Guest post by Dr Anthony Costello, lecturer in EU Politics and Comparative Government at the Department of Government, University College Cork. Following the United Kingdom’s (UK) 2016 Brexit Referendum, regional disparities in referendum results inspired fresh questions regarding the future make-up of the United Kingdom.
Guest post by Dr Anthony Costello, lecturer in EU policy-making, Comparative European Government and Politics, Conflict and Conflict Resolution, and Irish and Northern Irish Politics at the Department of Government, University College Cork.
Guest post by Peter Emerson, director of the deBorda Institute in Belfast. (If you ask a silly question, you get either a silly answer… or nothing. That was Brexit, and we still don’t know what the answer was, is, or will be.)
On 16 November 2016, there will be a one-day workshop looking at voting rights reform in Ireland. There will be two areas of focus; voting rights for emigrants and reducing the voting age to 16. The programme includes academics and campaigners. The workshop will take place in the offices of the National University of Ireland…
In the light of the marriage equality and presidential age referendums last week – both the product of recommendations of the Constitutional Convention, a review of the current state of play of government responses to the Convention’s recommendations is timely. The attached table gives the current situation as of today: ICC recommendations as of May 2015
The government launched its new diaspora policy last week – Global Irish – in which it applauded itself on its diaspora policy. Lots of warm words waft throughout the 57-page glossy document. But buried in the detail is a confirmation (on p. 21) that the government has chosen to ignore the recommendation of the Irish…
It was much commented that turnout in yesterday’s Scottish referendum was very high (at 85%), and some also reported that there had been a surge in voter registrations, with as many as 97% of eligible voters registered to vote. Of course if 97% of eligible voters registered then turnout wasn’t actually 85%, but 82.5% (85*.97 – still pretty…
We’re all worried about the decline in turnout, aren’t we? Politicians, academics and other worthies march up to Glenties every year to worry about our failing politics, and to self-flagellate about our failure to reform it. And it’s not just us we’re worried about this year. With the results of the 2014 European elections we…
The first annual report of the highly influential Electoral Integrity Project has just been published (see here). Professor Pippa Norris and her colleagues have carried out an extensive survey of the electoral process across the world’s democracies over the past few years. Ireland’s last election (2011) preceded this project so it was not included on…
Every day there is some opinion piece or other speculating about the possibility of a new political party emerging in Ireland. Journalistic eyes are peeled, watching every movement, signal or nuance from the likes of Lucinda Creighton, Michael McDowell, or any other obvious contenders seen as most likely to lead the way in establishing a…
Irish Politics Forum 