Anything but unusual: the use of Gender Quotas in the EU states

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Claire McGing

By Claire McGing, John and Pat Hume and Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences scholar, Department of Geography,  NUI Maynooth

Under planned new legislation, political parties will have to implement a gender quota for future general election candidates. If parties do not select at least 30% women, they will have their funding from the Exchequer cut by 50%. The quota will rise to 40% after seven years. Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has said that a heavy financial penalty is the only way to “concentrate the mind” of parties. Given that party State funding is based on their share of the vote in the previous general election, the quota would be more difficult to implement for local elections, but Minister Hogan hopes that the various parties will replicate the model in 2014. Continue reading →

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Labour’s target constituencies for the next general election

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 1st June 2011

Swing (%) required for a Labour seat gain by constituency

The Labour Party made significant gains in the February 2011 election, almost doubling their share of the vote nationally and increasing their number of Dail seats from 20 to 37. Due mainly to the party’s ability to win transfers from a range of different parties and political groupings, Labour attained a seat bonus of almost 3% in winning 22.3% of the seats on a national vote share of 19.4%. Despite this, further small swings to the party in a number of Dail constituencies could see further seat gains being made by Labour, as the map above suggests. Continue reading →

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Fine Gael’s target constituencies for the next general election

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 1st June 2011

Swing (%) required for a Fine Gael gain by constituency

Following on the previous posts, which looked at marginal constituencies that could be targets for Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein gains at the next general election, I will now progress from the main opposition parties to carry out a similar analysis of the government parties’ prospects.  Continue reading →

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Sinn Fein’s target constituencies for the next general election

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 31st May 2011

Swing (%) required for Sinn Fein seat gain by constituency

Sinn Fein emerged from General Election 2011 with the strongest ever performance in a Dail general election in the party’s history, or at least since the early 1920s, winning 10% of the vote and 14 seats in Dail Eireann. But what scope has the party got to make further gains in the next general election? Continue reading →

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Fianna Fail’s target constituencies for the next general election

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh
Adrian Kavanagh, 31st May 2011

Swing (%) required by Fianna Fail to gain a seat by constituency

Fianna Fail’s poor election performance has lead some commentators to speculate that the party may be out of power for a considerable period of time, but a study of individual constituency results suggests that significant seat gains may be made by the party at the next general election on a swing to the party of just a few percentage points. Continue reading →

Posted in Constituency information, Election data, Electoral Geography (voting maps), Marginality | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Gender, Candidate Selection and Constituency Size in the 2011 General Election

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Claire McGing

By Claire McGing, John and Pat Hume scholar and Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) scholar, Dept of Geography, NUI Maynooth

Research suggests that the larger the constituency size (often called the ‘district magnitude’), the better the opportunity structure for aspiring women candidates. This is often linked to ‘party magnitude’ – the number of seats a party expects to win in a given constituency. If this is high, the selectorate may be more likely to take a risk and run women candidates alongside their (usually male) incumbents. Continue reading →

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146-seat Dail boundary configuration means very few breaches of county boundaries

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 17 May 2011

One of the main aims set down for the Constituency Commission is for the committee to avoid, if practicable breaching county boundaries when drawing up new/revising Dail constituency boundaries (with the exception of local authority boundaries within the Dublin region), but the more pertinent requirements of proportionality often results in the breaching of these, most recently evident in the 2007 revisions when, for instance, part of Offaly was moved into the Tipperary North constituency and part of Meath into the enlarged 5-seat Louth constituency. Recent speculation that there may be a significant reduction in the number of Dail seats by up to 20 seats may lead one to expect further breaches of county boundaries. But, based on analysis relating to 2006 Census population figures I would suggest that new election bounaries for a reduced, 146-seat, Dail could be drawn up involving relatively few breaches of county boundaries and indeed a number of the current breaches could be easily redressed. Continue reading →

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Arise Sligo-North Leitrim! A Geography of Seanad Election 2011 results

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh 3rd May 2011

Seanad Election 2011 candidates by constituency

Seanad Election 2011 candidates by constituency

So the final contests of the general elections of 2011 have now come to an end and we can now review the results of the Seanad Election 2011 vocational panel contests. 120 candidates contested these – 17 contesting the five-seat Cultural and Education panel, 19 constesting the seven-seat Administrative panel, 35 (!!!) constesting the nine-seat Industrial and Commerical panel, 28 constesting the eleven-seat Agricultural panel and 21 constesting the eleven-seat Labour panel. Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Constituency information, Election data, Electoral Geography (voting maps), Gender, Seanad election | 1 Comment

Seanad 2011 results – Administrative panel

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 29th April 2011

Fine Gael 3 seats, Fianna Fail 2 seats, Labour Party 2 seats

Elected: Mark Daly FF, John Kelly LB, Diarmuid Wilson FF, Michael W D’Arcy FG, Martin Conway FG, Tom Sheahan FG, Dennis Landy LB (Inside panel candidates underlined)

Having failed to win two seats in the larger Industrial and Commercial constituency, Labour’s prospects of taking two seats here did not appear to be very strong but the party was helped significantly by polling their biggest number of votes on any of the panels in this contest (with Labour potentially gaining significantly from the Sinn Fein votes that seemed to be edge towards Fianna Fail in the Cultural and Education panel, the other panel which did not have a Sinn Fein candidate). Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Election data, Electoral Geography (voting maps), Gender, Seanad election | 2 Comments

Seanad 2011 results – Industrial and Commercial panel

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 29th April 2011

Fine Gael 4 seats, Fianna Fail 3 seats, Labour Party 1 seat, Sinn Fein 1 seat

Elected: Jimmy Harte LB, Averil Power FF, Mary White FF, Marc McSharry FF, Imelda Henry FG, Paul Coghlan FG, Colm Burke FG, Catherine Noone FG, Kathryn Reilly SF (Inside panel candidates underlined)

This was another good result in terms of seat gains for Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein with both parties managing to punch above their weight (in terms of their actual share of the Seanad electorate). Continue reading →

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