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Purpose: This article assesses how different aspects of the school climate relate to students' intended future electoral engagement. Until now, political socialization researchers found evidence for a relation between formal citizenship education in school and students' participation levels. There is less consensus, however, in how multiple aspects of informal political socialization can contribute to individuals' participatory acts. Method: To learn more about several aspects of informal political socialization and their relevance for student intended electoral participation this work draws on educational sciences and political socialization literature and focuses on multiple dimensions of school climate (cf. Konold, 2014; Lenzi, 2014) and their relationship to future electoral engagement. We rely on the English and Irish International Civic and Citizenship Survey (ICCS) 2009 data to operationalize multiple dimensions of the school climate. We estimate a structural equation model in which school climate is measured by indicators based on student and teacher questionnaire data aggregated at the school level. The relationship between multiple dimensions of school climate and student future electoral participation is tested. Findings: We find that in order to engage students in voting; schools should focus not only on the formal curriculum but also on more informal aspects (the school climate). Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the dangers and opportunities for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland presented by Brexit. It argues that the difficulties cannot analytically be understood nor the opportunities seized until we disaggregate 'identity politics', seeing it not as a function of a homogenous identity but of identity change. Once set in place, however, identity politics takes on its own dynamic. Exogenous shocks can open the opportunity of alternative aims, alliances and identity coalitions, and then the task is to find the institutional and political incentives to guide identity change in more open, deliberative and dialogic directions. That is what a constitutional moment provides. I argue that the exogenous shock of Brexit opens the way for such a period of north-south deliberation and reconstruction. The paper begins with the general argument and goes on to show how Brexit stimulates Irish government action and can lead to a constitutional moment, one focused not on the state in control in Northern Ireland but on creating deliberative political communities on the island and in its two parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of marginal regions is closely linked to the socio-spatial polarisation of our society. Although marginality and peripherality can be considered a multidimensional phenomenon, the literature as well as social discourses often address only some of its dimensions, in particular on the basis of objective approaches. Such a research is usually based on the quantification of a wide range of statistical indicators, whether of a social, environmental or economic nature. This study aims to capture another equally important dimension of this phenomenon, namely the perception of marginality and peripherality. Drawing on a series of interviews carried out with experts in the field of Irish rurality, this research points to the various perceptions of this phenomenon in rural Ireland. The results once again confirm the complexity of marginality and peripherality, and highlight many differences but also similarities that exist with regard to this phenomenon in the Irish rural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates migrant access to employment using concepts from Granovetter [1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.”American Journal of Sociology78 (6): 1360–1380; Granovetter, M. 1983. “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited.”Sociological Theory1: 201–233] relating to ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties in networks and from Coleman [1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.”American Journal of Sociology94: 95–121] and Putnam [2000.Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster] relating to the role of social capital in creating bonding and bridging relationships. Ethnographic research was conducted among Brazilian labour migrants in small towns in Ireland and returnees in Brazil who were recruited initially through an agent in the late 1990s to work in meat processing. Within a short time social networks began to assume importance in accessing employment, including family and friends, Brazilian ‘brokers’ and ‘non-pay Irish intermediaries’. Strong ties and bonding social capital were present within the migrant group, but weak ties and bridging social capital were also established which provided access to employment locally. These results provide further support for recent advice by Patulny and Svendsen [2007. “Exploring the Social Capital Grid: Bonding, Bridging, Qualitative, Quantitative.”International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy27 (1/2): 32–51] and Ryan[2011. “Migrants’ Social Networks and Weak Ties: Accessing Resources and Constructing Relationships Post-Migration.”The Sociological Review59 (4): 707–724] that researchers should examine the ways in which social capital and resources are used in networks instead of assuming a simple dichotomy between the roles of different types of ties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the European Reformation and the colonisations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ireland has evolved a distinctive religious geography which had profound implications for its political development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading ultimately to the division of the island along explicitly religio–territorial lines in 1921.Troubled Geographies, a major project funded under the auspices of the Arts and Humanities Research Council's ‘Religion and Society’ programme was the first attempt to seek to understand patterns of change in the island's complex geography of religious settlement in the period since the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century up to the most recent published censuses for both Northern Ireland and the Republic. This paper will present findings from a smaller spin-off project funded by the British Academy, which digitised records of attendance at Presbyterian churches across the island over the last 150 years, enabling us to assess how patterns of practice were affected by the momentous events of the period, including partition, civil war, two world wars, the vicissitudes of the global economy and the Troubles of the more recent past. In addition, the use of new quantitative materials such as those in the Presbyterian records enables us to reflect on how patterns of substantive religious practice reflect those on nominal religious affiliation available from successive censuses from either side of the border. