Category Archives: New SPIRe Research

Realist Disobedience: Protest, coercion and the limits of an appeal to justice

by Dr Guy Aitchison, School of Politics and International Relations, UCD. This paper addresses a very specific question regarding the ethics of civil disobedience and political resistance in liberal states: When (if ever) is it legitimate for political actors to … Continue reading

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New paper on the state of our system of representative democracy

The latest issue of West European Politics is dedicated to the late Peter Mair, including a paper by SPIRe’s David Farrell. This paper addresses Mair’s lament about the state of party politics and the future of representative politics itself. Farrell’s … Continue reading

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Thresholds of State Change: Changing British State Institutions and Practices in Northern Ireland after Direct Rule

SPIRe’s Professor Jennifer Todd details of process of institutional change in Northern Ireland in the 2000s in a recent article in Political Studies. Abstract A long process of state-institutional change underlay an eventual swift restructuring of Northern Ireland on a … Continue reading

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Women, Violence, and Social Change in Northern Ireland and Chiapas: Societies Between Tradition and Transition

SPIRe’s Dr. Melanie Hoewer compares the experiences of women in the post-conflict peace processes in Northern Ireland and Chiapas in a new paper at the International Journal of Conflict and Violence. Abstract Violence against women occurs in peacetime, intensifies during … Continue reading

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SPIRe Seminar Week 7: ‘The Gender Dimensions of Consociational Democracy’

SPIRe’s week four seminar will feature SPIRe PhD Student Ronan Kennedy, this Thursady (Nov. 7th), 1-2pm in G317 speaking on  ‘The Gender Dimensions of Consociational Democracy’. Abstract Consociational democracy, as first theorized by Arend Lijphart, has arguably become the most … Continue reading

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