General Election

Election campaigns in Ireland provide some exceptions to the general trends in campaigning identified by prominent observers in recent years. Changes in the role of experts in marketing and PR, in the degree of central control and national focus, and the downgrading of labour intensive activities have given rise to an era of campaigning in liberal democracies variously, and somewhat fancifully, described as ‘post-modern ’ (Norris, 2002), and even, ironically, as ‘post-Fordist ’ (Denver and Hands, 2002). In particular there has been an increase in the central control of campaigning, making full use of the latest media and professional assistance and decreasing use – often through neces-sity – of local party workers. Campaigns are now seen as sophisticated PR operations, in which great effort is made to get professionally constructed messages straight to the voter with minimal opportunities for distortion by untrustworthy intermediaries such as journalists and party workers. This is not to say that everything takes place in the political capital. In fact, great atten-tion is given to constructing a local element – not least through leaders