So has anyone else picked up a copy? I've only read two chapters so far, but I thought I might try and kick-off a discussion both on the book and, now that we can expect mature and informed reflection, on the election it assesses.
On the Book
According to
The Irish Times:
Launching the book, Minister for the Environment John Gormley said it was "to be recommended as Christmas reading for political buffs." Green Party Senator Dan Boyle called it "the most valuable of the series".
The blurb records similar platitudes from David Farrell (Professor of Politics, University of Manchester), Gerald Barry (Editor,
This Week, RTÉ), Michael Laver (Professor of Politics, New York University- when did that happen?) and Noel Whelan (enough said).
Before getting nit-picky, I do enjoy the
How Ireland Voted series. It does do a good job of de-bunking myths as to how the last election was won (or lost). One edition of this book is far more valuable than five years of opinion pieces by pretty much every political journalist and talking head in Ireland. However the current edition does deserve criticism.
Either in the rush to get it out before Christmas, or in a greedy plot to squeeze out two books,
How Ireland Voted 2007 was published before the relevant edition of the Irish National Election Study was published. Therefore
How Ireland Voted 2007, no matter how well-written, can be considered to be at best only half-baked. And I think additional criticism is due besides.
While still an informing and enjoyable read- for anoraks- I did spot flaws that in my view are a bit glaring in a book by professional political scientists. I don’t want to clamber too high up on my high horse- perhaps I am misunderstanding the text or needlessly pedantic- but I do think such mistakes would have cost me as an undergraduate of the discipline; and that was not very many moons ago. In one 27-page chapter, chapter seven by Michael Marsh, co-editor of the book, I counted at least four mistakes. On page 112 the words 'election' and 'campaign' are used interchangeably in a section that deals with the timing of people determining which party to vote for. The tables on pages 115 and 117 cannot both be correct: on page 115 43.9 per cent of farmers supported Fianna Fáil in 2007 while two pages later that increased to 49 per cent. On page 120 Ahern is referred to as ‘Bertie’ (the quotation marks are mine, not the book’s) which I find somewhat unbecoming of an academic text. And finally on page 127 the words economy and health get mixed up in a section that deals with the importance of perceived competence on three issues: the economy, health and crime.
None of these points make the book unreadable or damage its arguments, but they do call into doubt the overall quality of the book and the time and care that went into producing it. As I already said, they are the type of mistakes that undergraduates get pulled over for. One or two might be expected, but at least four in one chapter seems a bit careless.
On the election
Quibbles aside, this book does uncover some of the nuance of the last election and it bulldozes a lot of the ponderings that some news editors tried to pass as analysis and commentary.
I think the best way to summarise this aspect is a party-by-party breakdown:
Finna Fáil:
A primary consideration in this edition of the series was to ask the question “how could Fianna Fáil hold up their vote
vis-à-vis 2002 when their leader and the government were less popular, the economy had not performed as well, and the opposition were more united by comparison?” The answer remains a bit of a mystery, but still there is some food for thought.
It does seem that Fianna Fáil’s margin of allowable error was somewhat reduced between the two elections. That is, even though they still won they were much closer to losing this time out. Given Fianna Fáil’s supremacy in the Irish political scene this is not always so obvious. One would usually expect to see a party’s vote count to wax and wane according to its popularity, but because Fianna Fáil is a sort of default position for many voters they have to be tilted over the edge in a sort of binary manner before they will abandon the party. So even though a similar number voted for the party that does not mean its level of support, when measured beyond the bottom line of ballots cast, was even between elections. There is a critical point at which its support should collapse, and the party skated closer to that point in 2007 than in 2002. This manifests itself in such considerations as to when voters decide who they are going to vote for. In 1997, 45 per cent of voters who decided who they were going to vote for before the campaign voted for Fianna Fáil compared to just 35 per cent of those who decided during the campaign. In 2002 early deciders backed Fianna Fáil to the tune of 48 per cent against 32 per cent for late deciders. In 2007 these figures were much more even- for some reason the book does not give the figure for early deciders, except to say that the numbers were closer, but Fianna Fáil’s support from late deciders was up to 39 per cent. So while Fianna Fáil clearly won the campaign battle, it was much more important that they did so this time out than in 2002.
In much of the punditry Fianna Fail’s success was attributed to the neologistic ‘breakfast roll man’. I’m not entirely sure who that label in supposed to envelop, but if it is meant to refer to Dublin’s commuter-belt it does not stand up to scrutiny. While Fianna Fáil did make gains on 2002 in Wicklow, Kildare South and Meath, it lost support in Kildare North and Louth. However, if breakfast roll man is the stereotypical member of the lower middle class he did tend to vote disproportionately for Fianna Fáil. 41 per cent of this class bracket (C1) supported Fianna Fáil in 2007, compared to 40 per cent in 2002 and 35 per cent in 1997. Given that this class bracket encompasses one third of all voters these percentages make for huge gains in the electoral cake. It is perhaps here that Fianna Fáil’s electoral strategy produces the biggest dividends.
