The 2019 Northern Ireland General Election Study

The 2019 Northern Ireland General Election survey will study the views of Northern Ireland's electors using a carefully weighted representative sample of 1500 electors.

It will identify the basis of party choice and political attitudes in the context of a Brexit-dominated election in the part of the UK most directly affected by departure from the EU. The 2019 contest takes place amid political difficulties for Northern Ireland. The devolved power-sharing Assembly established under the Good Friday Agreement has collapsed, absent for more than 1,000 days. Divisions between Unionists (mainly pro-Leave) versus nationalists (overwhelmingly pro-Remain) have been exacerbated by Brexit. In addition to providing the definitive survey of why people voted the way they did at the election, this study intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of the extent of polarity, prospects for the restoration of local political institutions and possibilities for thawing inter-communal relations. It will also test what sort of Brexit Northern Ireland's electors will - and will not - accept. Are borders on the island of Ireland or in respect of GB-Northern Ireland trade viewed as acceptable or unacceptable and by which groups?

We need to measure healing or thawing - and what creates either - along a range of axes. Sectarian division remains considerable, evidenced by a range of issues such as the maintenance of peace walls, segregated education and a low rate of 'intermarriage' There remains a residual security threat posed by dissident republicans, with successive Chief Constables cautioning against any return of a hard border.

Yet the percentage of the electorate identifying as unionist or nationalist appears to be in decline, as those saying they are not aligned to either tradition grows. This 2019 election survey will test the extent of dealignment, its reasons, how this shapes party choice and how far the acute sectarian divide between Protestant-British Unionists and Catholic-Irish nationalists amongst the electorate has diminished. The survey will also examine the rationale of those who remain within their ethnic blocs and explore the basis of party choice inside those two main blocs. It will also test the extent, if at all, to which 'British' or 'Irish' identities, the equal legitimacy of which were acknowledged in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, have been supplanted by a common 'Northern Irish' identity, amid the dawning of a shared future.

The election survey will examine voters' views on whether and how devolution might be restored. It will assess where voters place the political parties on a range of local and national political issues and will examine how voters rate the performance of parties on each major policy area, including constitutional questions, the economy, education, health, social development and welfare.

Additionally, the study will ascertain the electorate's views and preferences on a range of post-conflict issues, as a truth and reconciliation commission, support for victims, reform of the judicial system and the integration of Northern Ireland society via, e.g. the removal of 'peace walls' and 'mixed' schooling. The 2019 election survey will evaluate the importance to the electorate - and its views on - various aspects of contested 'social liberalism', notably on abortion rights where Westminster has felt obliged to legislate for Northern Ireland.

Based upon a large representative sample , the project will yield a vital survey dataset for use by social scientists, policy-makers and media. Given the contemporary salience of Northern Ireland to the Brexit debate, systematic examination of public opinion via a large-scale in-depth survey of 1,500 completed face-to-face interviews of a representative sample of the electorate is vital. Interviews will be completed across Northern Ireland within 6 weeks of the election. Datasets will be of considerable value to policy-makers, parties and media.

There will be a wide array of beneficiaries from this research, beyond immediate academic circles. Several of the investigators are using the previous studies as the basis of 2021 REF impact case studies. The list of committees which have requested oral and written evidence regarding the data from our previous studies is formidable and we expect likewise, if not even more so given the political context, this time. These committees include the House of Lords European Union Committee, 'Brexit: Devolution Inquiry', 2017; the European Parliament Constitutional Affairs Committee, on 'The Implications of Brexit for Northern Ireland', 2017, the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee on Devolution, 2018 and the House of Commons Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, 2018.

The investigators have provided data from earlier studies, used and acknowledged, for a vast range of sources, including BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio 4's Today and PM programmes, BBC News, Sky News, the Washington Post, New York Times, NBC, ABC, among many, many other national and international outlets.

Other principal beneficiaries will include:

Politicians in Northern Ireland, at council, Assembly and Westminster elections, as they will be better informed as to the electorate's support for political institutions and political priorities.

Civil servants, currently maintaining Northern Ireland's services in the absence of a devolved administration, will be informed as to how the public views this role.

Political parties will benefit from the study in being able to calculate the demographic basis of their support, assess the extent to which their appeal is religiously or socially exclusive, gendered or age dependent, examine the expectations of the electorate and determine future political agendas. Key issues in terms of a the traditional faultline in politics (support for the Union/Irish unity) b) movement towards reconciliation and/or reintegration, e.g. mixed schooling; integrated public housing and c) non-constitutional/conflict based concerns (e.g. educational selection, university fees, health and maternity provision; abortion) will all be covered in the survey, which will inform future decision-making and party stances.

Journalists will benefit greatly from the study in providing an accurate survey of opinion in Northern Ireland which will go beyond the intuitive or descriptive. We expect extensive coverage of the study in the main outlets such as the Irish News, Irish Times, Newsletter and Belfast Telegraph. All of these outlets have run very extensive coverage of our 2010, 2015 and 2017 election surveys. The PI, for examine, provides a regular column in the Belfast Telegraph, which will be used to discuss the findings.

The general public will benefit from the study in being able to see where their views lie on a wide range of political questions and by being able to convey priorities to the Executive, Assembly, parties and the voluntary sector via the published results of the study. The public will be able to access the results via the survey website and be able, via the same resource, to offer suggestions in respect of future survey design.

Representatives of each of these groups will benefit directly from the dissemination of the survey findings via various means:

a) at two special post-election conferences to be held in Northern Ireland, to which representatives from all the above groups will be invited

b) The investigators all enjoy good contacts with a range of political and voluntary sector organisations in Northern Ireland, having worked in the past with them on various surveys and we will offer private briefings to the main organisations falling into the categories listed above.

c) Copies of the survey results will also be accessible to organisations and the public via a dedicated election survey website, which will also facilitate comments and interaction.