Preferential voting and moderation in deeply divided societies

: the case of Northern Ireland

Abstract

One of the advantages of preferential voting systems is that it offers voters the opportunity to express support for a range of parties. Proponents of preferential voting systems argue that they are particularly appropriate to deeply divided societies to encourage voters to cast their second or lower preferences across communal lines or towards non-ethnic parties. Northern Ireland is the only deeply divided society to use a preferential voting system for most of its elections, with local councils and the Northern Ireland Assembly being elected through single transferable vote since 1973. This thesis explores the effectiveness of preferential voting in Northern Ireland elections, particularly the extent to which moderate parties within unionism and nationalism and cross-community parties have benefitted from lower preference transfers to gain seats that would otherwise have gone to more radical parties, through a quantitative analysis of lower preference transfers in local and Assembly elections. It also assesses the extent to which more radical parties have moderated their political positions in order to benefit from lower preference transfers, especially in the period since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

This thesis has found that cross-community voting has seen a modest but notable increase over the last fifty years. This mainly applies to transfers from moderate unionists to moderate nationalists and vice versa, which increasingly impacts the race for the final seat in certain constituencies. There is also a clear correlation between cross-community transfers and the relative success of the centre ground, as seen in the most recent local and Assembly elections. Although other incentives remain to support more radical candidates, due to Northern Ireland’s consociational system which is based on cross-community power-sharing and the prioritisation of unionism and nationalism, this thesis finds little difference between cross-community voting patterns between local and Assembly elections, despite consociationalism only being explicitly relevant to the latter. The increasing importance of preferential voting to electoral success in Northern Ireland is emphasised by how parties have adapted to it over the last five decades and especially how certain parties have moderated their stances on certain issues in order to gain additional seats through transfers.

Thesis is embargoed until 31 July 2026.

Date of Award	Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Sponsors	Northern Ireland and North East (NINE) ESRC Doctoral Training Centre
Supervisor	Jamie Pow (Supervisor) & Elodie Fabre (Supervisor)