The PSAI was concerned to hear recent reports that the leadership of University College Dublin (UCD) used a staff-wide email to undermine criticisms of the university’s relationship to the Chinese government. The UCD president encouraged the entire university community, presumably including those who have been targeted for repression by the Chinese state, to be proud…

By Peter Emeson (The de Borda Institute) In 2008, aged 65, I started to learn Chinese.  Five years later, on my first lecture tour in China, I addressed a conference in Xuzhou, and one thing led to another.  I have now conducted four three-month lecture tours in China, the most recent two travelling overland, teaching in…

By David Farrell Richard Sinnott passed away on 3rd January 2022 after a long illness. An emeritus professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, Richard was a world-leading researcher in the study of elections and electoral behaviour, his research leadership recognised by membership of the Royal Irish Academy (in…

By Peter Emerson (The de Borda Institute) An Irish webinar in Germany: Parliament, not selecting, but electing a coalition Ireland’s contributions to the development of democracy have not always been the best: Bernardo O’Higgins, for example, was the world’s first dictator to get 100% in a referendum, in Chile in 1818. On the more positive…

By Mary P Murphy (Maynooth University) Expectations of paradigmatic change often overestimate the degree to which crises will result in change. The reality seems more consistent with Klein’s Shock Doctrine which associates crisis with a reinforcement of neo liberalism. Our experiences of the 2008 crisis and subsequent austerity means we should not be rose-tinted about the likelihood…

By Mary P Murphy (Maynooth University) and John Hogan (Technological University Dublin) The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic followed a decade after the 2008 financial crisis and the related €85 billion European troika bailout of Ireland in 2010. The fallout led to a period of austerity with a significant range of expenditure cuts. These cuts had direct impacts…

By Pauline Cullen and Mary Murphy, Maynooth University Women’s voices in Ireland have not been heard during the pandemic. Covid Women’s Voices, a diverse range of female workers observe daily the gendered realities of the pandemic and call for publicly funded childcare for frontline workers, in-person schooling for children of essential workers, and special protections for care workers…

By Shane Reynolds, PhD Student, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick This weekend’s Sunday Business Post/Red C Opinion Poll, a year on from the first case of Covid in Ireland and slightly over a year since the 2020 general election, follows trends that have become apparent over the last year. The Irish Polling…

Today’s Irish Times poll created a small social media storm as some took delight in the apparent public shift in positions on the restrictions in Covid, and others, particularly supporters of the so-called ZeroCovid strategy, were appalled and immediately tried to poke holes in the survey. They argued that the questions were biased, and pointed…

As many of us prepare to enter a third semester of teaching online we are well placed to reflect on and learn from our different experiences, first pivoting to online in March 2020 and from September to December 2020 delivering full modules online, often to large classes including to new first year students we have…