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports a longitudinal study of levels of moral reasoning in a convenience sample of Irish undergraduate university students, using the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2). The study was timely, as higher education institutions are becoming increasingly interested in the promotion of social capital and the development of the whole person. A total of 259 students completed the DIT2 at the beginning, mid-point and conclusion of their degree course. As with similar international studies, increases in levels of moral reasoning over time were statistically significant. However, Irish students' DIT2 scores were markedly lower than their international peers with 62% of graduating students at the pre-conventional and conventional stages. The paper suggests some context-related explanations for the under-performance of Irish students including the instrumentalist nature of Irish post-primary education, the prevailing culture of consensualism, authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism, the conflation of religious and moral education and the emphasis on economic outputs and contractual accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South Asian diasporas living in Ireland are a growing and vibrant community. Historical and cultural connections, particularly between Ireland and India, are central in the burgeoning relationship between the two regions. Cultural exchange is also a flourishing trend, as are associations in science, technology and education. In Ireland, South Asia is increasingly represented by the diasporic population in the literature, film and other arts, but despite the variety and wealth of South Asian diasporic cultures, it is often consigned to the superficial, even the hyper-real, eliding social realism. Furthermore, the role played by both state policy and the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger is important in the related discussion of the frequently stigmatized, differential space of the ‘non-Irish national’ and the discrimination experienced by non-national and diasporic cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the representation of emigration in Irish television advertising. Topics discussed include Harp Lager's television advertisement "Home Is Where the Harp Is," resurgent emigration in Irish society during the 1980s, and Galtee Food's television advertisement "Breakfast-time back home."

A growing number of international studies document the importance of regular school attendance. There is a consensus among authors that absenteeism has negative implications for academic achievement as well as the social development of the child and may put them at a disadvantage in terms of their position in the education and labour market. Most of the existing studies have focused on school absenteeism among adolescents with studies on poor school attendance among young children relatively rare. This paper addresses this gap in research by exploring factors that are related to school absenteeism in Irish primary schools. Drawing on a nationally representative study of nine-year-olds, it demonstrates the complexity of the issue. The findings indicate that a combination of institutional and individual factors shape patterns of poor school attendance in Irish primary schools. While the data relate to the Irish situation, the paper raises a number of issues of interest to an international audience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The question of multiculturalism in Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) has come more to the fore in recent years with growing levels of plurality within these societies. Indeed, new debates are opening up regarding identity and citizenship, which undoubtedly are challenging traditional conceptions of identity, with consequences for integration. Yet despite public acknowledgement of minority communities, an established equality and human rights industry, and a plethora of equality and anti-discrimination legislation, the article argues that NI and the ROI cannot as yet be described as multicultural. Using the veil as a lens through which to explore narratives about identity in NI and the ROI, the article discusses the link between identity and integration, demonstrating the integration philosophies at work, and furthermore considers the wider gender implications of integration. It analyses the veil as a symbol of otherness in Ireland, as a symbol of the threat of diversity, and as a symbol of fundamentalism in ‘secular’ Ireland. It utilises fieldwork carried out with Muslim women in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The development of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 marked a significant step in recognising women's role in peace processes. While it has affected the drafting of peace agreements since its enactment, the question remains as to how to create appropriate structural spaces within a political system to give effect to 1325. This article reflects on the implementation of UNSCR 1325 on the island of Ireland. It considers the different interpretations of two sovereign governments on its applicability to post-conflict politics on the island of Ireland. It also evaluates the opportunities and challenges involved in applying this international framework to women, peace and security in a local context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In an examination of class inequality in education in the Republic of Ireland over the period from the late 1990s to the mid 2000s, this chapter reveals class inequality in educational outcomes within social groups as well as across social groups, and places particular attention on the non-manual group. Within this group, a clear distinction can be made between those classified as having an 'intermediate non-manual 'position and those classified as holding