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Local Party Activists in Dublin: Socialization, Recruitment and Incentives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Tom Garvin
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Extract

Definitions of the political party in the context of Western competitive electoral politics have usually centred on the notion that the critical function of the political party is power-seeking or power-wielding. In practice, of course, Western parties of the unpaid voluntary kind cannot be solely concerned with power-seeking in the sense of vote-getting; they must also take the opinions and wishes of their own activists into account, at least to some extent. Thus, Epstein's emphasis on the nomination and electoral functions of political parties, although fundamentally correct, should not be allowed to obscure other central preoccupations of party leaders, in particular the problems they often face in attempting to keep an organization in being between elections without recourse to extensive material payoffs in the shape of patronage or regular salaries for large numbers of activists.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 1976 , pp. 369 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 9–11Google Scholar; Duverger, Maurice, The Idea of Politics (London: Methuen, 1966), p. 105Google Scholar; Neumann, Sigmund, Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 396Google Scholar; Hennessy, B., ‘On the Study of Party Organization’, in Crotty, William, ed., Approaches to the Study of Party Organization (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1968), 1–44Google Scholar, and Riggs, Fred W., ‘Comparative Politics and Political Parties’Google Scholar, in Crotty, , Approaches, 45–104, pp. 55–6.Google Scholar

2 On this, cf. Barnes, Samuel H., ‘Party Democracy and the Logic of Collective Action’Google Scholar, in Crotty, , Approaches, 105–38Google Scholar; Conway, M. M. and Feigert, F. B., ‘Motivation, Incentive Systems and the Political Party Organization’, American Political Science Review, LX (1966), 667–76Google Scholar and Bowman, L., Ippolito, D. et al. , ‘Incentives for the Maintenance of Grassroots Political Activism’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, XIII (1969), 126–39.Google Scholar

3 Arensberg, Conrad and Kimball, Solon, Family and Community in Ireland (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940)Google Scholar, is the central study. See also Schmitt, David E., ‘Aspects of Irish Social Organization and Administrative Development’, Administration, XVIII (1970). 392–404Google Scholar and his more extended statement, The Irony of Irish Democracy (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1973).Google Scholar See also Chubb, Basil's standard text, The Government and Politics of Ireland (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

4 For a review of recent Irish demographic trends, see Parker, Anthony J., ‘Ireland: a Consideration of the 1971 Census of Population’, Area, IV (1972), 31–8.Google Scholar

5 Busteed, M. A. and Mason, H., ‘Irish Labour in the 1969 Election’, Political Studies, XVIII (1970), 373–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The standard characterizations of Irish political culture may be found in the works by Chubb and Schmitt cited in fn. 3, passim. See also Bax, Mart, Harpstrings and Confessions (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1973), pp. 66–9.Google Scholar

7 Schmitt, David, ‘Political Culture and Political Development in Ireland: A Comparative Analysis’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1971), p. 146.Google Scholar

8 See Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on ‘psycho-cultural’ orientations to political participation.

9 Arensberg, and Kimball, , Family and Community in Ireland, pp. 45–91.Google Scholar

10 Humphreys, A. J., New Dubliners (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), passim.Google Scholar

11 The literature on this subject is considerable: the classic article is Chubb, Basil's ‘Going About Persecuting Civil Servants: the Role of the Irish Parliamentary Representative’, Political Studies, XI (1963), 272–86.Google Scholar Also see Sacks, Paul, ‘Bailiwicks, Locality and Religion: Three Elements in an Irish Dáil Constituency Election’, Economic and Social Review, 1 (1970), 531–54Google Scholar and Bax, , Harpstrings and Confessions.Google Scholar

12 See my ‘Political Cleavages, Party Politics and Urbanization in Ireland: the Case of the Periphery-Dominated Centre’, European Journal of Political Research, II (1974), 307–27.Google Scholar

13 Information on national participation rates from Chubb, , Government and Politics, p. 94Google Scholar; see also Bax, , Harpstrings and Confessions, p. 167.Google Scholar For a British rate, see Epstein, , Political Parties in Western Democracies, p. 113.Google Scholar

14 Hutchinson, Bertram, Social Status and Inter-generational Social Mobility in Dublin (Dublin: Economic and Social Research Institute, 1969)Google Scholar, is the source for information presented here on the general population of Dublin.

15 Hutchinson, , Social Status and Inter-generational Social Mobility in Dublin, p. 31.Google Scholar See also, MacGréil, Micheál, Irih Times, 17 10 1974.Google Scholar

16 Bax, , Harpstrings and Confessions, pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

17 Garvin, , ‘Political Cleavages’.Google Scholar

18 The standard book on the Catholic Church and Irish politics is Whyte, John's Church and State in Modern Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1971).Google Scholar

19 Whyte, , Church and State in Modern Ireland, p. 6Google Scholar; Blanchard, Jean, The Church in Contemporary Ireland (Dublin: Clonmore and Reynolds, 1963), p. 31.Google Scholar

20 On the urbanization of the Labour party, see Busteed, and Mason, , ‘Irish Labour in the 1969 Election’, passim.Google Scholar

21 Bax, , Harpstrings and Confessions, p. 228Google Scholar, quotes a remark about intraparty seniority as a necessary qualification for power which included the cliché Gaelic phrase feiche bliain ag fás (twenty years a-growing).

22 Clarke, P. and Wilson, J. Q., ‘Incentive Systems: ATheory of Organizations’, Administrative Science Quarterly, V (1961), 126–66.Google Scholar See also Eldersveld, S. M., Political Parties (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964), pp. 284–6.Google Scholar

23 Clarke, and Wilson, , ‘Incentive Systems’, p. 135.Google Scholar

24 See references cited in f n. 6. Perhaps the best and most entertaining expression of the ‘folk’ view of Irish local rural politics is contained in Keane, John B.'s Letters of a Successful T.D. (Cork: Mercier Press, 1965).Google Scholar