the party politicization of animal welfare in the context of multi-level governance in the UK. It examines over 1300 pledges in party manifestos for Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1998–2017. It reveals the nature of party competition, including increasing salience over electoral cycles. This is complemented by examination of the party dynamics in two sub-fields: wildlife protection and farm animal welfare. The wider significance of this study lies in showing how the move to multi-level electoral politics provides new political spaces to advance animal welfare and how meso-ballots are increasingly attuned to the symbiosis of humans and animals. These factors are driving the territorialization of policy and leading to distinctive animal welfare regimes in the different countries of the UK. In addition, partisan theory reveals how the electoral politics of animal welfare varies between sub-fields and is shaped by parties’ relationships with different policy communities.

‘Ireland’s Independence Day’: the 1918 election campaign in Ireland and the Wilsonian moment

ABSTRACTOne of the first modern mass nationalist parties, the Irish Parliamentary Party [IPP] dominated Irish politics for almost half a century until its defeat in the 1918 general election. Although long designated nationalists by 1918, the party and its supporters encompassed a broad alliance entailing strong nationalists and those with affinity for an imperialist-nationalist vision. The IPP based its campaign on a demand for home rule — an accommodation whereby Ireland would gain its own parliament with jurisdiction over domestic affairs while remaining part of the United Kingdom. Although the demands of Irish unionists put the unity of the country in doubt, home rule legislation was on the British statute book in 1914 when IPP leader John Redmond called on Irishmen to enlist in the British army to help safeguard home rule when hostilities ended. The war, however, provided radical nationalists with an opportunity to plan and launch a rebellion at Easter 1916. While it has been argued that mass nationalism combining cultural and political nationalism was a relatively late development in the Irish case, this article examines how the IPP’s electoral defeat in 1918 interacted with events at home and abroad. It analyses the language and propaganda of both the IPP and its nationalist opponent, Sinn Féin, to examine how both parties framed their campaigns in the context of the post-war peace conference. The use of continental examples in the campaigns of both is analysed to assess contemporary perceptions and the ability of Sinn Féin to turn the Wilsonian message into a propaganda victory. While stressing the importance of domestic events in the decline of the IPP, this article sets the Irish election in a European context by examining how Sinn Féin sought to claim the language of self-determination for itself and disassociate the IPP from the Wilsonian message.

The 1918 Election and its Relevance to Modern Irish Politics

The 1918 Election and its Relevance to Modern Irish Politics John Bruton In this article I will describe the campaign in the 1918 General Election in the part of Ireland I know best, County Meath, and draw from that local contest broader national themes that marked this election and its aftermath.1 I hope to show that issues arose in that election which remain current in present day politics, such as national self-determination; abstention from Westminster; the pros and cons of being in a customs union; clerical involvement in politics; free speech and the distinctiveness of politics in northeastern Ulster and its relationship to the rest of Ireland From war straight into an election The background was the end of the First World War on 11 November 1918. A general election, for the entire UK of Great Britain and Ireland, was called ten days later. The UK Prime Minister, Lloyd George had called the election very quickly, after active hostilities ceased, to exploit the good feelings and relief that the war had finally been brought to a victorious conclusion by the Allies. This tactic worked. Lloyd George’s coalition of Tories and some Liberals won a landslide in Britain. The landslide went the other way in Ireland. The memory of the war was a particular factor in the Irish election because the conscription crisis of early 1918 was still fresh in people’s minds. Conscription had applied on the island of Britain but not the island of Ireland, from 1916. The big German breakthrough of early 1918 created a panic in the UK government. Manpower was running short and the Americans were slow arriving at the front. So, unsurprisingly, Lloyd George was under political pressure, in Scotland, Wales and England, to raise troop numbers by extending the same conscription to Ireland as applied to them. In March 1918 he announced his intention to do so, which caused a convulsion in Ireland. Until this announcement, the Irish Parliamentary Party had been holding its own politically. It had defeated Sinn Féin in by-elections in South Armagh, The 1918 Election and its Relevance to Modern Irish Politics Studies • volume 108 • number 429 93 East Tyrone and Waterford City early in 1918. Then Lloyd George’s threat of conscription changed all that. It drove Irish Parliamentary Party voters into the arms of Sinn Féin in the second half of 1918. It forced the Irish Parliamentary Party to temporarily abandon parliament in protest, thereby seeming to validate Sinn Féin’s long-held policy of abstention. Then the war ended and the threat of conscription disappeared. If the election had been held over until the spring of 1919, and anger had cooled about the conscription threat, the election result in Ireland might not have been so dramatic. Who could best represent Ireland in Versailles? At the time of the December 1918 election, a peace conference was soon to be convened by the victors of the First World War in Versailles. In Ireland, in anticipation of the peace conference, great expectations had been raised by speeches by President Woodrow Wilson, containing strong declarations in favour of the principle of national self-determination. The concept of selfdetermination acquired a quasi-religious status in some quarters. It was the core message of Sinn Féin in the election. Yet, as President Wilson was to discover when he got down to work in Versailles, this concept of national self-determination was difficult to apply when people with fundamentally different identities and national allegiances lived together in the same geographic area, as was and is still the case in Ulster, and in many other parts of Europe, to this day. What happens if people who live together in the same area self-determine two contradictory outcomes? It was not until the Sunningdale and Good Friday Agreements, of 1973 and 1998 respectively, that an attempt was made to answer that question. The campaign In South Meath, the Sinn Féin campaign got off to a flying start, as it did elsewhere in Ireland. Eamon Duggan was selected early on and was already actively campaigning, while the Irish Parliamentary Party was still trying to find a candidate. Duggan...

