A Conservative Revolution? Electoral Change in Twenty-First Century Ireland

The 2011 general election in the Republic of Ireland, which took place against a backdrop of economic collapse, was one of the most dramatic ever witnessed. The most notable outcome was the collapse of Fianna Fáil, one of the world's most enduring and successful parties. In comparative terms Fianna Fáil's defeat was among the largest experienced by a major party in the history of parliamentary democracy. It went from being the largest party in the state (a position it had held since 1932) to being a bit player in Irish political life. And yet ultimately, there was much that remained the same, perhaps most distinctly of all the fact that no new parties emerged. It was, if anything, a 'conservative revolution'. A Conservative Revolution? examines underlying voter attitudes in the period 2002-11. Drawing on three national election studies the book follows party system evolution and voter behaviour from boom to bust. These data permits an unprecedented insight into a party system and its voters at a time of great change, as the country went through a period of rapid growth to become one of Europe's wealthiest states in the early twenty-first century to economic meltdown in the midst of the international Great Recession, all of this in the space of a single decade. In the process, this study explores many of the well-established norms and conventional wisdoms of Irish electoral behaviour that make it such an interesting case study for comparison with other industrialized democracies.

1 - Introduction: The 2011 Election in Context
2 - Class Politics in Ireland: How Economic Catastrophe Realigned Irish Politics Along Economic Divisions
3 - The Economy and the Vote in Irish National Elections
4 - Voting Through Boom and Bust: Information and Choice at Irish General Elections, 2002-2011
5 - Party Competition in Ireland: the Emergence of a Left-Right Dimension?
6 - The Lack of Party System Change in Ireland in 2011
7 - How Generational Replacement Undermined the Electoral Resilience of Fianna Fáil and Facilitated its 2011 Electoral Meltdown
8 - The Malleable Nature of Party Identification
9 - Pathological Parochialism or a Valuable Service? Attitudes to the Constituency Role of Irish Parliamentarians
10 - In the Line of Duty: The Moral Basis of Turnout in the 2011 Irish Election
11 - After 2011: Continuing the Revolution
12 - A Conservative Revolution? The Disequilibrium of Irish Politics

Michael Marsh is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and Emeritus Professor of Political Science in Trinity College University of Dublin. He has published over 100 professional articles and book chapters on parties, elections and public opinion, and was principal investigator for the 2002, 2007 and 2011 Irish National Election Studies, co-author of The Irish Voter (2008), as well as the last five books in the How Ireland Voted series, including How Ireland Voted 2016. David Farrell is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and holds the Chair of Politics at University College Dublin. He was the co-investigator of the 2011 Irish National Election Study. His primary research interests are in the fields of party politics and electoral systems, with a recent interest in the politics of deliberation. His most recent books include: the award winning Political Parties and Democratic Linkage (2011) and The Act of Voting (2016). He is currently working on the third edition of Electoral Systems. Gail McElroy is Professor of Political Science and Head of the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin. Primary research interests are in the fields of legislative behaviour and party politics. She is also actively involved in the Irish National Election Study and the Irish Candidates Study and recent published work in this area explores the continued under-representation of women in Irish politics. Her current work examines the differences in political ambition amongst Irish men and women and also the policy emphasis of men and women in the Dáil, as revealed in speeches.