Irish Political Culture Research Articles

From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland

Abstract This article offers a new way of framing the English conquest of Ireland by focusing on the development of a kingdom of Ireland both before and after the invasion of 1169. It thus spans the historiographical divides that tend to partition Irish history at the point of the English invasion, and which also frequently disaggregate the study of British and Irish history. By exploring the complexity of Irish political society and culture before 1169, one can see how King Henry II sought to use its structures to facilitate his annexation of ‘the kingdom of Ireland’ in 1171–2. This included the Church, which offered Henry’s dynasty the ideological support and legitimacy it had once provided for Gaelic kings of Ireland. Paying attention to the numerous references to the ‘kingdom of Ireland’ in the records of the English government also highlights the processes by which Henry’s son John and his successors sought to Anglicise this kingdom by imposing England’s laws, institutions and political culture upon it. Crucially, ultimate control of these structures remained with the administration in England, so in this way Ireland was transformed from a kingdom to a colony. Recognising this liminal period in the development of Anglo-Ireland provides context for the emerging colonial community in Ireland, as well as strategies of resistance and compromise employed by the Gaelic Irish under English rule.

Exploring the factors affecting political education in Iran

The transmission of political values and norms through education is crucial for global political systems. It enhances citizens' engagement in politics and society. This paper explores influential factors in the political education of Iranian citizens within an Islamic community society. Focusing on Islamic political education values and objectives, it elaborates on principles impacting Iranian citizens' education. It examines the conceptual framework, nature, goals, applications, and dimensions, while scrutinizing components' role in educating committed citizens. This article employs the qualitative document analysis method. The findings highlight the crucial role of Iranian political culture in developing political education. The political culture of Iranians is a combination of participant and subject political cultures. Iranian political culture significantly influences political education, driven by factors like family, media, education institutions, government, political and religious rituals, and religion. These factors play a critical role in shaping the perspectives, values, and political identities of individuals.

Towards a post-imperial and Global IR?: Revisiting Khatami’s Dialogue among Civilisations

Abstract This article argues that Dialogue among Civilisations can be put forward as a crucial contribution to debates addressing IR’s Eurocentrism. It highlights the blurring of West/non-West, domestic/international, and imperial/post-imperial bifurcations. This is evident in three ways. First, Dialogue among Civilisations needs to be appreciated in Iran’s wider historical context and its multifaceted intellectual heritages. This demonstrates that the idea of the West as distinctly different from the East is problematic because of engagement between Iran and the so-called West. Second, Khatami’s intellectual endeavours are based on a simultaneous engagement with Western political thought, Islamic philosophy, and the idea of Ancient Iran. Finally, the notion itself reflects an internal dialogue whereby Western civilisation along with Islam and Iran’s pre-Islamic heritages are considered integral to Iranian political culture. Furthermore, it is an aspiration for how post-colonial Muslim societies can engage with colonial power while maintaining a post-colonial authenticity. Our contention is that an in-depth understanding of Iran alongside a revisiting of Khatami’s Dialogue among Civilisations can act as a means of bringing the perspective of the ‘other’ into debates on the international and our epistemological and ontological understanding of the West.

Shia in Iranian Political Culture: The Impact of Shia on Iranian Politics From the Revolution to the Present

