Summary

This study will complete an unprecedented inter-election panel study of the Irish electorate with a random sample, face-to-face survey of 1800 members of the electorate after the next general election, expected in 2006 or 2007. The study will build on the longtitudinal core of the PRTLI funded panel study started after the 2002 election , with waves in 2002 [2,600 cases] , 2003, 2004 [approx 1,000 cases each] and 2005/6. Those respondents will be reinterviewed along with a top-up of new cases to ensure the 2006/7 wave will also be representative of the 2006/7 electorate. This project provides a unique vehicle for research on the electoral process. Hence we will consult the larger political studies community about the content of the questionnaire. The survey will 'carry' several separate but interelated projects, most notably the third module from the Comparative Studies of Electoral Systems (CSES) project [www.cses.org], as well as others which may require and attract additional funding. While the immediate focus of the study will be to establish why people vote as they do in this particular election, the primary research aim will be to establish a original dataset of high quality through which scholars of electoral behaviour in general and Irish elections in particular can explore the attitudinal, sociological and evaluative bases of political stability and political change. To date only cross-sectional data has been available and this has severely handicapped analyses. For this reason, the completion of a panel study to encompass two general elections, as well as intervening local and European elections, provides an invaluable piece of research infrastructure for the analysis of political change in the electorate. This is critical to the examination of the theoretical and empirical foundations of representative democracy and will be used widely by the international community of scholars.

Funding Agency

IRCHSS

Programme

Infrastructural Project