Ian Cornelius (Library and Information Studies) Roland Erne (Industrial Relations, Business School) Niamh Hardiman (Politics – Programme Convenor) Iseult Honohan (Politics) Lee Komito (Library and Information Studies) Brigid Laffan (Politics and Dublin European Institute) Aogán Mulcahy (Sociology) Diane Payne (Sociology) Ben Tonra (Dublin European Institute)
Research Officer (Sub-National Governance): Peter Stafford Research Officers (Organizing for EU Enlargement): Mary Browne, Jane O’Mahony, Peter Stafford
PhD students: Claire Finn, Tom Healy, Bríd O’Rourke
Research Associates: Muiris MacCárthaigh (IPA), Tom Healy (Dept. of Education)
Research Activities The Research Programme currently has three clusters of activity within each of which a number of projects are located:
Sub-National Governance
Patterns of Urban/Regional Cooperation and Innovation in Eight European Countries: the Irish Case Study. (Diane Payne, Peter Stafford)
The Irish research project forms part of an eight-nation, cross-national study organized under the leadership of a research team at Tilburg University (Pieter Tops, Frank Hendriks, Vincent van Stipdonk) in the Netherlands. The purpose of this international comparative study is to broaden and deepen insight into appealing and innovative institutions for co-operation between urban and regional authorities in Europe. There are eight European countries involved in the international study, which includes Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Greece, UK and Italy.
In this research we examine metropolitan governance, Irish style, through the lens of urban renewal policy in the inner city of Dublin. In particular, we use case studies to examine and compare urban renewal in the Temple Bar area in the late 1980s with urban renewal in the Liberties/Coombe area of Dublin, which did not begin till the late 1990s. The research examines the broader institutional structures and political context in Ireland, which provide the backdrop to the more in-depth case study analysis of the politics of urban regeneration projects in Ireland, and in particular Dublin. These case studies ably illustrate the curious clash between Ireland’s traditional centralised, hierarchical and clientelistic political culture and the growing call for greater participation at all levels of the political process in Ireland. However, instead of strengthening the existing local authority structures, new institutional bodies or quangos are established which report to a central government department. The case studies show the continued importance of central government, and in particular the innovative role of the Department of the Taoiseach, as an incubator of these emerging frameworks of co-operation within urban regeneration. The selected representation of interests is defended as being derived from shared interdependencies around the specific project, rather than the formal requirements of institutional representation. The research suggests an emergent model of partnership around urban regeneration, which is driven by informal, networked participation rather than rigorous democratic accountability.
European Governance
European Republic and Global Citizen – Irish Foreign Policy in Transition (Ben Tonra) An analysis of Irish foreign policy governance that focuses upon its transformation as a result of evolutions in national identity. It will discuss the development of Ireland’s foreign policy identities, the foreign policy process and the pursuit of Irish foreign policy priorities
FORNET - Foreign Policy Governance in the European Union (Ben Tonra) Irish correspondent of multi-institutional research project looking at the development of the EU’s common foreign, security and defence policy in both theoretical and empirical terms with a special focus upon the interaction and reciprocal impact of foreign policy governance at national and EU levels.
Organised labour - an actor of Euro-democratisation, Euro-technocracy and re-nationalisation ? (Roland Erne)
This project analyses the various trade-union strategies relating to the EU integration process. It explores the options of organised labour facing the tensions between national competition and European coordination, on the one hand, and democratic and technocratic governance, on the other hand, in two areas of transnational and national trade union activities: namely 1) Transnational company mergers. 2) Wage bargaining co-ordination.
Organising for Enlargement: The Challenge for the Member States and Candidate States (Brigid Laffan, Diane Payne)
This project began in Autumn 2002 as an EU Fifth Framework funded project coordinated from University College Dublin and will run to autumn 2004. The project is divided into two phases. Phase one explored the adaptation of national core executives to engagement with the EU in Ireland, Greece, Finland, Slovenia, Hungary and Estonia. The theoretical framework was based on historical institutionalism, which enabled us to analyse endogenous and exogenous induced change over time and to map the pattern of institutional adaptation. Phase one was also attentive to the role of national officials as ‘boundary managers’ between the domestic and the EU. Having mapped the domestic core executives and the management of EU business, six micro-case studies of negotiations were conducted using decision-making models. The case studies confirmed the findings of the macro-analysis and shed further light on national policy styles. The focus in phase two is on multilevel politics in two policy areas, environmental policy and regional policy. The relationship between the EU, notably the Commission, and national/sub-national levels of policy making is explored in this phase. Particular attention is paid to the politicisation of EU directives during the implementation phase and the manner in which domestic and EU pressures are mediated.
