ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the electoral characteristics of divided societies and, more importantly, debates around which electoral system is most conducive to conflict management. It provides an overview of electoral characteristics, with particular emphasis placed on the importance of ethnic party systems in divided societies, before providing a comparison of the most significant electoral systems that have been recommended as being conducive to managing conflict in these societies. Particular prominence is placed on analysing PR-STV, as the system is the focus of this research. Attention then turns to the case study of Northern Ireland, with a history of its voting systems, before discussing the post-Good Friday Agreement electoral environment, especially the rise of the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, who were traditionally considered to represent the extremes of their respective communities. The chapter concludes that ethnic parties continue to reign supreme in Northern Ireland after the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, despite predictions by some scholars that there would be a shift to a more centre-ground, moderate, non-sectarian party system, indicating that consociationalism does not have a moderating effect. The purpose of this chapter is to provide the necessary background in order for this research to fulfil the aim of determining whether the preferential PR-STV electoral system is facilitating any erosion in the significance of ethno-national identities at election time, and therefore within wider society, in Northern Ireland.
