Building on the success of previous editions, Politics in the Republic of Ireland continues to provide an authoritative introduction to all aspects of government and politics in this seventh edition. Written by some of the foremost experts on Irish politics, it explains, analyses and interprets the background to Irish government and contemporary political processes. It devotes chapters to every aspect of contemporary Irish government and politics, including the political parties and elections, the constitution, deliberative democracy, referendums, the Taoiseach and the governmental system, women and politics, the position of the Dáil, and Ireland’s place within the European Union. Bringing readers up to date with the very latest developments, especially with the upheaval in the Irish party system and the implications of recent liberalising referendums, PRI7 combines substance with a highly readable style, providing an accessible book that meets the needs of all those who are interested in knowing how politics and government operate in Ireland.

Building on the success of previous editions, Politics in the Republic of Ireland continues to provide an authoritative introduction to all aspects of government and politics in this seventh edition. Written by some of the foremost experts on Irish politics, it explains, analyses and interprets the background to Irish government and contemporary political processes. It devotes chapters to every aspect of contemporary Irish government and politics, including the political parties and elections, the constitution, deliberative democracy, referendums, the Taoiseach and the governmental system, women and politics, the position of the Dáil, and Ireland’s place within the European Union. Bringing readers up to date with the very latest developments, especially with the upheaval in the Irish party system and the implications of recent liberalising referendums, PRI7 combines substance with a highly readable style, providing an accessible book that meets the needs of all those who are interested in knowing how politics and government operate in Ireland.

Over the last three decades, electoral reform has moved centre stage in both new and established democracies. In Europe, the post 1989 democratisation wave brought important debates about electoral system choice and free and fair elections. But electoral reform also emerged on the agenda in a number of established democracies. Declining political participation, corruption scandals and party finance irregularities put the management of the democratic process on the political agenda. Election administration problems such as those in the Gore Bush election of 2000 thrust electoral integrity into the global political spotlight. In this edited collection, we are primarily concerned with the mechanics of how elections are run. Elections are complex administrative tasks and as International IDEA points out, they are also usually administered against a politically charged backdrop. This book brings together specialists to consider the election management process using diverse theoretical approaches and, addressing both emerging and perennial election debates such as the role of voter advice applications, election management bodies, districting, ballot design and media practices in the coverage of elections. The volume includes a number of comparative chapters which utilise data from large international datasets (VDem and CSES), several Irish case studies and an important Dutch study of voter advice applications with pioneering data. Collectively, the chapters provide insights into election administration in Ireland and many other established democracies. This book was previously published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.

This is the definitive study of the Irish general election of 2016 - the most dramatic election in a generation, which resulted in the worst electoral outcome for Ireland's established parties, the most fractionalized party system in the history of the state, and the emergence of new parties and groups. These outcomes follow a pattern seen across a number of Western Europe's established democracies in which the 'deep crisis' of the Great Recession has wreaked havoc on party systems. The objective of this book is to assess this most extraordinary of Irish elections both in its Irish and wider cross-national context. With contributions from leading scholars on Irish elections, and using a unique dataset - the Irish National Election Study 2016 - this volume explores voting patterns at Ireland's first post crisis election and it considers the implications for the electoral landscape and politics in Ireland. -- .