ABSTRACT
The 1997 election suggests a continuation of the changing occupational profile of political recruits with candidates increasingly drawn from business, the professions, and salaried occupations. This chapter examines how parties managed the process of selecting candidates for the general election in June 1997. It begins with a general account of what political recruitment can tell about parties and about candidates. In the case of Democratic Left, conventions are chaired by the director of elections for each constituency as selected by party members in the constituency. The chapter then compares the Irish experience with general findings in the literature and focuses on the recruitment practices of the five main parties: Fianna Fail (FF), Fine Gael (FG), Labour, the Progressive Democrats (PDs), and Democratic Left (DL). Finally, it suggests that although party centres were actively involved in influencing the outcomes of selection conventions for the 1997 general election, they could not exert complete control.
