Is the only truly new Dáil an independent Dáil ?

Liam Weeks* Reading the calls for reform from afar, there seems to be one overarching theme: a desire to improve the calibre of parliamentarians. To date, most of these calls have been misguided as many from outside the political science community persist with the notion of electoral reform as a panacea that will transform the…

Thank You.

The editors of politicalreform.ie wish to thank contributors and posters for participating in the website over the last six months. To date, over 100,000 hits have been recorded and this project continues to grow with new contributors and a greater variety of topics. Any suggestions on how to develop the website would be most appreciated.…

SHOULD IRISH EMIGRANTS RETAIN THEIR VOTING RIGHTS?

Guest post by Eleanor Fitzsimons (posted by Elaine Byrne) The prospect of a general election early in 2011 has seen the re-emergence of a contentious debate as to whether our sizable diaspora should be allowed to vote. Ireland is unusual in the fact that those not ‘ordinarily resident’, i.e. living in Ireland on 1 September…

Land Annuities and the Default Option

Peter Mair (December 17, 2010: posted by David Farrell) One of the issues that is likely to dominate the forthcoming general election is the question of whether Ireland should default on the crippling debt repayments. Reading both on and between the lines in the analyses of a number of economic commentators in recent weeks, I…

China’s Long March to Modernity

Beijing’s response to the award of the Nobel Peace Price to a leading Chinese dissident tells us something important about the country’s transition By Joern-Carsten Gottwald, Neil Collins and Andrew Cottey For the first time in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was awarded this…

Towards the 2011 general election: Where are all the women candidates?

By Claire McGing (on behalf of the PSAI Gender and Politics specialist group) The recent failure of the talented Labour Dublin City councillor Rebecca Moynihan to win a nomination to run in Dublin South-Central in the upcoming general election (the three candidates who were selected are all male councillors) has once again raised questions about…

Answering questions, or questioning answers – where does the debate go from here?

 by: Matt Wall. This post is in response to Elaine’s ‘10 proposals for political reform’. It seems that there is now an incontestable case for far-reaching political reform in the light of all that has happened in Ireland since late 2008; and this case has been crystallised particularly vividly over the last week. However, while…