By Ken Carty, The University of British Columbia. Well over a decade ago now Theresa Reidy posted a blog comment asking “Referendums in Ireland, how many more can we take?” Rather than addressing the numerical question head on she went on to note how ineffective the process was as a mechanism for democratic policy-making. Few…
By Michael Gallagher 1. Previous post didn’t contain a prediction, but did observe that there were many considerations that could lead electors to a No vote while the benefits of a Yes outcome were uncertain and contested. Margin of defeat for the two proposals has taken everyone by surprise. 2. Many of the Yes advocates…
By Michael Gallagher So, the nation is (far from) convulsed by the two referendums that will take place on Friday, the ‘family amendment’ and the ‘care amendment’. (Of course, these could be seen as merely the warm-up before the really big referendum of the year, the eagerly-awaited vote on the Unified Patent Court that’s due…
This blog marks the launch of preliminary results from a national survey of candidates on the topic of political violence in the Republic of Ireland. The survey was carried out by Fiona Buckley (UCC), Lisa Keenan (TCD), and Mack Mariani (Xavier University), and is part of the cross-national The Cost of Doing Politics: Gender Aspects…
By Peter Emerson, Director of the de Borda Institute. Ireland’s contributions to the development of the world’s democratic structures have not been many… and not always positive. In 1818, the first dictator to get 100% in a referendum when he became El Supremo is Chile was the Irishman, Bernardo O’Higgins. Thus he put into second…
Sinéad McMahon is a student on the Master’s in Gender, Politics and International Relations programme at University College Dublin. This post is based on the findings of her final-year dissertation, which was undertaken as part of the BSc Government and Political Science degree at University College Cork. The provision of maternity leave for Oireachtas members…
By Michael Gallagher Lots of well-informed fine-grained analysis around of the constituency review published earlier this week by the Electoral Commission (EC). On the bigger picture, 4 points. 1. EC had no option but to respect the legislation, but regrettable that that specifies that all constituencies must be in range of 3–5 seats. Academic consensus…
Professor Arthur Aughey and author Dr. Aaron Edwards at the book launch The launch of A People Under Siege: The Unionists of Northern Ireland, From Partition to Brexit and Beyond took place at No Alibis Bookstore in Belfast on 15 June 2023. Remarks were made by the Publisher at Merrion Press, Conor Graham, who said that the…
By Dr. Sarah Jenkins (University of Galway) Yuliang Lu (UCD), Marianna Espinos Blasco (UCD) and Caitríona Dowd (DCU) engage in a panel on gender, race, and sexualities in peace and conflict chaired by Niall Ó Dochartaigh (University of Galway). Dr Sarah Jenkins (University of Galway) welcomes participants The School of Political Science and Sociology at…
The launch of Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection in EU Law. A Law, Policy and Technology Analysis by Dr. Maria Grazia Porcedda and published by Hart Publishing, an imprint of Bloomsbury, took place at the Senior Common Room of Trinity College Dublin on April 19th 2023. The book launch was supported by the PSAI’s Book…
This blog posts marks a symposium recently published in Irish Political Studies: ‘Gender and Political Change in the Republic of Ireland: Sites of Progress and Contestation’, edited by Dr. Lisa Keenan and Dr. Claire McGing. Lisa Keenan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She researches on…
On 8 February, Peter Emerson (the de Borda Institute, www.deborda.org) made a presentation of The Punters’ Guide to Democracy (2022, Springer, Heidelberg) to President Michael D. Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin. He was joined by Prof. Peter Stone, Cllr. Dr. Vanessa Liston, and Rosalind Skillen (Master’s student, UCD). This is Peter Emerson’s argument for adopting the Modified Borda Count: Binary voting in decision-making…
Valesca Lima, Rafaela Pannain and Gabriela Martins were delighted to launch their book The Consequences of Brazilian Social Movements in Historical Perspective, recently published by Routledge. The book was launched at the 46th Conference of the National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Social Sciences (ANPOCS) at the University of Campinas in São Paulo…
The Conference programme for the PSAI Postgraduate Conference held at Queen’s University Belfast this December is now live! Sir David Sterling KCB, former Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, will be this year’s keynote speaker. The programme can be viewed here. The conference is open to all to attend, but registration to attend the conference…
By Peter Emerson Mariupol is yet another city which humankind has first created… and then destroyed, flattened, like Guernica and Warsaw. And Russia now does to others, what it too has suffered, as in Leningrad and by its own hand, in Grozny. Mariupol is not a Russian word; if it were Russian or Slavic, it…
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