an 'other (lower) non-manual' position in terms of their educational performance at secondary education and subsequent access to higher education, which persists over the period. This finding has been revealed by disaggregating the non-manual group into the 'intermediate non-manual' and 'other (lower) non-manual' groups, a practice that has not been used by analysts in the past in the Irish context. In this chapter, we engage with theories of class which offer a framework for understanding educational inequailty and in particular, why members of the same social class groups experience different educational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transnational media environments and experiences of Nigerian and Chinese nationals living in Ireland. It theorizes empirical research in the context of the mode of integration governance developed in the Republic of Ireland during a period of significant in-migration. Building on a theory of domopolitics, it suggests that Ireland's short-lived integration regime deployed culture and interculturalism as resources for the self-governing integration of all foreign nationals, while developing a system of civic stratification designed to limit claims to citizenship and social and economic rights. It examines the concomitant development of public service media policies in this context. Drawing on recent discussions of contrapuntal media readings, the article argues that transnational media experience refracts the lived tensions inherent in the disjuncture between the possibilities of cultural participation and the constraints of socio-political containment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ambiguous and uneasy status of separated children in Ireland at the margins of child protection regimes. The treatment and care of separated children in Ireland has been the subject of continuing controversy. For many years, the failure of the state to adequately care for separated children has attracted criticism. This criticism has pointed to continuing gaps in protection and inequities in the standards of care provided. The Ryan Report: Implementation Plan, adopted by the Irish Government in 2009 in response to the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, committed the state to ensuring equity of care in the treatment of separated children. This commitment was a welcome, if long overdue, response to the risks faced by separated children and to the gaps in protection in law, policy and care regimes within the state. It marked a turning point in the state's response to separated children and an acceptance of the obligations of protection arising towards a particularly vulnerable group of children in the care of the state. Much remains to be done, however, to ensure that the state meets its positive obligations of protection towards separated children and to ensure that border norms do not hinder recognition of the vulnerability and rights claims of such children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ireland’s Celtic Tiger years are a spectacular example of the passage from a traditional society to one where the market becomes the new reference point. That sociological mutation took place during the economic boom of 1995–2005, when a whole new generation, born during the Irish baby-boom of the 1970s and 1980s, experienced their coming of age. It is within that period that the major religious/economic change took place, making Ireland’s Celtic Tiger a fascinating anthropological case study for the passage from traditional modalities of life to consumerist ones. The culture shock felt by the author when returning to the field after the economic boom becomes the core of the comprehension of that passage: that culture shock informs the anthropologist looking at the profound religious mutation that propelled the market to become the transcendent reference, while the Catholic Church of Ireland was losing power and social meaning and significance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Because of the global position of English in the contemporary world order, the linguistic and cultural position of Ireland in relation to Europe is complex and the value accorded in Ireland to European linguistic and cultural diversity is no less intricate. Even a cursory glance at the importance given in (some) Irish universities to European and non-European languages other than English fully substantiates that point. The collapsed economic boom, based entirely on a property and financial bubble, further complicated matters. A recent Irish film, Once, directed by John Carney, subtly reveals some of these complications. The film concentrates on cross-European, intercultural, inter-lingual communication and miscommunication and on empathy and harmony, emphasising the creative value of linguistic and artistic bricolage. The highly positive value of this mode of meaningful contact and (mis)communication is, however, resolutely positioned on the margins of contemporary Ireland. The consumerism of the Celtic Tiger and its general contempt for cultural and linguistic values resistant to, or situated outside, the smooth circuits of the global market, are notable for their absence from this film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the discriminatory and exclusionary treatment experienced by migrants in Ireland. After outlining the tremendous socio-economic changes that have taken place in the country, it discusses the rise of ethno-racial discrimination in Ireland before examining how these discriminatory and exclusionary practices have so far been interpreted largely within a post-structuralist frame of reference. After outlining the problems inherent in this literature, the paper examines how applicable an Eliasian established–outsider framework is for explaining these exclusionary processes whilst simultaneously noting the differences between Elias’s Winston Parva study and the Irish situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the socio-economic conditions in Ireland as of January 2011. It presents a historical background on Irish politics, particularly the Irish Labour Party. The global credit crisis in 2008 reportedly made the Irish economy dependent on construction-related activity. The author argues on the need for Ireland to have a positive approach to enterprise policy that focuses on the creation of quality jobs, as well as a creative approach to competitiveness that builds on existing strengths.

