Explaining the 2011 Irish Presidential Election: Culture, Valence, Loyalty or Punishment?

Abstract

Irish presidential elections have sometimes been characterised as part of a ‘culture war’, where different sides of a cultural and policy space compete for the ‘soul of Ireland’. Alternatively, voters might choose on the basis of partisan loyalties, candidate characteristics, or as a way of punishing, rewarding or influencing government. This article argues that the 2011 presidential election was almost an ideology-free zone where candidates' positions on specific issues were less important than their ability to withstand character tests. It argues that despite Higgins's landslide victory, his support was soft, and only came to him after all other candidates had been effectively eliminated from contention by allegations during the campaign.

Keywords:

• presidential election
• Ireland
• second-order elections
• culture wars
• liberal agenda
• valence
• partisanship

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Ed Mulhall of RTÉ, Pat Leahy of the Sunday Business Post and Richard Colwell of Red-C for permission to use and for supplying the data from the recall poll and campaign polls, and Stephen O'Brien of the Sunday Times [Irish edition] for supplying other poll results. He also thanks David Doyle, special issue editors John Coakley and Kevin Rafter, and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments and suggestions.

Notes

Those mentioned were: Gerry Adams, Bertie Ahern, Robert Ballagh, John Bruton, Gay Byrne, Pat Cox, Brian Crowley, Avril Doyle, Fergus Finlay, Michelle Gildernew, Mary Hanafin, Seamus Heaney, Seán Kelly, Justin Kilcullen, Mairéad McGuinness, Pádraig Ó Ceídigh, Éamon Ó Cuiv, Niall O'Dowd, Kathleen O'Meara, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Labhrás Ó Murchú and Mary White.

Ipsos MRBI poll for the We the Citizens project carried out between April and June 2011 (held by the author).

Candidates who received at least a quarter of the quota (12.5 per cent) in the final count in which they were involved could claim a refund of up to €200,000 in election expenses.

Even if 100 per cent of available transfers from Mitchell went to Higgins, almost 60 per cent of McGuinness's transfers would have been needed to account for so large an advantage for Higgins over Gallagher.

These are data from a survey carried out between April and June 2011 by Ipsos MRBI for We the Citizens. These data are from an open-ended question.