Icelandic political scientist Silja Bara Omarsdottir writes about waking up as a newly elected representative to the country’s new constitutional assembly here. The assembly is a direct result of the Pots and Pans Revolution which took place in Iceland after the banking crisis tanked the country’s economy just over two years ago. Should we think…
Adrian Kavanagh, 22nd November 2010 Could a separate youth constituency improve participation/representation levels amongst the younger section of the electorate?
By Matt Wall Fintan O’Toole’s summary of the reforms that he proposes in his new book: ‘Enough is Enough’ advocates ’30 key steps’ to that we need to take to reform democracy in Ireland – many of which have been debated intensely on this site. Some of these are more contested than others, there are well-rehearsed arguments on either…
Posted by Eoin O’Malley If electronic voting was rejected because of the absence of a paper trail, perhaps this voting system could solve that problem. It would mean an end to the tallymen, and for that reason alone doesn’t get my vote. #mce_temp_url#
Prof David Farrell gave a compelling lecture this week on electoral reform to the Trinity Senior Sophister class studying Comparative Political Reform. The class have read and debated the various themes — Electoral reform has become a lightning rod issue for reformists in many different countries. But is it the wrong answer to the…
Adrian Kavanagh, 15th October 2010 When electoral boundaries were being redrawn for City abd County Council electoral areas in 2008, the terms of reference set for the two electoral area committees were changed so that, apart from exceptional cases, the minimum number of seats per electoral area would now be four, and not three as…
By Michael Gallagher This rather provocative title is intended to raise the issue of just what end it’s hoped will be served by political reform. Possible ends could be classed as process-oriented or outcome-oriented. Regarding the former, having a political system that is more transparent and participatory is worth trying to achieve in its own…
By Matthew Wall In this post, I would like to open a discussion around the idea of imposing term limits on our TDs. This is not an idea that has heretofore received much attention in Ireland. As such, the post is primarily concerned with ‘crowd-sourcing’ peoples’ opinions on how term limits would play out in…
David Farrell (September 22 2010) With so many of our citizens fleeing the country — many of them against their will — and so many of them ending up disenfranchised residents in foreign lands, why should we add insult to injury be denying them a say over affairs at home? The scourge of mass emigration…
Michael Gallagher (6th September, 2010) Concerns are raised from time to time, not just in this country, that geographical representation in parliament creates behaviour among legislators that is not consistent with the national interest. Legislators elected, under whatever electoral system, from geographical constituencies have an obvious incentive to put the interests of their constituents first…
Irish Politics Forum 