Bu çalışmanın amacı, Şii mezhep anlayışının İran’ın siyasal kültürü ve dolayısıyla İran’ın iç ve dış politika çizgisi üzerinde ne ölçüde belirleyici olduğunun tespit edilmesidir. Çalışma, İran Devrimi ile Şii mezhep anlayışının devletin yeniden yapılandırılması süreci ve dış politika yaklaşımının gelişimi üzerinde belirleyici olduğu kabulünden hareket etmektedir. Buradan hareketle çalışmanın temel argümanı, İran’ın devrimden sonra geçirmiş olduğu dönüşümün Şii anlayışı ekseninde geliştiği yönündedir. İran’da Safevi Devleti’nden itibaren kurumsallaşmaya başlayan Şii mezhep anlayışı, ülkenin sosyal, siyasi ve ekonomik gelişiminde başat rol oynamıştır. Şii mezhep anlayışı, Tütün Protestoları (1890) ve Meşrutiyet’in ilanı (1906) örneklerinde olduğu gibi sosyal ve siyasal olayların merkezinde yer almıştır. Tarihsel süreçte olduğu gibi Şiilik, devrimden sora da İran’ın siyasi yapısı üzerinde belirleyici değişkenlerden birisi olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Devrimin ardından Pehlevi Hanedanlığı döneminde Fars sembolleri üzerinden gerçekleştirilen ulus kimliği inşasından vazgeçilerek, Şii ritüelleri ve sembolleri üzerinden devlet kimliği inşa edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Dolayısıyla, günümüzde İran’ın sosyal, kültürel, ekonomik ve politik yaşamının biçimlenmesinde Şii mezhep anlayışının son derece etkili olduğunu söylemek mümkündür.

КОНЦЕПТ "ИДЕАЛЬНОГО ПРАВИТЕЛЯ" В ПОЭМЕ "ШАХНАМЕ" А. ФИРДОУСИ

The article presents a political and textological analysis of the concept of an “ideal ruler” in the poem “Shahnameh” by A. Ferdowsi. Political textology is a new discipline that arose as a synthesis of philology, history and political science, and it involves the study of a variety of sources, including those not directly related to political theory. In the scientific world the poem of Abulkasim Ferdowsi (940-1020) "Shahnameh" was studied mainly by philologists, historians and archaeologists, therefore the political and textological analysis of this monument of world culture seems to be very relevant for political science. Based on the poem, which is the pearl of world literature, and the works of modern researchers, the authors not only seek to consider the work from the viewpoint of political textology, but also set themselves the task of conceptualizing the socio-political ideas contained in it. The analysis of the poem "Shahnameh" showed that the meaning of power, which is a key category of political science, according to A. Ferdowsi is the establishment of the laws of truth and justice. The Creator gives the ruler the power to fight the forces of evil. If the sovereign forgets his mission, then he loses the grace of God, and, as a result, his power. Based on the political-textological analysis of the socio-political ideas expressed in the work “Shahnameh” in poetic form, it can be concluded that the best type of government for A. Ferdowsi is an enlightened monarchy. And the best state, in the poet's mind, is the state that affirms the law of the Creator. The “ideal ruler” in the poem “Shahnameh” by A. Ferdowsi must have four important characteristics: the ability to distinguish between good and evil, righteousness, valor and nobility. The article emphasizes that the stories of kings and warriors described in the “Shahnameh” can be considered the keys to understanding Iranian political culture. The object of the research is the poem "Shahnameh" by A. Ferdowsi, the subject is the concept of the "ideal ruler".

Breaking the Mould of Centralization? Path Dependence and Local Government Reform in Ireland: 1898–2014

ABSTRACT The landmark Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, with its extension of local democracy, presented Irish nationalists with an opportunity to advance the cause of national independence by curbing British influence at the local level. Post-independence local government reforms stressed the consolidation of central government institutions because of the need for regime security and stability. The introduction of the ‘County-Manager’ reforms, centred on the notions of bureaucratic professionalism, efficiency, and coordination of local services, further entrenched centralism. Using historical institutionalism as a framework for analysis, this article argues that in the period under review local government reforms in Ireland exemplify a perpetuation of the legacy of centralization. This legacy has two sources: the exogenous 1898 Act, and the perceived need to subvert its provisions to the greater goal of national independence, and the continuity in post-independence reforms, which left undisturbed the institutional processes of the inherited political order. This article concludes that notwithstanding reform efforts, the impetus for change was neutralized by constitutive features of Irish political culture, conventional practices, and established elite interests. While critical of existing arrangements, politicians found it impossible to accomplish change.

