Northern Ireland: Flanking extremists bite the moderates and emerge in their clothes

Parliamentary Affairs

Volumn 54, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 725-742

  Mitchell, Paul ^a   O'Leary, Brendan ^a   Evans, Geoffrey ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035486135     PISSN: 00312290     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/parlij/54.4.725     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. See, inter alia, D. McKittrick, The Nervous Peace, Blackstaff Press, 1996; B. O'Leary, 'The Conservative Stewardship of Northern Ireland 1979-97: Sound-Bottomed Contradictions or Slow Learning?', 45 Political Studies 4, 1997; B. O'Leary, 'The Belfast Agreement and the Labour Government: How to Handle and Mishandle History's Hand' in A. Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect: The Blair Government, 1997-2001, Little Brown, 2001.
2. See, inter alia, D. McKittrick, The Nervous Peace, Blackstaff Press, 1996; B. O'Leary, 'The Conservative Stewardship of Northern Ireland 1979-97: Sound-Bottomed Contradictions or Slow Learning?', 45 Political Studies 4, 1997; B. O'Leary, 'The Belfast Agreement and the Labour Government: How to Handle and Mishandle History's Hand' in A. Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect: The Blair Government, 1997-2001, Little Brown, 2001.
3. See, inter alia, D. McKittrick, The Nervous Peace, Blackstaff Press, 1996; B. O'Leary, 'The Conservative Stewardship of Northern Ireland 1979-97: Sound-Bottomed Contradictions or Slow Learning?', 45 Political Studies 4, 1997; B. O'Leary, 'The Belfast Agreement and the Labour Government: How to Handle and Mishandle History's Hand' in A. Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect: The Blair Government, 1997-2001, Little Brown, 2001.
4. See P. Mitchell, 'Transcending an Ethnic Party System? The Impact of Consociational Governance on Electoral Dynamics and the Party System' by R. Wilford (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2001, and B. O'Leary 'The Nature of the Agreement', 22 Fordham Journal of International Law 4, 1999, or 'The Nature of the British-Irish Agreement', New Left Review 233, January-February.
5. See P. Mitchell, 'Transcending an Ethnic Party System? The Impact of Consociational Governance on Electoral Dynamics and the Party System' by R. Wilford (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2001, and B. O'Leary 'The Nature of the Agreement', 22 Fordham Journal of International Law 4, 1999, or 'The Nature of the British-Irish Agreement', New Left Review 233, January-February.
6. See P. Mitchell, 'Transcending an Ethnic Party System? The Impact of Consociational Governance on Electoral Dynamics and the Party System' by R. Wilford (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2001, and B. O'Leary 'The Nature of the Agreement', 22 Fordham Journal of International Law 4, 1999, or 'The Nature of the British-Irish Agreement', New Left Review 233, January-February.
7. It is tempting to say that the DUP has gone from being 'Ulster Says No', to 'Ulster says No to this, maybe yes to that, but don't tell anyone'!
8. See B. O'Leary and G. Evans, 'Northern Ireland: La Fin de SieÌcle, The Twilight of the Second Protestant Ascendancy and Sinn FeÌin's Second Coming', Parliamentary Affairs, October 1997.
9. For arguments favouring proportional electoral systems for Northern Ireland for Westminster elections see B. O'Leary, 'The Protection of Human Rights under the Belfast Agreement', 72 Political Quarterly 3, July-September 2001; B. O'Leary 'The Imputions for Political Accommodation in Northern Ireland of Reforming the Electoral System for the Westminster Parliament', 35 Representation 2-3, 1999.
10. For arguments favouring proportional electoral systems for Northern Ireland for Westminster elections see B. O'Leary, 'The Protection of Human Rights under the Belfast Agreement', 72 Political Quarterly 3, July-September 2001; B. O'Leary 'The Imputions for Political Accommodation in Northern Ireland of Reforming the Electoral System for the Westminster Parliament', 35 Representation 2-3, 1999.
11. The First and Deputy First Ministers are equal in powers and functions, and differ solely in their titles. They are elected jointly by a concurrent majority of registered nationalists and unionists in the Assembly - and the death or resignation of one immediately triggers the other's loss of office, and fresh elections within six weeks.
