Rory Costello
Party competition sometimes resembles an auction, where parties seek to ‘buy’ elections through spending promises. Rory Costello argues that this is particularly likely to occur when parties are ideologically indistinct. Parties that do not expect to be in government are also more likely to over-promise Read more
Fiona Buckley
Legislative gender quotas are effecting change in Irish politics. However, argue Fiona Buckley and Mack Mariani, without strong party leadership and political will, advances in women’s political representation can only go so far. To maintain progress, party leaders must prioritise women’s recruitment, nomination, and financial support as well as retain incumbent women Read more
Ragnhild Louise Muriaas
Women have made great strides towards equal representation in parliaments across the world. Their short parliamentary careers, however, still stop them from representing their constituents as effectively as men colleagues, write Ragnhild L. Muriaas and Torill Stavenes, guest editors of The Loop’s blog series to mark International Women’s Day on Friday 8 March Read more
Laia Balcells
Laia Balcells, Lesley-Ann Daniels, and Alexander Kuo highlight the role of contentious territorial issues in shaping societal divisions. They study three European regions —Scotland, Catalonia, and Northern Ireland — that have salient territorial claims but very different histories. All three, however, exhibit striking similarities in levels of social polarisation Read more
Colm Walsh
Experimentation with citizens' assemblies is flourishing throughout the world. Using Ireland as a case study, Colm D. Walsh finds that, while these assemblies offer democracy great promise and have strong citizen support, ensuring equal participation in them remains a challenge Read more
Catherine Moury
Catherine Moury, Stella Ladi, Daniel Cardoso and Angie Gago argue that bailed-out governments during the Eurozone crisis exercised more leverage than assumed. Despite international market pressure and creditors’ conditionality, bailed-out governments were able to advocate, resist, shape or roll back some of the policies demanded by the EU’s Troika Read more
Stefan Müller
Several studies have suggested that 'irrelevant events' outside politicians’ control, like sports results or lotteries, affect voting behaviour. Such findings raise worrying questions for democracy. Yet, write Stefan Müller and Liam Kneafsey, these concerns may be overstated. In Ireland, a country with a strong sporting tradition, match outcomes do not influence citizens’ assessments of government performance, or voting behaviour Read more
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