Richard Payne. A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity

Ce livre est l’aboutissement d’une these de doctorat soutenue en 2010 sur le christianisme et la societe iranienne dans l’Antiquite tardive entre les annees 500 et 700. Il s’agit d’une importante contribution a l’histoire des societes dans l’empire sassanide, apprehendee sous l’angle des relations inter-religieuses entre communautes chretiennes et mazdeennes a l’epoque preislamique. L’ouvrage ecarte l’idee d’une marginalisation des minorites en particulier chretiennes sous les Sassanides, rei...

Review: A State of Mixture. Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity, by Richard E. Payne

Richard E. Payne. A State of Mixture. Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity . Transformation of the Classical Heritage, vol. 56. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780520286191. 301 pp. $95.00. A State of Mixture is a rich and complex study of the interweaving of Christian and Zoroastrian communities in late antique Iran. Payne draws on a wealth of sources, most notably East Syrian hagiography, providing a portrait of a “state of mixture” in place of older and misleading views of the two communities as discrete groups at perennial odds with each other. Payne shows how Christians constantly negotiated their position in the Sasanian state, repeatedly testing boundary lines and overlapping their communal identities with those of the Zoroastrian communities amongst whom they lived. State authorities used intercommunal boundaries to reinforce socioreligious and political norms and to foster the integration of Christians into their own, hierarchically organised cosmological project. Examining periods of apparently savage persecution and looking beyond the fervour and outrage of Christian martryological texts, Payne clearly demonstrates the fluidity of the Sasanian state and the deep integration of Christian nobles within its structures, providing a context for efforts by the last major Sasanian king, Khusrau II, to appropriate the traditional role of the Roman emperor as the touchstone for the world's Christians after Iran's victories at the turn of the seventh century. Payne organises his study into five self-contained chapters that lead the reader chronologically and geographically through the late antique Iranian landscape, from the persecutions of Shapur II …

A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. By Richard E. Payne

<i>A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity.</i> By Richard E. Payne

Sounding Irish Radio at Midcentury

Sounding Irish Radio at Midcentury Ian Whittington The Wireless Past: Anglo-Irish Writers and the BBC, 1931–1968. Emily Bloom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 224. $80.00 (cloth). Ireland and the Problem of Information: Irish Writing, Radio, Late Modernist Communication. Damien Keane. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014. Pp. x + 195. $69.95 (cloth); $29.95 (paper). Reading through these two excellent new volumes situated at the intersection of radio studies and modern Irish literature, one feels presented with two very different instantiations of the radio listener. On the one hand, we have the dial-twirling shortwave enthusiast, stationed in (perhaps) Cork, and tuning in to transmissions Irish in affiliation but emanating from Dublin, Addis Ababa, New York City, Belfast, Geneva, London, and Berlin—transmissions that dazzle by their variety and that impart an awareness of their connectedness in dispersal. On the other hand, we have the idealized Third Programme listener of the midcentury BBC, at domestic ease in (perhaps, again) Belfast, attending closely and in the best tradition of appointment listening to familiar voices made new by the sense of their sudden, newfound proximity via the wireless. The former model is embodied by Damien Keane's Ireland and the Problem of Information: Irish Writing, Radio, Late Modernist Communication, the latter by Emily Bloom's The Wireless Past: Anglo-Irish Writers and the BBC, 1931–1968. If Keane's work rewrites rather dramatically the established geographical and formal dimensions of the Irish cultural field, Bloom's work pries that field open by slower but still sure degrees. Both make important contributions. What is remarkable, in comparing these two strikingly different texts, is how many parallels one finds at work in their logics. One senses that a new conceptual framework is cohering around literary radio studies: one that takes seriously the intermedial contexts of broadcasting and of literature, one that is attuned to the simultaneous and overlapping publics radio and literature created at local, regional, national, and [End Page 399] international scales, and one that understands radio to be neither an agent of hard determinism (subjecting its listeners to either the pummeling authoritarian tones of the dictator or the come-hither vocals of the crooner) nor of radical autonomy. Present, too, in both of these texts, is an archival consciousness that is at times reverent (as in Keane's acknowledgement of the work of historians, librarians, and archivists in remedying the longstanding informational vacuum surrounding Irish political culture at midcentury [5–6]) and at other times rousing (as in Bloom's rallying cry for greater access to extant radio archives that are all too often hidden away from public sight [21–23]). The differences that emerge between these works are not, however, superficial, even if at times they seem to represent different theoretical languages trying to address the same problems. Keane approaches the titular "problem of information"—which he describes as a simultaneous surfeit and deficit of information structured by global material inequalities—by treating all forms of textual production as part of the same contested field of relations. Thus the first chapter juxtaposes the broadcasts and League of Nations speeches of Taoiseach Éamon de Valera during the Ethiopian Crisis of 1935–36 with Walter Starkie's travelogue-cum-Italian-apologia The Waveless Plain (1938) as two versions of interwar Irish political self-positioning. In the former, de Valera—informed by a network of diplomats and civil servants—navigates multiple media in order to advocate for a protective withdrawal from an international order increasingly hostile to Ireland's interests. In the latter, Starkie uses aural media (his violin, the radio) as metonyms by which to conjure an organic fascist society, but neglects to address that society's structural mediation through government-mandated institutions and practices like the distribution of wireless sets. In each case, Keane's attention is on the often-obscured material and institutional contexts which subtend conventional debates about what counts as literary or political writing, and which in effect bind them beyond all disentanglement. Subsequent chapters deepen Keane's analysis of the mediated matrix of information that structured Irish cultural production around the war years. Chapter 2, "Dirty Work in New York," traces the...