This article develops a theoretical framework to consider the symbiotic relationship between civil society, social movements and the Irish state. Civil society, largely through social movements, laid the foundations for an independent Irish state in the half-century before independence. Following independence, the nature of the civil society-state relationship changed; civil society became much more dependent on the state. The article empirically traces the nature of society's relationship to the state since the 1920s, and examines the nature of the political system and its major political party, Fianna Fail, the structure of the economy, and the dominance of particular understandings of the role of civil society and the nature of society itself. The period since the advent of social partnership in 1987 is examined; this period marks a new attempt by the state to co-opt organised civil society making it subservient to its project of the imposition on society of the requirements of global corporate profit-making. The more forceful implementation of a global free-market project by the Irish state since the 1980s, and the co-option of organised civil society into this project, has left huge space for an alternative to emerge, the potential of which was indicated by the success of the 'No' campaign in the 2008 Lisbon referendum campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irish perinatal mortality rates have been falling steadily for a number of decades but evidence from the 1980s showed pronounced differentials in mortality rates across socio-economic groups. Between 1995 and 2006 Irish gross national product increased from 60 per cent of the EU average to 110 per cent. Real incomes increased across the income distribution during this period but income inequality between the top and bottom income deciles increased marginally. This paper examines whether socio-economic differentials in Irish perinatal mortality rates changed between the 1980s and 2000s. This task is complicated by demographic change in Ireland since the 1980s and its interaction with the birth registration process. Overall perinatal mortality rates have fallen from 14 per 1,000 in 1984 to 7 per 1,000 in 2006. Without adjusting for demographic change, differentials between professional and unskilled/unemployed groups have decreased from 1.99 to 1.79. Adjusted estimates suggest the real differential has decreased to 1.88. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roma refers to the international Roma community with many currently nomadic, semi-nomadic and sedentary (Roma Support Group, 2009). In the face of a history of discrimination and persecution, Roma have maintained a distinct identity characterised by their own Romani language, communal solidarity, close extended family bonds, and cultural traditions. There is a dearth of information regarding the Roma needs in Ireland. The Roma in Ireland continue to experience discrimination in housing, education, employment, medical care, access to goods and services and decision-making all across Europe (Pavee Point, 2009). This review article was written on behalf of Pavee Point National Traveller Centre, Dublin, Ireland as part of a report for the Irish government to drawing attention to the current political and social needs of the Roma and Gypsies within the Irish context. Ireland is not part of the commitment to the 'Decade of Roma Inclusion' (2005-2015). An inclusive approach to education, language, immigration, health, housing, media focus and ethnic reporting systems must take into consideration the selective acculturative processes of Roma individual, gender and familial needs in order to attain and preserve ethnicity and equality within Irish and broader European social and political systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A report is presented on the public sector in Ireland in 2009. It gives an overview of the political system of Ireland, including the status of majorities in the Dáil and Seanad. It discusses public sector reform and the need to develop a public service culture in Ireland, as well as various initiatives for increasing performance. International relations with the U.S. and the European Union (EU) are noted. The report also includes information on health care reform in Ireland, education, the justice system, defence, and budget issues affecting Irish society and government.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that, world-wide, depression will be the second largest source of burden of disease by 2020. It is currently estimated that approximately 300,000 Irish people experience depression. To date no research has been carried out on the small area incidence of depression in Ireland. Although research has looked at access levels to acute psychiatric hospitals for each electoral division (ED) in Ireland, there is currently no research on the accessibility of mental health services to individuals with depression. This paper aims to address this gap in the literature. First, a simple logistic regression model is used to identify the determinants of depression at the national level. Secondly, the spatial distribution of individuals with depression is estimated at the small area, ED level using a spatial microsimulation model. Finally, a spatial interaction model is used to analyse access to acute inpatient facilities at the national level and community-based facilities for individuals with depression at the sub-national level. The policy implications of these results are discussed in relation to both the health care literature and current Irish health care policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on rural mobility