Why is there no radical right party in Ireland?

The rise of the radical or extreme right parties in Europe - parties usually noted for strong, sometimes racist anti-immigrant ideologies - has attracted a great deal of attention in political science. Ireland, despite having some conditions favourable to the growth of such a party has no Radical Right party. This paper argues that that this is because the ‘space’ usually occupied by such parties - for young, poor people disaffected by economic change - is taken up by Sinn Féin, which though it has similarities to radical right parties, differs markedly in its attitudes to immigrants. It goes on to explain the special circumstances that prevent nationalist parties in Ireland from presenting overtly anti-immigrant platforms. The focus on anti-immigration and liberal economic policies for such parties may mean that other parties with strong resemblances are excluded from studies they might usefully be included in

Finding a party and losing some friends: overcoming the weaknesses of the prime ministerial figure in Italy

Silvio Berlusconi poses a problem for the existing literature on prime ministers and their power. Though Italian prime ministers are traditionally seen as weak, Berlusconi has been able to achieve some remarkable policy gains during his current term as prime minister. This article uses veto player theory and combines it with existing institutional and political explanations for variation in prime ministerial power to look at this challenging case. By looking at the number of veto players in the Italian system, and their ability to credibly use their veto against Berlusconi, an explanation is posited which can accommodate the exceptionalism of his second term in office. Despite the emphasis on his control of the media, we conclude that Berlusconi's power stems from more traditional political factors. The authors argue that Berlusconi's coalition and party allies have no choice but to accept his will and his decisions, as any alternatives are less appealing

Barriers to energy efficiency: evidence from selected sectors

To combat climate change, it is essential to reduce the use of fossil fuels and minimise greenhouse gas emissions. To help to achieve that objective, energy must be used efficiently. However, many international studies claim that companies and other organisations are “leaving money on the floor” by neglecting highly cost-effective opportunities to invest in measures that would improve their energy efficiency. A new ESRI report, “Barriers to Energy Efficiency: Evidence from Selected Sectors”, examines these claims in the context of the Irish economy, and asks why organisations apparently ignore financially rewarding opportunities to improve their energy efficiency. The report is based on detailed case studies of organisations in the mechanical engineering, brewing and higher education sectors

The slow growth of Sinn Féin: from minor player to centre stage?

In the elections of 2011 Sinn Féin made something of a breakthrough in national elections. It received almost 9.9 per cent of the national vote in the general election, a three point increase on its 2007 result. Later in the year its candidate for the presidential election, Martin McGuinness, polled almost 14 per cent. The party’s return in seats though less than its vote would have commanded in a purely proportional system, was a significant improvement on its disappointing result in 2007. Its 14 seats compared favourably to Fianna Fáil’s 20 seats. Fianna Fáil’s decision not to contest the presidential election, while probably wise in hindsight, caused some towonder was the party leaving itself open to further encroachment of itsposition by Sinn Féin. Throughout this book we see examples of small parties who blaze brightly for a short period, only to die out. O’Malley (2010) suggests that this might be because of the impact of government on small parties. The experience of Sinn Féin in the Republic of Ireland seems to bear this out. The party has made steady progress and in 2011 was larger than any of the minor parties since the PDs in 1987. It is approaching the size of the Labour Party in the 1997, 2002 and 2007 elections. In short it seems to be moving from minor to mainstream party

Yes, minister: the impact of decision-making rules on geographically targeted particularistic spending

This paper tests a number of hypotheses which have been used to explain particularistic political spending. Using constituency level data we can better evaluate the competing merits of theories predicting whether parties reward their voters or target floating or swing voters to maximise the party’s electoral return. We also test the hypothesis that the spending decision-making rule is most important and may determine which of the loyal or marginal voters are targeted, or indeed whether another group might be rewarded. We find that the decision rule is indeed most important, and the unusual level of discretion to ministers in Ireland will determine where these monies go. This finding adds greatly to our theoretical knowledge of geographically targeted spending and is consistent with empirical findings in other countries

Porter's Industry Clusters in Irish Indigenous Industry. ESRI WP119. August 1999

Studies by Porter (1990) and others find that competitive and successful industries usually occur in the form of clusters of industries which are linked together through vertical or horizontal relationships. This paper assesses whether the sectors of Irish indigenous industry which look most competitive and successful form such clusters. It is concluded that there is only limited or qualified evidence of Porter-type clusters in Irish indigenous industry but, despite this, there has been a relatively strong competitive performance by most of Irish indigenous industry over the past decade. We also comment on policy implications

THE IRISH ENGINEERING INDUSTRY: STRATEGIC ANALYSIS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS. ESRI General Research Series Paper No. 134, September 1987

Since tile 1950s tile Metals & Engineering sector has played tile leading role in h’eland’s industrial development. It has grown a good deal faster than tile rest of manufacturing so dlat its share ofbodl nlanufacturing enlployment and output doubled from about 15 pet" cent in 1960 to over 30 pet" cent by tile mid- 1980s. By now Metals & Engineering, which is also referred to simply as the "engineering" indusn’y in this paper, is h’eland’s largest industrial sector. It includes a wide range of activities, such as tile manufacture of metals, simple metal articles, productive machinelT and equipment, electronic and electrical goods, medical and scientific instrnments, motor vehicles and other means of transport such ~15 railway equipnleFlt, h*l 111ore ad~.tanced eeonolllies, SktCh as other EEC countries or tile USA, these industries make up an even larger proportion of manufacturing than in Ireland, typically accounting for close to half of all manufacturing eml)loyment, so that despite the growth of Metals & Engineering in Ireland since the 1950s, it is still of relatively small proportions here by international standards

Assessing the impact of deliberation and information on opinion change: a quasi-experiment in public deliberation

Deliberative democracy has become fashionable for many and it has been used in some places to solve real-world policy problems. However measuring the ‘success’ of deliberative democracy is not clearly achievable. For most ‘success’ is measured in terms of opinion change, but these are only rarely measured against control groups, and in particular there is no way of knowing if the opinion change took place because of the deliberation or because of information they received through the deliberation process. Exercises in deliberation seem to represent one big treatment. But we would want to separate out the component parts of the treatment. This paper outlines the results of an experiment in which deliberation took place in a pilot Citizens’ Assembly in Ireland. As part of this we measured the impact using pre and post-test controls, including a control group given the information the CA participants received, but without the deliberation. The results of the experiment reveal that there is a deliberation effect separate to the information effect

Explaining election frames: A content analysis of twelve newspapers in the 2011 Irish general election

The framing of elections represents the most overt instance of the media’s power to influence politics. We content analysed twelve newspapers’ coverage of the 2011 general election in Ireland. Ireland’s newspaper market has some special advantages for social scientists, as it allows us to separate the newspaper types/formats (tabloid versus broadsheet) from their commercial basis (vulnerability or otherwise to short-term sales and profits). Therefore, we are able to make a particular contribution to the long-standing debate about the interaction of free market capitalism and the media. Our results do not find a homogeneous general election frame in Ireland. The variation in framing across Irish newspapers was much greater than that between the five countries for which we can find strictly comparable results. The different commercial statuses of the newspapers do seem to be related to different dominant frames of election coverage, but only after we develop a new measure which takes account of the relative overall prominence of election coverage in the newspapers examined