SPIRe staff and research centres are pursuing and publishing cutting-edge scholarly research on a wide variety of topics, many of which are directly relevant to the analytical needs of government and voluntary organisations at the national, European and international levels. The School's substantive and methodological strengths reflect the multi-disciplinary character of its staff.
Much of SPIRe's research activity is associated with the initiatives of the School's four research centres, all of which have strong national and international networks:
All members of SPIRe's academic staff are involved in individual and collaborative research projects in a variety of fields. For details on projects and publications, consult the staff's personal pages.
SPIRe also hosts an interdisciplinary seminar series during the academic year.
In geographic terms, SPIRe has a long-standing reputation for excellence in the study of Irish politics (including the Republic, Northern Ireland, and cross-border issues) and European politics (including the national and EU levels). Other staff members contribute expertise on the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This geographic expertise cuts across the various thematic topics listed below.
In thematic terms, SPIRe has an international reputation for cutting-edge scholarship in the following areas, each of which has multiple academic staff including at least one at professorial level.
Justice, Human Rights and Citizenship. The normative foundations of justice and the conditions for maintaining a liberal state in circumstances of pluralism; citizenship and the constitution of membership over time; the significance of cosmopolitan values for national sovereignty and global distributive justice.
Nationalism, Ethnicity and Conflict. National and group identity formation; micro-macro linkages between individual identities, group behavior and institutional structures; institutional strategies for preventing or resolving identity-based conflict.
Representation and Public Policy: Irish and Comparative Perspectives. State structures, political reform, and democratization; public opinion, voting and lobbying; the design and implementation of public policy.
European and International Integration. The role of state, non-state and supranational actors in integration; the evolution of supranational institutions and identities; the dynamics of intergovernmental negotiation and multi-level governance.
Political Economy and International Development. The determinants of economic development in industrialized and developing countries; the impact of globalization on economic development, social and ecological sustainability; the politics of international trade and finance.
The schedule for Autumn 2024 can be found here.
All seminars take place on Wednesdays from 12-1pm in our boardroom.
For anyone else who wishes to attend virtually, please contact Dr Alexa Zellentin at alexa.zellentin(opens in a new window)@ucd.ie.
In the Dublin Political Theory Workshop we discuss work in progress in the area of policial theory widely understood including debates on applied ethics and social and legal philosophy.
If you are interested to discuss your work with us, please do not hesitate to get in touch (opens in a new window)via our blog
You can view the annual return of publications from staff in the School by viewing Research Publications by School and you can also access many of the publications in full text at (opens in a new window)Research Repository UCD.
Recent publications are available to view here.
The Peter Mair Library on Comparative Party Politics is located in the Boardroom of UCD School of Politics and International Relations. This collection of books and papers formed the working (office) library of the late Peter Mair from his time at the European University Institute, Florence — his final place of work up to his untimely death in August 2011.
Peter was a renowned political scientist whose work centred in particular on political parties and representative democracy (for more, see (opens in a new window)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mair). The book collection originated in Manchester, where Peter had moved in the 1980s after his first stint at the EUI. In an unfortunate accident many of his books had been destroyed in a warehouse fire. A number of Peter’s colleagues and friends clubbed together to replenish his book stocks from scratch, a measure of already just how high he was held in the esteem of other party scholars. This book collection then followed him from Manchester to Leiden and on to his final office in Villa San Felice on the hills of San Domenico just outside Florence. The collection (which also includes paper plans and drafts, project plans, and teaching notes) has now returned home to UCD SPIRe, Peter’s alma mater as a post-graduate student in Politics. The Peter Mair Library was kindly donated to UCD SPIRe by Peter’s family, his wife Karin and their children Cathleen, John and Tessa.
* The collection has been augmented by the gift of a selection of books on comparative politics, donated by our former colleague, Richard Sinnott (1947-2022 RIP), who was also a contemporary of Peter’s. We are grateful to Richard, his wife Margaret and their children Gillian and Daniel for this generous donation.
Peter Mair Collection Catalogue
The Library is available for access by prior appointment.
The library in its new location after the refurbishment of the ‘SPIRe corridor’ in 2021.
A number of colleagues from Peter’s past visited UCD at an event to mark the arrival and cataloguing of the collection.
Former students and colleagues of Peter Mair (L-R): Professor
Richard Sinnott (UCD); Professor David Farrell (UCD); Professor
Jean Blondel (Sienna) and Professor Lieven De Winter (Louvain)
Party and comparative politics scholars examining the
book collection (L-R): Professor David Farrell (UCD);
Dr Derek Hutcheson (Malmo); Professor Brigid Laffan (EUI)
and Professor Richard Sinnott (UCD)
Here you will find monthly interviews with School staff and visiting scholars to provide an insight into the workings of the oldest and largest school of its kind in the Republic of Ireland.
Computational approaches to politics
Researchers associated with this theme apply cutting-edge computational analyses to topics such as the rise of populism, political ideology, electoral campaigning, and media personalisation, as well as regime
transitions, legislative politics, policy agendas, discourse, protest behaviour, and political violence. This research theme is hosted at the Connected_Politics Laboratory. Sign up for our newsletter (opens in a new window)here
To view the current Connected Politics Seminars and Workshops, please click here
Each year the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD may host a small number of Adjunct Appointees, Visiting Academic Appointees, Visiting Scholars and Visiting Practitioners.1 The aim of the Affiliates Scheme is to encourage collaboration between (former) academics or policy practitioners and the SPIRe community. While the specific form this takes may differ, it is expected that Affiliates make an active contribution to the School.
For more information on the schemes and details on how to apply, click here