and rural housing using three case studies in Ireland. It is argued that while rural change and rural in-migration have been in the spotlight in academic literature, there has been a very limited interlinking between rural mobilities and population movements and spatial planning and housing research. This is surprising given the current policy framework in local and regional spatial planning, which in many cases adopts narratives of counter-urbanisation. This article investigates the extent and types of rural residential mobility, including counter-urbanisation, rural-to-rural migration and local movements. Then, it examines the reasons driving residential mobility and finally it explores the relationship between mobility and new house building in rural areas. The article concludes that an understanding of rural mobilities is necessary for planning and housing policy, in not only providing background information for an evidence-based approach in policy making, but also in exploring new policy interventions when dealing with rural housing demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a general trend in democratic societies to develop and exploit social capital. Reflecting this trend, a recent policy programme for Northern Ireland, A Shared Future, emphasized the importance of relationship building, both within and across communities, and between communities and statutory organizations. The research presented in this paper explores the potential of social capital as a policy concept and the value of the concept for interpreting community dynamics, devising strategies to enhance community relations and development and ultimately building a more sustainable society post-conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Before the recent economic recession Ireland had become one of the most affluent societies in the world, and the so-called Irish social model of low taxes and low public services provision was seen as one to be emulated, particularly amongst the accession states to the EU. However, Ireland has also become one of the most unequal societies in the OECD, and one of the unhealthiest, measured by all of the standard morbidity and epidemiological indicators, and the social gradient of health corresponds closely with social inequality. Ireland's healthcare system, always relatively underdeveloped in comparison to most European countries, reflects social inequality; it is a two-tiered system wherein a minority with private health insurance enjoy access to good care and facilities, while the rest make do with an underdeveloped, under-resourced and overstretched public health system and subsidise the private services. The Irish social model is schizmogenic, generating and amplifying social inequalities. This is clearly visible in the domain of health, which has become a crucible of public de-legitimation and political foment. Ireland's problems are problems for the health and well-being of the European body politic, insofar as other members emulate the Irish model, cutting corporate taxes and reducing public services in a race to the bottom away from the Rhinish and Nordic social models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the article "Ryan report" which appeared in the periodical "New York Times."

The article focuses on institutional barriers which could impede an emphasis on future social cohesion and immigration policy in Ireland. It notes a strategic approach to social cohesion which requires the need of measures for citizens and immigrants to meld into a common vision of integration-as-social inclusion. It explores the move of Ireland to be one of the three European Union (EU) members which did not impose restrictions to the free movement of workers in 2004.

This article discusses the recent attempts to liberalize Ireland's partnership law to accommodate same-sex couples. The Government's Civil Partnership Bill (2008) is discussed along with the history of the Irish sexual citizen and the perpetual and unattainable quest to be “normal,” which hinders the Irish queer community's campaign for true equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is frequently an assumption that fixed dualisms are no longer relevant (Thome 1993) so that socially constructed and differentially valued gendered cultures no longer exist. Gender, however, has not been consistently referred to as an outdated or zombie category (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002), while a variety of evidence suggests that male priorities, choices and lifestyles are differentially valued (UN 1995; O'Connor 2000). Drawing on a national one in ten random sample of 4,100 texts written by Irish young people, typically aged 10-12 and 14-17 years, in response to an invitation to describe 'themselves and the Ireland they inhabit', this article suggests that aspects of their narratives (relating to relationships and lifestyles) reflect the existence of gender differentiated cultures, although these 'two cultures' are much less apparent in their narratives about time, space and consumption. Finally, the paper touches on the implications of these trends for understanding contemporary Irish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents literary criticism of the novel "The Dancers Dancing" by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, examining its depiction of girlhood in Ireland. The main character of Orla and her metaphorical representation of both Irish femininity is analyzed through the notion of "sideways growth" as illustrated by the scholar Kathryn Bond Stockton. Discussion is provided for both nationalistic discourses of Ireland and childhood-adulthood identity dynamics.

