THE 2015 NORTHERN IRELAND GENERAL ELECTION SURVEY: MEASURING POLITICAL CHANGE IN A POWER-SHARING POLITY

2015年北爱尔兰大选调查将确定该地区独特政治制度中政党选择和政治优先事项的现代基础。假设下议院通过了将北爱尔兰议会选举推迟一年至2016年的立法，那么2015年威斯敏斯特选举的意义重大，因为它为北爱尔兰选民提供了四年来第一次在非欧洲选举中表达政治偏好的机会。2015年大选将在《圣安德鲁斯协议》签署近十年后举行。《圣安德鲁斯协议》是由民主统一党和新芬党领导的权力分享下放政府的深远组成。这带来了更大的政治稳定，但宗派分歧仍然相当大，如维护和平墙、隔离教育、低“异族通婚”率和旗帜抗议等一系列问题证明了这一点。自2007年以来，持不同政见的共和党人造成了550多起（主要是低级别的）枪击和爆炸事件，对安全构成了残余威胁。随着精英阶层政治关系的解冻，2015年的选举调查将检验选民中新教-英国联合主义者和天主教-爱尔兰民族主义者之间尖锐的宗派分歧（反映在欧洲宗教和投票偏好之间最密切的联系上）已经开始愈合到什么程度。是否有明显的证据表明选民在投票模式上超越了传统的集团关系？这种运动（如果可以察觉的话）是跨越鸿沟，还是“半途而废”，进入不结盟的政治中心（如联盟党或绿党）？这项调查还将调查那些留在本民族集团内的人的理由，并探讨这两个主要集团内政党选择的基础。它还将测试“英国人”或“爱尔兰人”的身份在多大程度上被共同的“北爱尔兰人”身份所取代，这两个身份在1998年的《耶稣受难日协议》中得到了承认，具有同等的合法性。选举调查将调查选民对北爱尔兰行政部门表现的看法，并评估选民对进一步权力下放的愿望。2010年，警务和司法权力从威斯敏斯特转移到北爱尔兰行政当局，但此后并没有更多的权力，本次调查将评估对此类权力的需求程度。它将评估选民在一系列地方和国家政治问题上对政党的评价，并将审查选民如何评价政党在每个主要政策领域的表现，包括宪法问题、经济、教育、卫生、社会发展和福利。这项调查将揭示哪些问题是政党选择的决定因素。就选举的重要性而言，“面包和黄油”非宪法问题在多大程度上取代了旧的宪法问题？此外，该研究将确定选民对一系列冲突后问题的看法和偏好，如真相与和解委员会、对受害者的支持、司法制度改革以及通过拆除“和平墙”和“混合”学校等方式实现北爱尔兰社会一体化。除了冲突相关和经济问题，2015年的选举调查将评估对选民的重要性，以及他们对有争议的“社会自由主义”各个方面的看法。其中包括堕胎权（第一家堕胎咨询诊所于2012年在北爱尔兰开业，但没有一个主要政党支持延长1967年《堕胎法》在英国其他地方的适用范围）和同性婚姻，这是北爱尔兰最大的政党民主统一党反对的，这是一个政党间存在重大分歧的问题。基于大量代表性样本，该项目将产生一个重要的调查数据集，供社会科学家、政策制定者和媒体使用。

The 2015 Northern Ireland General Election survey will identify the modern basis of party choices and political priorities in the region's distinctive political system. Assuming the passing of legislation currently before the Commons to delay the Northern Ireland Assembly election by one year to 2016, the 2015 Westminster contest is significant in offering the first opportunity for Northern Ireland's voters to express their political preferences, in a non-European election, for four years. The 2015 contest will take place nearly a decade after the St Andrews Agreement, the far-reaching formation of a power-sharing devolved government headed by the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein. This has produced far greater political stability, but sectarian division remains considerable, evidenced by a range of issues such as the maintenance of peace walls, segregated education, a low rate of 'intermarriage' and flags protests. There remains a residual security threat posed by dissident republicans, responsible for over 550 (mainly low level) shooting and bombing incidents since 2007.Amid the thawing of elite-level political relationships, this 2015 election survey will test how far the acute sectarian divide between Protestant-British Unionists and Catholic-Irish nationalists amongst the electorate (reflected in the closest alignment between religion and voting preference in Europe) has begun to heal. Is there significant evidence of electors moving beyond traditional bloc affiliations in voting patterns? Is this movement, if perceptible, across the divide, or 'halfway', into the non-aligned political centre (e.g. the Alliance or Green Parties)? The survey will also examine the rationale of those who remain within their ethnic blocs and explore the basis of party choice inside those two main blocs. It will also test the extent to which 'British' or 'Irish' identities, the equal legitimacy of which were acknowledged in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, have been supplanted by a common 'Northern Irish' identity, amid the dawning of a shared future.The election survey will examine voters' views of the performance of the Northern Ireland Executive and appraise the desires of the electorate for further devolution. The transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to the Northern Ireland Executive in 2010 has not been followed by more competences and this survey will assess the degree of demand for such. It will assess where voters place the political parties on a range of local and national political issues and will examine how voters rate the performance of parties on each major policy area, including constitutional questions, the economy, education, health, social development and welfare. The survey will reveal which of these issues are determinants of party choice. To what extent have 'bread and butter' non-constitutional issues displaced older constitutional concerns in terms of electoral salience?Additionally, the study will ascertain the electorate's views and preferences on a range of post-conflict issues, as a truth and reconciliation commission, support for victims, reform of the judicial system and the integration of Northern Ireland society via, e.g. the removal of 'peace walls' and 'mixed' schooling. Beyond conflict-related and economic issues, the 2015 election survey will evaluate the importance to the electorate - and its views on - various aspects of contested 'social liberalism'. These include abortion rights (the first abortion advisory clinic opened in N. Ireland in 2012, but none of the main parties supports the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act applicable elsewhere in Britain) and gay marriage, which is opposed by the largest party in Northern Ireland, the DUP, and is a subject on which there have been significant inter-party differences. Based upon a large representative sample , the project will yield a vital survey dataset for use by social scientists, policy-makers and media.