The project should result in a special journal issue on Core Executive Adaptation, country specific volumes, case study articles in journals and a volume on Europeanisation: Theory and Empirics.
This is a study of the role of the INTERREG (EU cross-border funding instrument) on cross-border co-operation on the Irish border. Analysis of the experience of INTERREG II and the preparations for INTERREG III in the context of the Good Friday Agreement. The project analysed the new institutions, the mobilisation of the cross-border community groups and the development of the INTEREG programme for 2002-2005.
Defining the Public Sphere
Information Regimes (Ian Cornelius) This research is aimed at building models of information policy analysis. The current phase is focused on development of models of information regimes, explaining how information takes effect in different jurisdictions, and affects the flow of information and the impact of information flow on human rights and democratic activity, in areas such as data protection, freedom of information, intellectual property rights, and censorship.
Changing Profiles of Governance in Ireland (coordinated by Niamh Hardiman) This working group plans to produce an edited volume of papers on connected themes to do with changes in patterns of governance in different spheres of contemporary Irish society. Papers to be prepared by autumn 2004.
Between Worlds? The Irish State in Comparative Perspective (Niamh Hardiman) This research is aimed at understanding the adaptation of Irish economic, political and social patterns to the challenges of growing economic openness. The focus is on economic management, welfare state, and private life, and on the interactions between changes in each of these domains. This work is funded by a Senior Research Fellowship from the IRCHSS.
Immigration and Citizenship (Iseult Honohan) This research involves applying normative theories of republicanism to current issues in public policy relating to access to citizenship. This work is associated with a recent application for a network of excellence on Immigration, Minorities, and Multiculturalism in the Process of European Integration under the Sixth Framework Program of the European Union, co-ordinated from Complutense University, Madrid.
Working Group on ‘Civil Society and Social Capital’ (coordinated by Iseult Honohan) This research brings together people from a number of disciplines who are working on these issues with respect to Ireland. The group plans to produce co-ordinated publications in late 2004/5. The work of this group is connected with the seminar visit of Bo Rothstein in February 2004.
The Information Society Debate (Lee Komito) This research project is concerned with examining the nature of the debate about the information society and its relevance of Ireland, focusing particularly on community participation and consequences for politics and government.
Policing and Social Change (Aogán Mulcahy) This research explores the dynamics of This explores the dynamics of policing in Northern Ireland, in the light of historical efforts to implement police reforms against the backdrop of violent conflict, and the more recent measures introduced on foot of the 1999 Patten Report. In addition to analysing these processes as they have unfolded in Northern Ireland, the project also considers the impact that police reform in Northern Ireland may have on policy debates elsewhere, and the factors which effect the flow of these policy measures to other jurisdictions.
The Changing Landscape of Policing in the Irish Republic (Aogán Mulcahy) This involves considering how the Gárda Síochána has altered in recent decades in light of internal organisational changes, as well as in terms of its relationships with different sections of the public.
Social Partnership and Pay Deal negotiations in Ireland (Diane Payne) This research examines the nature of Social Partnership negotiations in Ireland and pays particular to the set of agreements under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF). During the partnership period, as both positive economic indicators, and the expectations for what partnership should deliver increased, the number of actors seeking to be involved in partnership negotiations increased accordingly. This increase in the number of actors, and their expectations for what the partnership process might deliver, created conditions that were perfect for disharmony and difficulty in the negotiations for the PPF.
The objective of the research is to describe the process of issue negotiation, which has led to the PPF agreement and to apply a number of negotiation models, in order to test some underlying theoretical assumptions about how this process of negotiation proceeds. This study applies computer simulation models, based on rational choice theory, to predict and explain the process of collective bargaining in Ireland. Collective negotiations in Ireland have a multi-actor and multi-issue character and these models are unique in that they facilitate a multilateral and multi-dimensional analysis of the collective decision making process.
Changing Irish Values- An analysis of Irish Social and Political Attitudes (Niamh Hardiman, Diane Payne et al)
The study examines Irish attitudes on a range of key political and social issues including minorities in Ireland, the environment, inequality and poverty, the changing family, political alienation and voter turnout. The research is based on social survey carried out in 2001-2002 and which was conducted by a team of academics from the University College Dublin and Trinity College, Dublin in conjunction with the Economic and Social Research Institute. An edited volume of work is in its final stages of preparation and is to be published later in 2004 by Liffey Press. The book presents the research findings of the analysis of this large-scale and face-to-face in-depth social survey of over 2000 respondents (households) in Ireland. The book comprises contributions from a number of different prominent Irish social science researchers, located in UCD, Trinity and Queen's in Belfast.
