33 research outputs found
Deepening democracy within Ireland's social partnership
Ireland's social partnership process, now under attack from a number of quarters, has repeatedly been charged with being 'undemocratic' in that it undermines the sovereign position of elected political representatives, with key policy formulation and decision-making taking place in fora outside the institutions of representative democracy. These critiques echo those against new forms of networked governance more globally. A key question therefore is how (and if) democracy may be deepened within social partnership or its potential successor(s). This article addresses this question by employing a post-liberal democratic framework to examine social partnership in practice, and by drawing lessons from another partnership process, Malawi's PRSP. Drawing from Malawi's experience, it is argued that democracy can be deepened within social partnership when governance deliberations and negotiations are conducted under conditions of vibrant public debate and genuine perspective-based representation, and when the communicative and discursive norms are widened to allow for such representation
Economic Crisis and Welfare Retrenchment: Comparing Irish Policy Responses in the 1970s and 1980s with the Present
Creating City-region Governance Structures in a Dysfunctional Polity: The Case of Irelandâs National Spatial Strategy
Devolution of powers and functions from national to regional level has been a
common experience internationally in recent times. A range of possible driving
forces underpinning this trend are reviewed. The city-region has become a favoured
spatial unit for organising direct regional participation in global markets. New governance
structures are being forged for mobilising joint cross-communuty action in
pursuit of broad regional objectives. A range of influences can shape the configuration
of these structures, giving rise to a varied geography of regional governance
arrangements. This paper focuses on the dysfunctional governance structures which
have inhibited the implementation of the National Spatial Strategy, introduced by
the Irish government in 2002 with the objective of achieving balanced regional development
through the creation of a polycentric system of city-regions. These structures
are described and their origins attributed to features of the Irish system of
government which favour administrative centralisation over devolution