By: Prof. David Farrell<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s Irish Times<\/a>, Dan O\u2019Brien is back on his hobbyhorse pushing for electoral reform as a means of improving the calibre of our elected politicians.\u00a0 The essence of his piece is that: (1) our politicians are sub-standard when compared with those in other countries and that (2) a big factor causing this is the poor \u2018choice architecture\u2019 offered to voters in an Irish election.\u00a0 According to Dan, the unfortunate voters have to choose between poor quality, \u2018fat laden\u2019 candidate options.<\/p>\n The quick fix it seems is that we should replace our STV electoral system with the PR List system that predominates in Continental Europe, where as he puts it \u2018the healthy options\u2019 are put top of the menu of choice.<\/p>\n This is not the first time Dan has raised this point, and not the first time I\u2019ve disagreed with his \u2018analysis\u2019. That last use of quotation marks is deliberate.\u00a0 For someone whose discipline is so firmly rooted in the need for evidence-based analysis, there is a surprising lack of that here.<\/p>\n A few quick questions:<\/p>\n By: Prof. David Farrell In today\u2019s Irish Times, Dan O\u2019Brien is back on his hobbyhorse pushing for electoral reform as a means of improving the calibre of our elected politicians.\u00a0 The essence of his piece is that: (1) our politicians … Continue reading \n