Direct democracy and party behaviour in the Republic of Ireland: a campaign finance perspective

ABSTRACT

Studies on the Irish referendum experience have generally accepted that political parties play a fundamental role in the direct democratic process. While this is rarely problematised, parties often campaign in referendums in order to steer them towards outcomes that are strategically beneficial. Contemporary research on Irish referendums has delved into how parties shape their campaigns to achieve these goals, but a more preliminary question is still to be addressed: to what extent do parties participate in referendum campaigns? This paper attempts to do so by examining campaign expenditure, which offers a concrete quantitative indicator for party engagement vis-à-vis referendums. Departing from theory on party behaviour and referendum instrumentalization, the article takes into account Irish regulations on campaign finance before offering a descriptive and explorative comparison of the expenditure of Irish political parties in recent referendum campaigns. Several patterns within the data are then discussed in light of potential influential factors identified in previous scholarly work. Results suggest that a referendum’s topic and its salience in the public sphere, as well as a party’s financial resources and government status, could explain party behaviour in Irish referendum campaigns, and a set of congruent hypotheses for future research are formulated in the conclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Referendums
• political parties
• political finance

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Theresa Reidy for her helpful feedback on earlier drafts of the paper, as well the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data is made available in the article, along with their sources.

Notes

1 The Irish constitution also allows for the so-called ordinary referendum. This can only take place if the Irish president receives a joint petition from both houses of the Oireachtas, in which it would declare that a certain proposed Bill is of such importance for the nation that the decision to have it become law should be left to the Irish people. To date, such a referendum has never been held.

2 Specified in the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012, which amends the Electoral Act of 1997.

3 Some of the parties currently active in the Irish political arena have only been established after 2014, making it obsolete to inform with them for any pre-2015 referendums (the latest of which was organized in 2013). These are the Anti-Austerity Alliance (since 2017 known as Solidarity), People Before Profit, Renua Ireland, the Social Democrats and Independents 4 Change.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the research foundation flanders – Flanders (FWO), grant ID 1119123N and by an FWO Travel Grant under ID V412823N.

Notes on contributors

Toine Paulissen

Toine Paulissen is a Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) PhD Fellow for Fundamental Research at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute.