The Cost of Doing Politics in Ireland: A Survey of Politicians’ Experiences of Political Violence

This blog marks the launch of preliminary results from a national survey of candidates on the topic of political violence in the Republic of Ireland. The survey was carried out by Fiona Buckley (UCC), Lisa Keenan (TCD), and Mack Mariani (Xavier University), and is part of the cross-national The Cost of Doing Politics: Gender Aspects of Political Violence project.

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in media reporting of violence against people involved in Irish political life. Political violence has important implications for the health of democracies in general, and researchers highlight that its impact is disproportionately felt by women, particularly those with minority identities (see Collingnon, Campbell and Rudig, 2021).

Our survey, part of The Cost of Doing Politics: Gender Aspects of Political Violence project (Research Council of Norway Project No. 300618) – the first national study of its kind in Ireland – aims to investigate the scope and forms of political violence in Ireland, as well as whether the phenomenon is gendered.

Violence against politicians in Ireland

Political violence may consist of acts that range from the physical to the psychological, taking place in the public or the private sphere. But what characterises the violence as political is the underlying goal: to “affect political integrity and when the means by which the violence is conducted also violates the personal integrity of individuals involved in politics” (Bjarnegård, 2018: 690).

A range of recent incidents in Ireland – threats; property damage; sexualised messages on social media platforms; physical attacks; false rumours – arguably meet this definition.  Election candidates and public representatives from across the political spectrum have been subjected to such incidents.

Throughout the pandemic, ministers and TDs were subjected to protests outside their homes, prompting a security review by Gardaí. In September 2020, while filming in Merrion Square, then Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was confronted by a woman who threw a smoothie at him. Despite being identified by Gardaí, the DPP declined to prosecute, and the then Tánaiste himself downplayed the incident. A Sinn Féin TD’s home was attacked in September 2022 when a van crashed through the electric gates. Just a few months later, a local councillor’s home and car were damaged in an attack. In 2023 a man was charged after a minister of state had a bag of cow dung thrown at her as she spoke at a public meeting in her constituency. Leader of the Social Democrats, Holly Cairns TD, took the decision at the end of last month to close her constituency office in Bandon, Co Cork, after a security review highlighted risks to her safety. A stalker had previously presented himself at her home. Senator Micheál Carrigy of Fine Gael has spoken about he and his family being subjected to threats, something that the People-Before-Profit TD, Paul Murphy, has also discussed. Women from across the political spectrum have spoken about the vile online abuse that they receive, including receiving sexually explicit material and threats of sexual violence.

Often the seriousness of such incidents is not recognised, with some dismissed as harmless pranks (the smoothie incident) while others frame them as the result of voters’ legitimate expression of political disagreement (online abuse). There may also be a sense that such incidents are the ‘cost’ incurred for being a public figure. In April 2022, Leo Varadkar said he considered being verbally abused in the street as ‘part of the gig’ because it happens so regularly.

Consequences of political violence

However, there are real risks associated with allowing political violence in its diverse forms to flourish – and not just to the wellbeing of the individual who is targeted. Political violence undermines the democratic system at large. It may discourage candidates and politicians from speaking out about particular issues that attract this kind of hostility. It may lead to politicians cutting short their careers, leading to a loss of experienced politicians. It may also deter people from entering politics. These effects are even more concerning when we consider that this political violence is gendered in important ways. Numerous studies find that women are more likely than men to experience psychological violence, threats and harassment (Håkansson, 2020; Bjarnegård, 2021; Collingnon, Campbell and Rudig, 2021), and they are more likely to be subjected to threats of sexualised violence and aggression (Bjarnegård, 2021; Herrick and Thomas, 2022). The Inter-Parliamentary Union (2016) notes that as well as taking a gendered form, violence against women in politics targets women because they are women and aims to prevent their full and equal participation in politics.

Investigating political violence in the Republic of Ireland

The issue of violence against politicians in Ireland has been the focus of several studies in recent years but they have examined women only (Felle et al., 2020; Lima and McGing, 2022), focused solely on local government (AILG, 2021) or examined online abuse only (Richardson, 2022).

Our study consists of a survey of the 2,141 candidates at the 2019 local and 2020 general elections, and aims to investigate the phenomenon of political violence in the Republic of Ireland, as well as whether it is gendered. The survey was conducted online with candidates invited to participate via email or, where the email address was not known, through a letter to their home address containing a QR code to the survey. 362 usable responses were returned, for a response rate of 16.9 percent.