Electoral Law in Ireland: Sustaining Electoral Integrity from Process, Procedures, and Precedent?

Integrity in the management and administration of the electoral process is key to the maintenance of public confidence in democracy. In Ireland, the integrity of the electoral process is set out in general terms in the Constitution and expanded upon in legislation. This article assesses the theory and practice that shapes both the structures and processes of electoral integrity in Ireland from a legal standpoint. There are three elements to the analysis: the principle of electoral integrity as encapsulated in its many forms, the incorporation of this principle into Irish regulatory procedure and legislation, and the precedents that have developed from judicial interpretation of this legislation. The article concludes with an overall assessment of how the legal framework for the administration of Irish elections compares to international best practice norms.

Split-Ticket Voting in an STV System: Choice in a Non-Strategic Context

This article explores the sources of weak party-voting patterns in Irish elections, conceptualising this as split-ticket voting. Ireland provides a context where election results show split-ticket voting is common, but the strategic interpretations of such behaviour that have been very prominent elsewhere are not generally applicable. We employ data from the Irish national election studies to explore the behaviour of individuals embedded in a variety of contexts. The results demonstrate the prevalence of split-ticket voting, and they support the validity of non-strategic explanations. One source of explanation for the patterns we find lies in differences between individuals: partisanship and the extent to which voters are attracted to candidates rather than parties are important. A second source is contextual: the factors connected with the complexity of the choice facing voters have a powerful influence on split-ticket voting.

Incumbency advantage in a proportional electoral system: A regression discontinuity analysis of Irish elections

The existence of a large incumbency advantage in the winner-takes-all plurality system of the United States is well documented. It is unclear whether incumbents in proportional systems should enjoy such a large advantage. Multi-seat constituencies make it difficult for individual incumbents to claim credit for the provision of local public goods and services. Moreover, multiple incumbents may dilute media attention thereby limiting name recognition advantage. We use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of incumbency using election data from Ireland’s system of proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV). Incumbency causes an eighteen percentage point increase in the probability that a candidate in Ireland’s lower house of parliament wins a seat in the next election. Our results indicate that the protection of vulnerable incumbents from intra-party competition may be a source of incumbency advantage in multi-member district elections.

Exploring political parties’ manifesto discourse on tourism: Analysis of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1998–2011

This study explores the level of attention (‘issue-salience’) and use of language (‘policy framing’) related to tourism in political parties’ manifestos in Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections in the UK. The findings reveal significant increases in the salience of tourism as an election issue—as well as parties’ contrasting use of language when placing policy proposals before voters. Notably, as part of their state-building agenda, civic nationalist parties put particular emphasis on tourism as an expression of national identity and means of boosting international standing. This study’s wider contribution to tourism scholarship lies in showing how public policy is grounded in the representative process and revealing the party politicization and contingent nature of tourism policy development.

Was All Irish Politics Local? The Portarlington Election of 1832 and the Structure of Politics in 19th‐Century Ireland

Historians have often characterised 19th‐century Irish elections as insular, inward‐looking affairs. This article, however, offers a reconsideration of the role played by national and imperial events in Irish elections through a close analysis of the Portarlington contest of 1832. While acknowledging the importance of local concerns in the campaign, it argues that the Portarlington election cannot be understood in exclusively parochial terms. Candidates, voters, and opinion‐makers all situated the contest in national and imperial, as well as provincial, contexts, and they behaved as if larger political issues might affect the ultimate outcome of the campaign. An examination of the election suggests that the dichotomy between the local and the national, while analytically useful, can also be misleading: the Portarlington contest exhibited a complex interplay between local, national, and imperial affairs. This article concludes, consequently, that national and imperial issues were integrated into the structure of Irish politics after the Reform Act of 1832.

Policy, Office and Votes: The Electoral Value of Ministerial Office

Parties are not unitary actors, and legislators within the same party may have divergent interests, which complicates the understanding of parties’ motivations and behaviour. This article argues that holding a ministerial portfolio confers an electoral advantage, and so, in contrast to their co-partisans, politicians who are ministers simultaneously maximize policy, office and votes. New data on Irish elections over a thirty-year period show that ministers are insulated from the electoral cost of governing compared with their co-partisans. Differentiating between ministers and their co-partisans helps to resolve the puzzle of political parties’ choosing to enter government despite the evident electoral costs they will encounter. Moreover, previously overlooked electoral benefits of ministerial office help explain their desirability, and thus their ability to incentivize legislative behaviour in parliamentary regimes.

