THE 2015 NORTHERN IRELAND GENERAL ELECTION SURVEY: MEASURING POLITICAL CHANGE IN A POWER-SHARING POLITY

The 2015 Northern Ireland General Election survey will identify the modern basis of party choices and political priorities in the region's distinctive political system. Assuming the passing of legislation currently before the Commons to delay the Northern Ireland Assembly election by one year to 2016, the 2015 Westminster contest is significant in offering the first opportunity for Northern Ireland's voters to express their political preferences, in a non-European election, for four years. The 2015 contest will take place nearly a decade after the St Andrews Agreement, the far-reaching formation of a power-sharing devolved government headed by the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein. This has produced far greater political stability, but sectarian division remains considerable, evidenced by a range of issues such as the maintenance of peace walls, segregated education, a low rate of 'intermarriage' and flags protests. There remains a residual security threat posed by dissident republicans, responsible for over 550 (mainly low level) shooting and bombing incidents since 2007.

Amid the thawing of elite-level political relationships, this 2015 election survey will test how far the acute sectarian divide between Protestant-British Unionists and Catholic-Irish nationalists amongst the electorate (reflected in the closest alignment between religion and voting preference in Europe) has begun to heal. Is there significant evidence of electors moving beyond traditional bloc affiliations in voting patterns? Is this movement, if perceptible, across the divide, or 'halfway', into the non-aligned political centre (e.g. the Alliance or Green Parties)? 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 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 of the performance of the Northern Ireland Executive and appraise the desires of the electorate for further devolution. The transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to the Northern Ireland Executive in 2010 has not been followed by more competences and this survey will assess the degree of demand for such. 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. The survey will reveal which of these issues are determinants of party choice. To what extent have 'bread and butter' non-constitutional issues displaced older constitutional concerns in terms of electoral salience?

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.

Beyond conflict-related and economic issues, the 2015 election survey will evaluate the importance to the electorate - and its views on - various aspects of contested 'social liberalism'. These include abortion rights (the first abortion advisory clinic opened in N. Ireland in 2012, but none of the main parties supports the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act applicable elsewhere in Britain) and gay marriage, which is opposed by the largest party in Northern Ireland, the DUP, and is a subject on which there have been significant inter-party differences.

Based upon a large representative sample , the project will yield a vital survey dataset for use by social scientists, policy-makers and media.

There will be a wide array of beneficiaries from this research, beyond immediate academic circles. The principal beneficiaries will be:


The Director of the Peace Monitoring Survey of the Community Relations Council, Dr Paul Nolan, has agreed to act as a User Reviewer for this survey proposal and will provide questionnaire input. The Head of the Parades Commission, Peter Osborne, has agreed to act similarly. Thus, Community relations organisations, the voluntary sector and quasi-judicial bodies will all benefit. The study will reveal perceptions of community relations and inter-community thawing/mistrust.

The Northern Ireland Executive: From the study, the Executive will be able to assess the extent of popular support for its decisions. The survey will highlight the views of the electorate on the performance of the Executive; indicate the priorities of the electorate and establish the perceptions of voters on the way in which the Executive is formed under mandatory coalition. In particular, the survey will guide the Executive in its shared future approach, indicating the extent to which the electorate desires the reintegration of Northern Irish society and how and when this can be achieved.

Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly; From the study, Assembly members will be able to assess the demographic basis of their mandates, the extent, or lack of, cross-community transfers in their election and the priorities of voters.

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 ran coverage of the 2010 election survey under a similar team. The Political Editors of BBC Northern Ireland and UTV will use the survey findings (there was prominent TV coverage of the 2010 survey results).

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 a special post-election conference 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 the dedicated 2015 Northern Ireland Westminster Election Survey website, which will also facilitate commentary on the design of the study and elicit views on the results.