Preliminary results were published in a brief for the Christian Michelsen Institute, Bergen, and was launched on February 1^st 2024 at an event hosted by Ambassador Mari Skåre, at the Royal Norwegian Embassy Residence in Dublin.

Overall, the results from the study make for sobering reading.

Three-quarters of respondents reported experiencing at least one form of political violence, with being the subject of degrading talk or false rumours the most common form (67 percent). Physical violence occurs least often (10.2 percent).

Gender differences emerged also.

Women are more likely than men to experience political violence in general. They report being subject to degrading talk and false rumours more often, and they are more likely to experience violence with sexual connotations.

The study also investigated when and where any violence took place. Political violence is most likely to take place during an election campaign. Of those who reported experiencing destruction of property, for example, three-quarters said that it happened during that period. Perhaps unsurprisingly, for those who are successfully elected, violence is more likely to happen while they hold office.

As we might expect, digital media emerged as an important site where violence takes place; among respondents who reported being the subject of degrading talk or false rumours, 52 percent indicated it was disseminated though this mode. Political parties also emerge as important sources of violence. Nearly 71 percent of those subjected to rumours say that another political party was the source, but almost a third of respondents reported that these were spread by people from within their own party. Fewer than half of respondents experiencing violence say that they reported the matter to their party, and of those who reported, less than half indicated that the party took action. These findings suggest that much more needs to be done by political parties to tackle this issue.

Political violence: gender implications

These findings indicate that political violence in Ireland is a phenomenon that is both widespread and gendered. An Oireachtas Task Force on Safe Participation in Political Life was established last year by the Ceann Comhairle and the Cathaoirleach to make recommendations on improving the safety of Irish politicians. While the Task Force’s report has yet to be published, it is hoped that the recommendations will be take a gender-sensitive approach to account for the gendered impacts of political violence.

Our research does not find evidence that women who experience violence are modifying their speech as a result, but we do find that women in general report feeling more afraid than men because of their political participation. While our survey only canvassed the views of those who had already run for office, it is worth highlighting the potential for the increased reporting of this violence to discourage women from putting themselves forward in the first place.

At a time when the numbers of women in Irish political life are still far from parity – they make up just 26 percent of councillors, 23 percent of TDs, and 38 percent of senators – we should be concerned that gendered political violence may represent a further barrier to achieving 50:50 representation.

References

Association of Irish Local Government (AILG), 2021. Report following Councillor Survey on Threats, Harassment and Intimidation in Public Office, Maynooth: AILG, AILG (2021) Cllr Survey on Threats, Harassment & Intimidation in Public Office Report.pdf [Accessed 31 March 2023].

Bjarnegård, E. (2018) ‘Making Gender Visible in Election Violence: Strategies for Data Collection’, Politics & Gender 14 (4): 690-696.

Bjarnegård, E. (2021) ‘The Continuum of Election Violence: Gendered Candidate Experiences in the Maldives’, International Political Science Review 44(1): 107-121.

Collingnon, S., Campbell, R. and Rudig, W. (2021) ‘The Gendered Harassment of Parliamentary Candidates in the UK’, The Political Quarterly 93(1): 32-38.

Felle, T., McAuley, E. and Blaney, A. (2020) Toxic Tweets: Female Politicians, Misogyny and Social Media. Presentation to the Women in Politics and Online Abuse Webinar, co-hosted by the European Parliament Office Dublin and the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), 2 October 2020. Retrieved from:  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ireland/resource/static/ files/Events/research-by-tom-felle_slides_online_abuse_2Oct2020.pdf [Accessed 31 March 2023].

Håkansson, S. (2020) ‘Do Women Pay a Higher Price for Power? Gender Bias in Political Violence in Sweden’, Journal of Politics 83(2): 515-531.  

Herrick, R. and Thomas, S. (2022). ‘Not Just Sticks and Stones: Psychological Abuse and Physical Violence among US State Senators’, Politics & Gender 18(2): 422-447.

Inter-Parliamentary Union (2016) Issues Brief: Sexism Harassment and Violence against Women Parliamentarians, Geneva. IPU.

Lima, V. and McGing, C. (2022) Toolkit on Social Media Policies for Political Parties, Dublin: National Women’s Council – https://www.nwci.ie/images/uploads/NWC_Toolkit_SocialMediaAbuse_2022FINAL.pdf [Accessed 31 March 2023].

Richardson, I. (2022) ‘The dynamics of political incivility on Twitter towards Irish representatives (unpublished paper). Available online at:  https://rpubs.com/Ian_W_Richardson/Twitter_Irish_Politics [Accessed 31 March 2023].