Richard E. Payne: A State of Mixture. Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity

This contribution offers a review of:Richard E. Payne: A State of Mixture. Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity.Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2015. 320 pages, $95.00/£70.95, ISBN (hardcover) 978052028619

A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity by Richard E. Payne

A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity by Richard E. Payne

&lt;I&gt;The Herald of Glory and Adopted Citizen's Journal&lt;/I&gt; of August 13, 1834: Early Advocacy for the Abolition of Slavery in an Urban Northeast Comic Newspaper

lively and short-lived combatant in the anti-Jackson movement in Boston was the previously unknown comic paper Herald of Glory and Citizen's Journal. Its most interesting claim on our attention at present, however, is its antislavery position at time when William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) and other early abolitionists were just beginning to make headway in initiating the abolitionist movement, leading to highly charged and often politically violent atmosphere. The paper offers uproarious examples of the urban vulgar literary comedy that Joseph C. Neal (1807-47) in 1835 and 1836 would bring to national attention through his Charcoal Sketches, hard-cover collections of his newspaper sketches that in 1838 quickly went through eight editions or more.1 Police Court Report in Herald of Glory anticipates Neal in allowing vulgar litigants to speak in their own comic voices, thereby exposing their anti-Trades Union biases and low-class criminality. Offhand remarks lampoon the Irishtocracy- not surprising in where Nativist mob burned Catholic convent two days before the August 13, copy of Herald of Glory was printed. Vituperative in its anti-Jacksonian invective, the Herald of Glory featured number of mock-Jeremiads on political topics. The phrase Adopted might identify the special status of the unknown editor as nationalized American citizen of Irish descent, probably dating from before the immediate influx of impoverished Irish into Boston in the early 1830s. If so, however, the editor is highly critical of the prevailing Irish political culture developing in culture soon to be dominated by lower classes at war with Yankee nativists and entrepreneurs. The Citizen (Apr. 4, 1834), New York City daily, is listed as held by the New York Historical Society, but seems unrelated, otherwise, to The Herald; the phrase later appears in subtitle for another newspaper, The American Celt, published in Boston circa 1850-52 (Chronicling America). The reference defines naturalized citizen who has the right to vote but not to run for president due to the lack of American parents, carefully delineated status in the early Federal period.The second issue of Herald of Glory (Aug. 13, 1834) opens with long travesty-a sublime effusion of poetry on the spheres that supposedly cropped up unexpectedly in barbarous Whig journal, the Transcript. The occasion was an unusual aerial event, Charles F. Durant's (1805-73) recent successful balloon ascension from the Boston Commons in the presence of 30,000-40,000 people. The Herald of Glory's editor spends column and half of his three-column first page deconstructing the poem as Trades union bard's attack on Mr. Durant. The literary critique is followed by mock Jeremiad on the death of Barney O'Boozy, leaving thousands of tons of mud undug from Boston's back bay. The front page shows general distaste for Jacksonian radicalism and its local adherents, bolstered by burlesque self-promotion by Reass Offender, self-described as unique in being born a jackass with short ears. The overall composition includes various elements of the comic political