Fine Gael:
Fine Gael’s report card is mixed. While Enda Kenny receives praise from the authors for rebuilding the party, their 20-seat gain is qualified by reminding the reader that it does not equal the 23 seats they lost in 2002. While they have successfully carved out a niche for themselves in the voters’ minds as being more competent on health and crime, they have failed to convince on economic matters which are the ones that swing most voters: for instance a voter who regards Ahern as more competent on the economy is 58 per cent more likely to support a Fianna Fáil-led government as against 38 per cent on health and 25 per cent on crime. This is in spite of the fact that more people cite health (45 per cent) and crime (24 per cent) than cite the economy (23 per cent) as issues influencing their vote- which should call into question Frank Luntz-style focus groups if anyone still has faith in them.
While it seems clear that Enda Kenny was considered to have lost the televised leaders’ debate, it does not seem to have made much of a difference to voting behaviour: of those who decided late which party to vote for and who did not watch the debate, 41 per cent voted Fianna Fáil as against 35 per cent who did watch the debate. Of earlier deciders who did not watch the debate 47 per cent voted for Fianna Fáil as against 38 per cent of those who did watch the debate. Fianna Fáil’s interests seem best served by people not watching such debates rather than watching them, even if their leader is regarded as the winner.
All in all Fine Gael returned, more or less, to their post-1987 level of support. That is not impressive by historic standards but it is a far better place to be in than in 2002 and they do seem to be building steam on certain issues and among the middle (AB) class. If Fianna Fáil’s electoral cushion is further eroded and if Fine Gael can built up some popular confidence on economic issues and among the lower middle class it could be all to play for next time around.
Labour:
Where Labour seems to have erred is in not having any real strategy. While Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are making headway on certain issues and among certain groups Labour seems directionless. Their support by class profile has seen their lower class base further eroded but their middle class base is holding firm, while they gained among farmers. But on issues there is nothing that gives them any definition or distinction. Housing was their strongest issue
vis-à-vis other parties but it was only cited by 11 per cent of voters as influencing their vote and they only attracted 15 per cent of that group compared to 10.1 per cent of the entire electorate. By comparison the Greens on 4.7 per cent overall support secured 23 per cent of those who cited the environment as a concern. It does seem that Labour needs some issues with which it can better define itself, much as Fianna Fail has done with the economy or Fine Gael with health and crime.
Sinn Féin:
There is not much to say about Sinn Féin. They get a bit of a bump on issues like health and crime and a bigger one still on housing. There strongholds are working class, and their voters tend to be young and male. This is pretty much the same as previous years. 2007 is only significant for them insofar as it saw their advance halted in the Republic. Some of that comes from Fianna Fáil pressing hard to smother their spread and the rest from their unpopularity among the wider electorate- transferred votes seem to avoid any Sinn Féin candidate hanging in there. However only eight Sinn Féin candidates secured more than 0.6 of a quota and so their ambitions for ten or more seats was excessive. It does seem that Sinn Féin will have to concentrate its resources if it doesn’t want to see an impressive national vote (6.9 per cent) reduced to an unimpressive seat total of 4 (2.4 per cent of the total).
The Green Party:
Beyond their environmental credentials I am not sure there is much good news for the Greens. Their typical voter is young, rich and does not feel close to a political party. Whether that makes them the party of the future or means their constituency is immature and ill-thought out is in the eye of the beholder. The bad news however is to be found in the voting patterns of that constituency.
Transfer patterns clearly indicate that the Green vote was a protest vote. In the 16 cases were Green votes were distributed among Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour candidates they were distributed to each party to the tune of 10 per cent, 27 per cent and 39.9 per cent respectively. It remains to be seen if the Greens in government will manage to attract these voters again, but given that the Green Party voter tends not to feel close to a party and last time out favoured those in opposition by a considerable margin I would suspect that the next election will be tough for the Greens.
The Progressive Democrats:
The PDs have got too small to measure in many regards. There is no issue in which they stand out, but their diminutive size makes it very difficult for them to stand out in any case. In short their typical voter is the same as the typical Green voter: young, rich and unattached to any party. However the
PD vote holds up better as the voter gets older, though it still declines with each age bracket after 35 from a high of 3.1 per cent among those aged 25-34 to 2.2 per cent among those aged 65+. The Green vote by comparison drops from a high of 8 per cent among the 25-34 year olds to 1.7 per cent of those aged 65+.
Their major weakness in 2007 is clear to see however- Fianna Fáil voters did not transfer to them to the same extent as previous elections. In any case however a better transfer rate would only have saved two seats- those of Michael McDowell and Tim O’Malley. It is easy, and I think accurate, to subscribe those seat losses to the tactical misjudgement of the party leader in the lead up to the election. In any case, Fine Gael is expected to gain from feeding off the
PD cadaver.
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Originally Posted by Mozalini
