A Conservative Revolution?: Electoral Change in Twenty-First Century Ireland

This book examines Irish voting behaviour in the first decades of this century, with a particular focus on the 2011 election - an election held at a time of deep economic crisis. Many commentators at the time referred to the 2011 election as an ‘electoral earthquake’ due to the dramatic shifts in voting behaviour. The central argument of this study is that, on the contrary, the election outcome was not as dramatic as many thought at the time. The book makes use of three national elections studies (in 2002, 2007 and 2011) to examine the underlying trends in Irish voting behaviour over the course of this turbulent period.