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Candidate Selection in Ireland: The Impact of Localism and the Electoral System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Michael Gallagher
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Extract

Although the selection of candidates for elections to the national parliament is an important part of the political process, there is little writing on the way in which this is carried out in the Republic of Ireland. This no doubt springs largely from parties' reluctance to reveal details of this essentially internal matter. In Duverger's words, ‘parties do not like the odours of the electoral kitchen to spread to the outside world’.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 489 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 The existing literature can be found in Moss, Warner, Political Parties in the Irish Free State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), pp. 109–15Google Scholar; McCracken, J. L., Representative Government in Ireland: A Study of Dáil Éireann 1919–1948 (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 79–81Google Scholar; Chubb, Basil, ‘Ireland 1957’, in Butler, D. E., ed., Elections Abroad (London: Macmillan, 1959), pp. 196–7Google Scholar; Chubb, Basil, The Government and Politics of Ireland (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 151–2Google Scholar; Marsh, Michael, ‘Localism and Candidate Selection in the Irish General Election of 1977’ (paper presented to the European Consortium for Political Research Workshop on Mass Political Organizations, 04 1978).Google Scholar

2 Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties, 2nd edn (London: Methuen, 1959), p. 354.Google Scholar

3 Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (London: Pall Mall Press, 1967), pp. 229–30.Google Scholar

4 Loewenberg, Gerhard, Parliament in the German Political System (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

5 Valen, Henry and Katz, Daniel, Political Parties in Norway (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1964), p. 21.Google Scholar

6 Obler, Jeffrey, ‘Intraparty Democracy and the Selection of Parliamentary Candidates: the Belgian Case’, British Journal of Political Science, IV (1974), 163–85, p. 164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Epstein, , Political Parties, p. 225.Google Scholar

8 Key, V. O., Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, 5th edn (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1964), p. 370.Google Scholar

9 Obler, , ‘Intraparty Democracy’, p. 163.Google Scholar

10 For Britain, see for example Ranney, Austin, Pathways to Parliament (London: Macmillan, 1965), pp. 57–61, 169–75Google Scholar; Janosik, Edward G., Constituency Labour Parties in Britain (London: Pall Mall Press, 1968), Chap. 5Google Scholar; Rush, Michael, The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates (London: Nelson, 1969)Google Scholar. For West Germany, see Loewenberg, , Parliament in the German Political System, pp. 69–70Google Scholar, and for Belgium, Obler, ‘Intraparty Democracy’. Even the American primary system can be less open than is sometimes suggested; see for example Sorauf, Frank J., Party and Representation (New York: Atherton Press, 1963), p. 55Google Scholar; Snowiss, Leo M., ‘Congressional Recruitment and Representation’, American Political Science Review, LX (1966), 623–39, p. 630Google Scholar, and, for the convention system, Key, , Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, p. 377.Google Scholar

11 Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, p. 207Google Scholar; Farrell, Brian, ‘Dáil Deputies: “The 1969 Generation”’, Economic and Social Review, II (1970–1971), 309–27, p. 314.Google Scholar

12 Garvin, Tom, ‘Continuity and Change in Irish Electoral Politics, 1923–1969’, Economic and Social Review, III (1971–1972), 359–72, p. 361.Google Scholar

13 See Whyte, John, Dáil Deputies: Their Work, Its Difficulties, Possible Remedies (Dublin: Tuairim Pamphlet No. 15, 1966), pp. 30–1Google Scholar; Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, p. 212Google Scholar; Farrell, , ‘Dáil Deputies’, p. 320Google Scholar; Nealon, Ted, Ireland: A Parliamentary Directory 1973–74 (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1974), p. 121.Google Scholar

14 The first study to call attention to the importance of TDs' brokerage activities was Chubb, Basil, ‘“Going About Persecuting Civil Servants”: The Role of the Irish Parliamentary Representative’, Political Studies, XI (1963), 272–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Sinnott, Richard, ‘The Electorate’, in Penniman, Howard R., ed., Ireland at the Polls: the Dáil Elections of 1977 (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1978), 35–67, p. 62Google Scholar. See, however, Sinnott's comments on p. 61.

