An examination of policy change over time in certain sectors of the Irish political system

Abstract

This thesis seeks to explain variation in policy outcomes in particular sectors of the Irish political system. The sectors investigated for this research display evidence of significant interest group activity around policy decisions whose key goal involves a "private good" type policy aim. There is currently only a small amount of research in this area relating to the Irish political system. (See Murphy (2010) for survey). Over the initial stage of this research, the question 'What explains variation in policy outcomes over time in particular sectors of the Irish Political System?' emerged as the general research question. As I was trying to understand the causes of policy change in a political system where little prior research had been conducted before, I concluded that the case study methodology would provide the most flexible and holistic means of investigation and allow the development of a suitable theoretical basis.