ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the reasons why people vote the way that they do. Significant electoral volatility in the 2010s and 2020s raise important questions about the changing nature of Irish voting behaviour. The chapter explores the main theories of voting behaviour and evaluates them in the light of the evidence concerning recent Irish voter behaviour: the sociological model, the psycho-sociological model and the rational choice model. It considers the role of government, leaders and local candidates as well as the decision whether or not to vote at all. The chapter uses extensive polling and electoral data to draw conclusions about the choices made by individual voters. We find that the role of social change, the decline of party identification and economic factors all play a significant part in the changing nature of voter decisions in Ireland, which have become slightly more easily predicted by sociological and rational choice models than has historically been the case.