12. P. Mitchell, 'Conflict Regulation and Party Competinon in Northern Ireland', 20 European Journal of Political Research 1, 1991; P. Mitchell, 'Party Competition in an Ethnic Dual Party System', 18 Ethnic and Racial Studies 4, 1995.
13. P. Mitchell, 'Conflict Regulation and Party Competinon in Northern Ireland', 20 European Journal of Political Research 1, 1991; P. Mitchell, 'Party Competition in an Ethnic Dual Party System', 18 Ethnic and Racial Studies 4, 1995.
14. Here the DUP decided not to stand for fear of fragmenting the unionist vote - instead it backed and campaigned for a local anti-Agreement candidate, Mr Jim Dixon.
15. See P. Mitchell, 'The Party System and Party Competition' in P. Mitchell and R. Wilford (eds), Politics in Northern Ireland, Westview, 1999.
16. The figures are a slight adjustment to the well-known Pederson volatility index. Although often all parties are included in the count, this can lead to a distorted impression of partisan change if there is a high frequency of small party emergence, splits and fusions. Since small 'parties' are frequent vehicles in Northern Ireland they have been excluded in these calculations. We thus have a comparison from 1987-2001 of aggregate partisan vote change among the five main parties. These are the only parties with even a remote chance of winning a Westminster seat (leaving aside the unsual case of North Down which has elected - effectively - independent members). Also among them these five parties accounted for 95.6% of the votes cast in 2001.
17. The European figures are M. Gallagher, M. Laver and P. Mair, Representative Government in Modern Europe, McGraw Hill, 2001, p. 263.
18. In 1987 only two seats changed partisan control, in 1992 one seat, and in 1997 two.
19. O'Leary and Evans, op. cit.
20. P. Mitchell, 'Transcending an Ethnic Party System? The Impact of Consociational Governance on Electoral Dynamics and the Party System' in R. Wilford (ed.), Aspects of the Belfast Agreement. Oxford University Press, 2001.
21. The only purpose of Table 2 is to provide an approximate guide to differential turnout in the absence of more direct information. No other assertions are being made here. In total, sixteen of the eighteen constituencies can easily be distinguished on this basis.
22. The combined APNI vote in 1997 in the seven constituencies not contested in 2001 was 16,073. If this had been repeated in 2001 it would have constituted 1.985 of the total votes cast. It cannot be assumed that all of these potential Alliance votes were cast for the U bloc instead, but most of these 'missing Alliance' party votes were accumulated in three predominantly unionist contituencies in 1997 (North Down, 7,553; North Belfast, 2,221; and Upper Bann, 3,017, which incidentally is much more than David Trimble's margin of victory in 2001. Exactly 80% of these 'missing Alliance' votes were cast in 1997 in these three constituencies. Assuming that a small simulation can be excused (purely for fun): if Alliance had fielded candidates in these three constituencies in 2001 and achieved its 1997 level of support and if, as seems likely, these votes would have been 'reclaimed' from the U bloc, they would have constituted exactly 1.58% of the total vote in 2001. And recall that the U bloc's improved position in 2001 was a gain of 1.6%. Thus, the suggestion is that with Alliance party competition in 2001 the total vote of the U bloc would have been approximately 50.5%, i.e. unchanged from 1997.
23. It should be noted that the recent growth of the much smaller unionist parties (the UKUP, PUP, UDP, and Northern Ireland Conservations) is over. At their high point they had collectively taken 8.3% of the vote in the 1998 Assembly elections; in 2001 they managed only 2.8% in the Westminster election and 2.6% in the district council elections. Indeed, in an extraordinary example of organisational disarray the UDP failed to register in time for the 2001 elections - its leaders could stand only as independents.
24. For a good account of the 2001 local elections see K. Totten, '"Two Elections, One Day. Simple but Important": The Northern Ireland District Council Elections 2001', Irish Political Studies, 16, forthcoming.
25. David Burnside's victory over William McCrea of the DUP in South Antrim was a second UUP victory, though it did not count as a gain in relation to 1997. This former UUP seat had been won by McCrea in a by-election.
26. Sinn FeÌin's modest 0.5% seat bonus is the first ever positive figure for the party across all elections types and systems. For example, their average Westminster 'bonus' (1983-97 is -7%).