Parties, promises and politics: exploring manifesto discourse on arts policy in Westminster, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

This study addresses a key knowledge-gap by exploring the role of electoral politics in shaping public policy on the arts. Analysis of the prioritisation and use of language in party manifestos in state-wide and regional elections in the UK reveals that over recent decades there has been a sharp increase in the attention parties give to arts policy as they compete for the political centre-ground. It also shows how the framing of arts policy has broadened from an initial concern with social policy objectives to emphasise economic benefits and boosting international standing. However, parties have generally failed to advance comprehensive arts strategies raising accountability issues in relation to future government policy. Against the backdrop of a global trend of state restructuring, the analysis reveals how devolution is leading to the territorialisation of policy – as framing is contingent on ‘regional’ party politics, including nation-building by civic nationalist parties.

Mixed-methods analysis of political parties׳ manifesto discourse on rail transport policy: Westminster, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

This study addresses a key lacuna by exploring the role of electoral politics in shaping public policy on rail transport in (quasi-)federal systems of governance. Attention centres on issue-salience and policy framing in party manifestos in state-wide and regional elections. The findings reveal a significant rise in issue-salience in parties׳ Westminster election programmes; with right- and left-of-centre parties increasingly advocating mixed economy approaches to rail transport as part of the wider rise of ‘valence politics’. The analysis also reveals how devolution may lead to the territorialisation of rail transport policy. In contrast to parties׳ Westminster programmes, regional manifesto discourse evidences a general rejection of neo-liberalism and stronger support for state control and/or not-for-profit rail operators. Overall, the findings underline the formative nexus between political representation and public policy – and show how, in the wake of state decentralisation, policy framing is contingent on ‘regional’ socio-economic factors and party politics, including state-building by civic nationalist parties.

Making wasted votes count: Turnout, transfers, and preferential voting in practice

Proponents of electoral reform champion the single transferable vote (STV) or aligned forms of preferential voting (AV, IRV, RCV) as a method to improve participation among and representation of the general public. Voters provide an ordinal ranking among alternatives on the ballot, and ballots not used to elect a candidate are transferred to another favored alternative. Preferential voting is intended to encourage both citizen participation in an election and sincere voting. Yet the empirical evidence about the effects of preferential voting in the scholarly literature is scant. Elections of members to the Dáil Éireann, the lower house of national parliament in Ireland, provide a wealth of data on preferential voting. Data from four recent Irish elections (1997, 2002, 2007, and 2011) are analyzed to assess the effectiveness of STV on reducing wasted votes. The number of nontransferable ballots, votes not used for any candidate, is large and increases as the need for lower level preferences (that is, later counts or rounds) grows. Voter turnout does not correspond to preferential voting in predictable ways; turnout declines as the number of candidates elected increases. Although preferential voting systems have much to offer, their effects need to be evaluated.

Manifesto Discourse and the Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minorities: Analysis of UK State-Wide and Meso Elections, 1964-2011

Using mixed methods this paper explores issue salience and the policy framing associated with the substantive representation of ethnic minorities. Its focus is party programmes in Westminster (1964–2010) and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections (1998–2011). The analysis reveals a significant increase in issue salience driven by parties of the Left. This applies to both state-wide and meso-elections, thereby providing evidence of political reprioritisation in the wake of ethnic minority activism in the 1970s and 1980s. At the meso-level new political opportunity structures are shown to be leading to the territorialisation of policy. However, the analysis also reveals significant shortcomings, including parties' failure to adopt a systematic approach consistent with the post-1997 discourse on mainstreaming.

Economic voting in a crisis: The Irish election of 2011

The paper explores a question raised by the 2011 Irish election, which saw an almost unprecedented decline in support for a major governing party after an economic collapse that necessitated an ECB/IMF ‘bailout’. This seems a classic case of ‘economic voting’ in which a government is punished for incompetent performance. How did the government lose this support: gradually, as successive economic indicators appeared negative, or dramatically, following major shocks? The evidence points to losses at two critical junctures. This is consistent with an interpretation of the link between economics and politics that allows for qualitative judgements by voters in assigning credit and blame for economic performance.

The Preparation and Use of Election Manifestos: Learning from the Irish Case

Election manifestos are important documents, but very little is known about the way parties create their manifestos and how they use them. This is unfortunate, because such knowledge can inform both the academic study of party politics and political practice. This article presents original results from interviews with actors who played a key role in creating the 2007 national election manifesto for the major Irish parties. It describes the sequence of actions in developing the manifesto, and how those involved in the preparation perceive its functions. The results suggest that preparation processes are similar to those found a decade ago, but a trend towards giving party activists a larger say seems to be emerging. This finding is at odds with the prediction of the cartel party model that party leaders seek to reduce the influence of activists. Another finding is that manifestos are not only used to address voters, but also are tools for intra-party coordination, for communication with interest groups, and are especially important in the government formation process. Students of party competition should take this multi-purpose nature of the documents and variation in preparation modes into account. Finally, if there is a lack of policy debate in Irish election campaigns, the reason does not lie in a lack of policy material on the side of the parties.