Politics: How Ireland Voted 2007: The Full Story of Ireland's General Election Edited by Michael Gallagher and Michael Marsh Palgrave Macmillan, 308pp. £60 Irish general elections are astonishing events. They may well be the most intriguing of any in western democracies.
Two observers who have witnessed elections around the world, Frank Luntz and David Butler, have said as much to me in the middle of an Irish results broadcast. For instance, to compare an Irish with a British election, the gap is equivalent to that between chess and draughts.
It is the combination of the proportional representation system with multi-seat constituencies that makes Irish elections so fascinating. So many unpredictable factors can come into play. Each constituency has to be studied as a separate contest: the outside observer will witness intense canvassing, hard work, ambition; what is not always on show is the wire-pulling and back-stabbing - usually within parties.
There are far fewer safe seats than in most comparable western democracies: again this is because of the electoral system. The threshold of support needed by outsiders to threaten a surprise is a fraction of what it is in other systems. One consequence is that more incumbents fear losing their seats than is the case elsewhere.
Perhaps this explains the intensity of the competition in the marginal constituencies where there is any amount of gamesmanship, disinformation, spin and intrigue. It can surely be said of an Irish general election that all human life is there.
It may have been thus since independence, but the journalists reporting in earlier eras did not tell us of such goings-on - and the broadcasters certainly didn't. The academics thought such nitty-gritty detail beneath them and pronounced on outcomes rather than on the process of the election.
All that is now changing: journalists are no longer allowing the parties to dictate the election agenda; broadcasters have carved out a role suited to their medium; and the academics - as is handsomely demonstrated in this book - are scrutinising the phenomenon of a modern election with expert contributions on campaign strategies, political marketing, candidate selection, opinion polls, media coverage and government formation.
IN THE CHAPTER on candidate selection in this book, tellingly subtitled "Democratic centralism or managed democracy?", Liam Weeks chronicles some of the difficulties experienced by the larger parties. He alerts readers to Michael Gallagher's warning that academics can be guilty of overemphasising the "degree of care and rational calculation" employed by the political parties in finalising their candidates. Not all party decisions are rational - they are often beyond the control of the party managers - and he quotes an anonymous party source: "We just let them at it and hoped for the best."
There are a number of constituencies in the 2007 election where this comment would fit but Weeks's interviews with party strategists and candidates were on a confidential basis.
In general, Gallagher's warning to his own profession represents good advice. Political scientists can become preoccupied with measurement: whatever is easily measured gets disproportionate attention. They should have more confidence in their own intuition and insights and in the limited space available in such a book include more of the story of the election.
That said, Gallagher and Marsh have managed to avoid duplication in the many expert chapters, and the cross-references are accomplished. The whole book is academically underpinned with many fruitful lines of inquiry opened up by the excellent end-notes.
But for future series there is room for improvement. In this reviewer's opinion the editors ought to allocate more space to the first-person narratives which on this occasion are confined to short essays by individual candidates.
The sanitised and self-serving account by Niall Collins of his campaign in Limerick West is disappointing. However, the other candidate's accounts - from Terence Flanagan, Kathleen O'Meara and Niall O'Brolcháin - are excellent. And what would one not give for Martin Mansergh's diary? Or Beverly Flynn's? And why no Sinn Féiner? Did they decline?
Also why not a pollster, a political reporter, tallyman, even a spin doctor - if they could be trusted to abandon their spinning habit for the occasion. Why not a bookmaker? Did not Ivan Yates contribute an insightful contribution to an earlier edition?
Insightful is certainly the verdict to what was, for this reader, the most surprising chapter, Michael Gallagher's "The election as horse race: betting and the election". Citing an impressive range of international literature, Gallagher opens by asserting that there is now "a respectable body of literature that argues that betting markets are actually the most accurate guides to likely election outcomes, outperforming both pundits and opinion polls".
He concludes that in this Irish election these markets "did not establish themselves as a repository of wisdom that was unavailable anywhere else, but they did enough to suggest that at future elections they should be examined by anyone wanting an additional pointer to the likely outcome".
RK CARTY, IN a final chapter called "Fianna Fáil and Irish party competition", writes of the party's recent political promiscuity ever since Charles Haughey's embrace of coalition with the Progressive Democrats in 1989. Coalition is no longer heresy; under Bertie Ahern it is routine and his current Government is the first in which Fianna Fáil are in bed with two partners.
In short, as is stated in this book, Fianna Fáil has swapped all of the power, most of the time, for most of the power, all of the time. Nor does it seem probable that this pattern will be broken. Fianna Fail will remain a promiscuous party; and could it even be that when they run out of other bedfellows their final liaison will be with Fine Gael?
Finally a note on the book's design. Those responsible have missed an opportunity. The editors have assembled no fewer than 70 graphics: photographs, election literature, posters, and some illustrations from the dirty tricks department indicating internal party rivalry. Surprisingly, no newspaper cartoons. But having assembled these they have failed to scatter them through the text where, with apposite placement, their impact could brilliantly capture key moments in the campaign. Instead they are clustered in the first 31 pages where the impact they make is a fraction of their potential.
It is as if in a sophisticated five-course dinner, the chef expected the diner to start with the salt, lemon, black pepper, Bernaise and chocolate sauce before approaching the individual courses.
This is a pity, since the achievement of the editors in shaping this book - and indeed in establishing this series - ranks among the most impressive in the ever-expanding academic literature on Irish elections.
John Bowman is a broadcaster, political scientist and historian. He has been an anchor on RTÉ election results programmes on radio and television since 1981