16 Moss, , Political Parties in the Irish Free State, p. 144.Google Scholar

17 Biographical details are given in Nealon, Ted, Guide to the 21st Dáil and Seanad (Dublin: Platform Press, 1977), pp. 44–76.Google Scholar

18 For a concise description of the electoral system see Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, pp. 349–52.Google Scholar

19 Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, p. 154.Google Scholar

20 Cohan, A. S., McKinlay, R. D. and Mughan, Anthony, ‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973’, British Journal of Political Science, v (1975), 363–83, pp. 369–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Lijphart, Arend and Irwin, Galen A., ‘Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System: The Dáil Elections of 1969, 1973 and 1977’, British Journal of Political Science, IX (1979), 362–9, p. 368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 They maintain (pp. 364–5) that a party can be said to have overnominated if it puts up ‘a number of candidates that is larger than the number of first preference votes for the party divided by the quota, rounded off to the nearest integer that is equal to or greater than 1’. The quota, calculated by a formula involving the valid votes cast and the number of seats at stake (see Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, p. 351Google Scholar), is the number of votes a candidate needs to secure election.

23 Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies’, p. 365Google Scholar. The authors point out that there would be ‘only a single case of no overnomination’ if the coalition partners Fine Gael and Labour are treated as a single party. However, such treatment would be unwarranted, since each of the parties fought its own campaign and, in particular, they made no attempt to co-ordinate their nomination strategies.

24 Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies’, p. 367.Google Scholar

25 It is difficult to see on what basis it can be asserted that a party which nominates two candidates has overnominated if it wins only 1·45 quotas but has not if it wins 1·51 quotas. Examples could be found in Irish electoral history to confound almost any attempt at a context-free definition of overnomination. In the June 1927 election, for example, the Labour party won two seats in the Limerick constituency although its first preference votes amounted to only 1·12 quotas; in the Leitrim-Sligo constituency at the same election, a party with only 0·36 quotas won a seat.

26 When one of a party's candidates is eliminated, a certain proportion of his votes transfer to other candidates of the same party, but the rest either pass to other candidates of the same party or become non-transferable. Only of those votes in the first category can it be said that they are party votes. The other votes would not have been cast for the candidate's party at all if he had not been standing, so they are not really ‘lost’ by the party when he is eliminated, and still less were they in any sense ‘lost’ because of his initial nomination. Analysis of party transfers over the 1922–77 period shows that voting on the basis of considerations other than party is greater than is sometimes assumed. About three-quarters of transfers from candidates of the three main parties passed to other candidates of the same party where possible, suggesting that about a quarter of these parties' votes were cast for candidates as individuals rather than because of the party to which they belonged. (See Gallagher, Michael, ‘Party Solidarity, Exclusivity and Inter-Party Relationships in Ireland, 1922–1977: The Evidence of Transfers’, Economic and Social Review, x (1978–1979), 1–22, p. 4.Google Scholar

27 Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies’, p. 368.Google Scholar

28 Boissevain, Jeremy, Saints and Fireworks: Religion and Politics in Rural Malta (London: Athlone Press, 1965), p. 131.Google Scholar

29 The details of the procedure are derived from information supplied by the headquarters of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour party, and from the constitutions and rule books of the parties. A number of additional Labour party documents – Standing Orders for Dáil Selection Conferences, Instructions to the Chairman of Conferences for the Selection of Dáil Candidates, and Standing Orders of Branch – have also been used.

30 Epstein, , Political Parties, p. 231.Google Scholar

31 See Marsh, , ‘Localism and Candidate Selection’, pp. 12–17.Google Scholar

32 Irish Times, 2 06 1969, p. 9.Google Scholar

33 The constituencies involved were Cork South-West and Kerry North.

34 Labour Party Annual Report 1972–73, p. 26.Google Scholar

35 Paterson, Peter, The Selectorate (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967).Google Scholar

36 Bax, Mart, Harpstrings and Confessions (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1976), pp. 81–3.Google Scholar

37 Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, pp. 55–6.Google Scholar

38 The record seems to be held by a Kerry TD who never made a speech during forty-six years' continuous membership of the Dáil.

39 Cf. Chubb, , Government and Politics of Ireland, Chap. 8.Google Scholar

40 Obler, , ‘Intraparty Democracy’, pp. 183–4.Google Scholar