Ireland: politics with some social bases: an interpretation based on aggregate data.

Social scientists are currently forced to rely on aggregate data and commercial opinion polls when they analyse the social bases of party choice in Ireland. This paper deals with a re-analysis of the relevant aggregate data. It uses a principal component analysis to reduce a large number of aggregate variables from a range of sources to a small number of indices. It then uses a series of multiple regressions to explore the patterns of partisanship exhibited at county level. The conclusion is that the Fianna Fail vote, at least, is more clearly patterned than has been found in early aggregate analyses. This patterning appears in terms, not of census variables, but of variables describing structures of land-holding and land use. In common with earlier analyses, the Fine Gael vote remains very hard to explain at aggregate level. -Author