During the 1990s and 2000s, the period coinciding with Ireland's economic and social transformation and ubiquitously referred to as the 'Celtic Tiger' years, the Irish nation transitioned from being an emigrant-sending to an immigrant-receiving society. In association with this shift, considerable attention has been devoted to Ireland's new immigrant groups, including refugees and asylum seekers and more recently to migrant workers from new EU accession states. During the same period, inward migration was consistently comprised of significant numbers of former emigrants returning to Ireland; however, the place and experiences of Ireland's return migrants has received comparatively little attention from mainstream media sources and is a relatively recent development in scholarship on migration. Taking as its impetus Piaras MacEinri's (2001) call for scholarship that places Ireland's history of emigration alongside contemporary immigration, this paper critically explores scripts - media representations and discourses - on emigrants and emigration in the late 1980s and 1990s as they reflect in the lived realities of Irish migrants who returned to Ireland during the Celtic Tiger years. I argue that these scripts, which bestowed emigrants with characteristics that were subsequently gathered back into the social spaces of Irish society during the Celtic Tiger period, generated a social landscape that was complex to navigate and where lived realities - marked by a devaluation of the emigrant experience and displacement in return - illustrate the contradictions between the representations of emigration in the 1980s and experiences of return. Instead, the lived realities of return highlight the intricate linking of time and space in social exclusions from post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Tuberculosis remained a very significant cause of death in Ireland until the mid-20th century and still occupies a prominent position in the folk memory. As I show with reference to recent Irish media coverage, the global resurgence of tuberculosis is therefore viewed with concern in Ireland. Using data collated by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre between 1998 and 2005 however, I show that the recent increase in tuberculosis incidence in Ireland is less than is popularly perceived. This increase is largely associated with economic immigrants attracted to Ireland by the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic boom, but there is little evidence to suggest that this has had a negative impact on the Irish-born population. Drug resistance is still a small but growing problem. Whilst vigilance is required, it is argued that the recent increase does not at present indicate a likely return to the situation in the mid-20th century. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent times, Ireland has experienced dramatic changes in its economic fortunes, primarily as a result of global/transnational processes. One result of this dynamic modernity has been a greater public and political focus on its environmental consequences, evident for instance in the issue of waste management. Ulrich Beck's highly influential writings on Reflexive Modernity promise a seismic social transformation, where risks such as waste can be negotiated through processes of self-confrontation and democratisation. Yet, this has clearly not happened in the Irish case, where waste policy concentrates on disposal rather than prevention options, governance processes are characterised by power centralisation and marginalisation, and where certain communities are engaged in campaigns of opposition to government plans. This article argues that part of the problem in adapting Beck's framework to Irish waste is that it fails to account for an asymmetry of power relations, at both a macro and micro level, and as a result, underestimates the tenacity of certain societal elites to maintain the current trajectory of economic and technological development. It is proposed here that the application of a Foucauldian framework of a multi-dimensional framework of power can address some of these shortcomings by offering a focus on issues of consent, coercion, self-regulation (individualisation) and subjugation. In doing so, it is hoped that a novel contribution can be made to the relatively under-developed field of sociology of waste and offer a more general critique of Beck's Reflexive Modernisation thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controversy over contraception during the 1970s was the first episode in what became the Irish 'cultural wars' of the 1970s and 1980s. This article suggests that changes in attitudes among a minority of Irish citizens and the availability of oral contraceptives in the 1960s challenged the traditional prohibition on contraceptives contained in the Criminal Law Amendment Act. Liberals challenged this legislation but received very little support from either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael until the McGee Supreme Court decision in 1973. Even then, dissent over the issue led the Taoiseach to vote against his own government's legislation in 1974. Legislation was eventually passed in 1979, though this was conceived in conservative and restrictive terms rather than as a liberal measure. This controversy marks the emergence of conservative grassroots movements in defence of traditional Catholic teaching and Fianna Fail positioning itself on the conservative wing of Irish politics on these policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article delves into the success of the living standards and economic growth of Ireland. The country's average annual rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the 1995-2007 period increased by 7%. Such success is attributed to the citizens who worked for sound public policies, social cohesion, and good governance. Their strategy is comprised of a system-wide review of the civil service and the public sector, a peer review process with five countries, and a steering group and an external advisory group representing a sector of the society led by the Secretary General to the Government.