landscape, as corrupt as it is, even at this early date.This issue of the paper is of most interest for its forthright statement on slavery and race-the other political elements, and even the strong tincture of anti-Irish Nativism, being more or less predictable. The Herald of Glory and Citizen's Journal (vol. 1, no. 2) is datelined Boston, Wednesday August 13, 1834, with its masthead motto reading I Take the Responsibility. The originator, in boldface type like the masthead title, is By Tar, Feathers & Co. Editors and Proprietors. With size of 8'' × 12 ½'' and four pages, the only advertising carried is classified burlesque, including an advertisement at the bottom of page 3 for A Lodging House where young ladies are permitted to sleep with old married men, placed by COCK-EYE BUNNITT. …

Ernest Blythe as Minister for Finance in the Irish Free State, 1923–32

This article explores Ernest Blythe's tenure as minister for finance of the Irish Free State, 1923–32. Using a range of sources, but particularly his papers in University College Dublin Department of Archives, this work aims to redress the academic neglect of one of the Free State's most infamous characters. In a broader sense, this study offers a commentary on Blythe's party, Cumann na nGaedheal, and Irish political culture generally. Throughout the text, attention is paid to the existing historiography of the period, and, where deemed necessary, some critiques are made.

‘No Suggestion of Suffragettism’: the Blue Blouses in Ireland, 1933–1936

In July 1933 membership of the Irish fascist organisation, the Blueshirts, was officially opened to women for the first time. Within a year the Blue Blouses, as the women's auxiliary was colloquially called, became the largest women's political organisation in Ireland. This article examines the group as a vehicle for the politicisation of conservative pro-Treaty Irish women. The Blue Blouses willingly used parades, mass rallies, athletics, and a specific discourse of domesticity to articulate a strategy of political involvement that did not conflict with the patriarchal presumptions of inter-war Irish political culture. As such, this analysis is intended to augment the history of inter-war Irish women politics that to date has focused almost exclusively on feminist organisations.

Religion, diplomacy and identity. Some remarks on the ayatollah Khomeini’s letter to Gorbachev

The letter sent by Ayatollah Khomeini to Gorbachev seems to be important in modern Iranian historiography presenting Khomeini as an influential and prophet-like “father of the revolution”. The letter brings Khomeini’s personal insights into the situation of the Soviet Union offering to its leader Islam as the only solution for internal and external problems. The letter in fact may be consider an example or rather a product of Iranian political culture, an attempt to return to the global and finally as a Khomeini’s answer to history.

THE MYTH OF ‘PERFIDIOUS ALBION’: ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Over the last few years publicly-expressed anti-British sentiment has been on the rise, tapping into a latent Anglophobia in Iranian political culture. Iran's relationship with the British goes back much further than the relationship with the Americans, who benefit from a curious indulgence. During the 19th century, Iran was largely seen through the prism of British interests in India, yet Russia, which loomed large at that time, has also seemingly escaped responsibility for its role. Certainly the advent of oil changed British focus and the confrontation over Anglo-Iranian Oil came to define British-Iranian relations for the modern era. Yet paradoxically, there is, somewhere, a deeper and more complex relationship in which a degree of mutual respect remains.

