Fianna Fail was for most of the 20th century the democratic world's most successful political party. It dominated the politics of Ireland from 1932, when it first took power, until 2011 when it became a prominent electoral victim of the Great Recession. This book provides original research that explains how Fianna Fail became dominant and managed its coalitions of support to maintain that position for eight decades. It gathers prominent political scientists who focus on a variety of factors including its ideological flexibility, control of state resources and the venue for decision making, the party's leadership, its organisation and communications strategies. In addition the book takes a comparative approach to understanding the position of dominant parties in democratic countries, and uses empirical data to understand the sources of its support and decline. It is a book that will be of interest not only to scholars of Ireland, but also to those who wish to understand the sources of power of dominant political parties and the impact of the Great Recession on democratic politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.

This book provides a comprehensive study of educational policy reform as growing calls for further reducing the role of the Catholic Church in Irish primary schools gains traction in a rapidly evolving Irish society. Drawing upon lessons from the same-sex marriage and abortion reform campaigns, this study provides several policy case studies that demonstrate how the interplay of civil society activists and organisations, the media, public opinion, and political parties and elites determines how policy reforms live or die. The book contains a rich and novel set of data, including interviews with leaders and elites from the major actors and institutions, numbers and trends from previously unreleased data from the Church and Department of Education, evidence from the authors' originally designed and implemented parliamentary surveys, an original analysis of media coverage of educational issues and actors involved in the main educational reform debates, and detailed case studies of divestment, admissions, and curriculum policy reforms. Scholars, policy gurus, activists, politicians and teachers, students, and parents each have something to learn from this compelling study.

Fianna Fail was for most of the 20th century the democratic world's most successful political party. It dominated the politics of Ireland from 1932, when it first took power, until 2011 when it became a prominent electoral victim of the Great Recession. This book provides original research that explains how Fianna Fail became dominant and managed its coalitions of support to maintain that position for eight decades. It gathers prominent political scientists who focus on a variety of factors including its ideological flexibility, control of state resources and the venue for decision making, the party's leadership, its organisation and communications strategies. In addition the book takes a comparative approach to understanding the position of dominant parties in democratic countries, and uses empirical data to understand the sources of its support and decline. It is a book that will be of interest not only to scholars of Ireland, but also to those who wish to understand the sources of power of dominant political parties and the impact of the Great Recession on democratic politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.