Funding body: ESRC
Amount: circa 65k
Project dates: Sept 2003- Sept 2004
Principal Researchers: Paul Mitchell, Geoff Evans, Bernie Hayes and Lizanne Dowds.(Project also includes Brendan O'Leary and Ian McAllister).
Introduction:
The 2003 'second' election to the Northern Ireland Assembly will make history simply for the fact that the Assembly has remained in existence (even if currently suspended) long enough to justify a second election. None of the other Conventions, Forums or Assemblies since 1972 managed to do so. Given the difficulties of sustaining devolved government (not least at present) this is no small feat, and thus there is a unique opportunity to reassess political attitudes and the changing fortunes of the parties, after fives years of the impressive highs and lows since the signing of the British-Irish Agreement. While much can, and has been written about the panoply of new institutions derived from the Agreement, if they are to work they must ultimately have some electoral underpinning and continued validation. The Assembly elections of 1998 constituted a new beginning for Northern Ireland because, for the first time since 1973, they were about electing an Assembly, and indirectly an Executive, in the changed context of local politicians being empowered to govern important policy jurisdictions (with other functional areas to follow if cross-community consent proved viable). In 1998 it is clear that nationalists voted overwhelmingly for the new institutions, while the unionist community was fairly evenly divided, though with a slight plurality voting in favour of the Agreement. Survey evidence suggests that this precarious 'yes' vote among unionists has evaporated thus placing the consociational voting procedures within the Assembly in serious jeopardy. Thus one crucial task of this research is to examine changing voting behaviour between the 1998 and 2003 elections, and the effect that this will have on the Assembly, and related institutions.
Methods:
The methodology will mirror that used in the 1998 survey, with approximately 1000 achieved interviews each lasting approximately 45 minutes and undertaken face to face in the six weeks immediately after the assembly election. It is proposed to use the Postcode Address File (PAF) as the sampling frame to produce a simple random sample with stratification. The only change that we would wish to make is that the 2003 survey would be carried out using computer assisted interviewing rather than paper questionnaires.