The third edition addresses the most important current topics in Irish politics. It fills a major gap in the academic literature on Irish politics, providing students with a comprehensive Introduction to the issues dominating debates in both parts of Ireland. The recent emergence of emigration, environmental risk and technological changes on to the political agenda is reflected. It also revisits Ireland's economic performance, the peace process and the policy areas of health, housing and industrial relations.
Paralleling his friend Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to America, Gustave de Beaumont traveled through Ireland in the mid-1830s to observe its people and society. In Ireland, he chronicles the history of the Irish and offers up a national portrait on the eve of the Great Famine. Published to acclaim in France, Ireland remained in print there until 1914. The English edition, translated by William Cooke Taylor and published in 1839, was not reprinted. In a devastating critique of British policy in Ireland, Beaumont questioned why a government with such enlightened institutions tolerated such oppression. He was scathing in his depiction of the ruinous state of Ireland, noting the desperation of the Catholics, the misery of repeated famines, the unfair landlord system, and the faults of the aristocracy. It was not surprising the Irish were seen as loafers, drunks, and brutes when they had been reduced to living like beasts. Yet Beaumont held out hope that British liberal reforms could heal Ireland's wounds. This rediscovered masterpiece, in a single volume for the first time, reproduces the nineteenth-century Taylor translation and includes an introduction on Beaumont and his world. This volume also presents Beaumont's impassioned preface to the 1863 French edition in which he portrays the appalling effects of the Great Famine. A classic of nineteenth-century political and social commentary, Beaumont's singular portrait offers the compelling immediacy of an eyewitness to history.
Building on the success of the first two editions, Politics in the Republic of Ireland continues to provide an authoritative introduction to all aspects of politics in the Irish Republic.
This is an introduction to the best available scholarship within Irish politics, featuring the most influential and significant articles which have been published on Irish politics during the past twenty years. Each article is accompanied by a new commentary by another leading scholar which addresses the impact and contribution of the article and discusses how its themes remain crucial today. The book covers all the most important topics within Irish politics including political culture and traditions, political institutions and parties and the peace process. The combination of the best original scholarship and contemporary commentaries on the core political issues makes Irish Political Studies Reader an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of Irish politics.
"Explains why we in the West, live in the political times we do; a moment of historical time arising from systemic dynamics that have wrought predicaments to confront and not problems to be solved. A retrospective and predictive account of the political shocks of 2016 and onwards, and how the specific consequences of the structural historical forces at work are ongoing and in good part inexorable. Argues that these political times arise and disruption will continue from the intersection of fault lines generated by a geopolitical cycle that has been disrupted, but is not over"--Publisher's description.
This book provides a detailed, student-friendly overview of Ireland in the twenty first century and the remarkable economic and social transformations that have occurred since the late 1980s. The "Celtic Tiger" phenomenon has made Ireland the focus of much attention in recent years. Other countries have openly declared that they want to follow the Irish economic and social model. Yet there is no book that gives a comprehensive, spatially-informed analysis of the Irish experience.This book fills that gap. Divided into four parts -- planning and development, the economy, the political landscape, and population and social issues -- the chapters provide an explanation of a particular aspect of Ireland and Irish life accompanied by illustrative material. In particular, the authors reveal how the transformations that have occurred are uneven and unequal in their effects across the country and highlight the challenges now facing Irish society and policy-makers.Written by experts in the field, it is a key text for those wishing to understand the contemporary Irish economic and social landscape.
Brings together academics and practitioners to present an overview of the development and current shape of political communication in the Republic of Ireland from a multiplicity of perspectives and sources.
The latest book in the Gill Books series of important topics tackled by experts, this engaging guide demystifies political systems, elections, voting, and government, and explores issues including human rights, freedom of speech, and fake news.
Ireland has enjoyed continuous democratic government for almost a century, an unusual experience among countries that gained their independence in the 20th century. But the way this works in practice has changed dramatically over time. Ireland's colonial past had an enduring influence over political life for much of the time since independence, enabling stable institutions of democratic accountability, while also shaping a dismal record of economic under-development and persistent emigration. More recently, membership of the EU has brought about far-reaching transformation across almost all aspects of Irish life. But if anything, the paradoxes have only intensified. Now one of the most open economies in the world, Ireland has experienced both rapid growth and one of the most severe crashes in the wake of the Great Recession. On some measures Ireland is among the most affluent countries in the world, yet this is not the lived experience for many of its citizens. Ireland is an unequivocally modern state, yet public life continues to be marked by formative ideas and values in which tradition and modernity are held in often uneasy embrace. It is a small state that has ambitions to leverage its distinctive place in the Atlantic and European worlds to carry more weight on the world stage. Ireland continues to be deeply connected to Britain through ties of culture and trade, now matters of deep concern in the context of Brexit. And the old fault-lines between North and South, between Ireland and Britain, which had been at the core of one of Europe's longest and bloodiest civil conflicts, risk being reopened by Britain's new hard-edged approach to national and European identities. These key issues are teased out in the 41 chapters of this book, making this the most comprehensive volume on Irish politics to date.
This volume seeks to move beyond structure and agency perspectives by suggesting that social movement theories are best suited to foster a perspective that entails 1) an actor-based approach to the Troubles; and 2) the contextualization of contentious politics, or how the contingent and ever-evolving political contexts/opportunities/threats shaped the trajectory of the Troubles. Recent social movement scholarship has proved to be particularly useful in situating the emergence, continuation, and demise of political violence within a larger context of multiple conflicts, in which radical contention is only one possible outcome. Social movement theories also avoid the essentialization of political groups as 'radical' or 'violent'; instead, they place all political actors participating to contention, from paramilitaries to state authorities, within their complex organizational fields, emphasizing their shifting strategies as they interact with each other and adapt to the political context.
