The Northern Ireland Assembly Election Study 2022

Northern Ireland is a deeply divided place in which many political issues are contentious and can badly affect the political stability of the region. Three such divisive issues are currently important and are likely to be hotly debated in the run up to the next Northern Ireland Assembly election which is due to happen in May 2022.

The first issue is often called 'the border down the Irish sea' or the 'sea border'. This relates to the new rules under which there are checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. These new rules arose from the deal that the UK government and the EU agreed when they were organising how the UK would leave the EU. Unionists in Northern Ireland (who typically see themselves as British and are from a Protestant background) are opposed to the new 'sea border' while nationalists (who typically describe themselves as Irish and are from a Catholic background) are more in favour.

The second divisive issue concerns a possible referendum on the future of Northern Ireland. Should it stay part of the UK or should it unify with the rest of Ireland. Nationalists are in favour of a referendum, and increasingly so since the 'Brexit' referendum. Unionists are opposed.

The third contentious issue relates to the stability of the way that the government is organised in Northern Ireland. The 'power-sharing executive' is made up of a coalition of the main unionist parties and nationalist parties. There are two prime ministers in the sense that there is a 'First Minister' and 'deputy First Minister'. In terms of law the two positions are equal but it has long been important for many unionists to hold the First Minister position and to keep it away from Sinn Fein. Whichever parties gets the most votes can hold the First Minister position.

These three issues are likely to be especially important at the 2022 Assembly election. Politicians and commentators are likely to see the election as a major test of what voters think about these three issues. In our project we plan to help politicians, commentators and public make sense of the election results by conducting an objective survey of voters at the time of the election. We will use the information to provide a fair-minded and balanced picture of what the voters beliefs actually are on these three issue areas (as well as other issues). This will help public debate on how to interpret the election results and what the election results actually mean: exactly what message are the voters sending on these issues?

As well as conducting surveys we also conduct research in which we allow citizens to really carefully think about these issues and come up with recommendations on them. Specifically, we conduct what we call a 'deliberative mini-public' which is basically getting a cross section of about 50 ordinary people from across Northern Ireland together to learn about and discuss the issues. We focus mainly on the issue of the 'sea border' because there is going to be a very important vote on this issue by the elected politicians in the Assembly in 2024. They will basically have to vote on whether to keep it or get rid of significant parts of it. We seek to help the public debate in the run-up to this important vote by conducting the 'mini-public' on this issue (and how this issue links to wider institutional and constitutional issues) and reporting what the ordinary citizens think once they have had a chance to really learn and consider and discuss the issues.