The Geopolitics of Parazit, the Iranian Televisual Sphere, and the Global Infrastructure of Political Humor

This article examines Parazit, a weekly Persian-language satiric news program that is often called the Iranian Daily Show. Although funded by the United States and circulated via an integrated global communication infrastructure to the dismay of the Iranian government, Parazit has become a popular program in Iran. After discussing the geopolitical context of Parazit, the article considers the form and content of the show in terms of global intertextuality, its techniques of satire, and the political orientation of Parazit’s creators. Additionally, it argues the interviews on Parazit and the show itself exemplify globally inflected discursive integration, with noteworthy ramifications for the Iranian political culture.

Ireland says No (again): the 12 June 2008 Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty

This article analyzes the significance of the 12 June 2008 Lisbon Treaty referendum in the Republic of Ireland. This was the third such referendum on Europe held in Ireland since the millennium, and the second referendum in three to result in a rejection of an EU Treaty following the failed Nice poll in 2001. Assessing both the campaign itself and the reasons for the No vote, the article argues that whilst variables such as age, educational attainment, geography, gender and social class all have a part to play in explaining the outcome of the referendum, post-referendum analysis suggests that two key phenomena proved decisive. First, an enduring Irish attachment to an overwhelmingly exclusivist national identity rather than more open and fluid identity conceptions, means that a space exists where issues such as neutrality, sovereignty and Ireland’s relative influence in the EU institutional matrix can be readily exploited by opponents of the European integration process, and where any changes in the EU constitutional order can be emotively presented as an existential threat to Ireland’s values and interests. Second, post-referendum analysis also suggests that lack of knowledge constituted a key reason for voting No. The absence of any effort by government to provide and promote sufficient information channels which explain how and why Ireland’s EU membership matters means that EU ‘debates’ within Irish political culture are frequently characterised by apathy, confusion, and ignorance, in a context where the chasm in elite-popular opinion has grown wider. The referendum result also points to a growing Eurosceptic tendency in Ireland which has seen the size of the No vote increase from 17 per cent in 1972 to a decisive majority of 53.4 per cent in 2008, on a significantly higher turnout than either 2001 or 2002.

‘An Irish solution to an Irish problem’: Harm reduction and ambiguity in the drug policy of the Republic of Ireland

While policy makers in the Republic of Ireland had been concerned with illicit drug use since the late-1960s, it was only from 1980 onwards that the emergence of a culture of intravenous heroin use in areas of generalised social deprivation in Dublin gave urgency to this policy process. This paper traces the gradual introduction, on public health grounds, of harm reduction practices and services – such as methadone maintenance, needle exchange and the creation of outreach and locally-based services – following the identification in the mid-1980s of needle-sharing amongst injecting drug users as one of the key routes for the transmission of HIV in this country. It is argued that harm reduction in the Republic of Ireland has been largely implicit, in the sense that political leaders have generally not encouraged or participated in explicit public debate on this topic, nor have they ever publicly announced that this concept now underpins much of the healthcare system's responses to illicit drug use. It is also argued that this covert style of policy making has persisted, despite the more recent proliferation of formal policy-making structures and the dominance of a rhetoric which emphasises strategic management and the allegedly transparent and evidence-based nature of drug policy. This tactic of shrouding drug policy in ambiguity is discussed in the context of the wider tendency within Irish political culture to manage sensitive and potentially divisive social issues in such a manner. It is concluded that the ambiguity which surrounds harm reduction in Ireland has been functional in that it has confused and frustrated ideological opponents of this concept, but dysfunctional in that it has not facilitated the emergence of more tolerant or respectful attitudes towards drug users and may have delayed the introduction of a wider range of harm reduction practices.