Thursday 21 May 2015

Ireland - same-sex marriage referendum 2015 academic research resources

Ireland will hold a referendum on 22 May on a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which would permit same sex marriage. Use these links to trace useful academic resources for research.
Referendum Commission has the official text of the question and spells out the changes to the constitution.

News sites.
BBC introduction and news stories.
Irish Times Ipso poll  May 2015 scroll down for questions on same-sex marriage. this discusses the voting intention by age, gender and class as well as considering the issue of children's right which has been a key issue in the campaigns. Main news coverage.
RTE news and coverage. 
News Statesman

Pro - campaigns and statements.
Irish Times editorial
Amnesty International
Barnados
Law Society of Ireland
Fine Gael political party support

Marriage Equality - a grass roots NGO. website is supporters of the Yes Equality campaign.
and the Selfies for Yes social media campaign through the launch of a Yes Equality App.
Belong to Yes- nationwide coalition of leading youth and children’s organisations campaigning for a YES vote

Social media pro campaigns
Yes equality
Mrs Brown for yes equality Youtube
Yes Equality facebook.
Mashable has photographs of pro murals

Anti- Campaign
Keep Marriage supported by Mothers and Fathers Matter.
Iona Institute
Meaning of Marriage Irish Catholic  Bishops conference 
Facebook

Tuesday 12 May 2015

Polish presidential elections 2015

Polish presidential elections have been going on this week.
Euronews has a quick guide on everything you need to know!

On the LSE EUROPP blog Aleks Szczerbiak predicted a close result.The Polish Politics blog has further in-depth analysis from him of the issues at stake.
European Election Monitor has some analysis from the Robert Schumann Centre which examines the importance of the election and its political background.

Electoral system and previous elections.
National Election Commission Poland - results in Polish only.
ACE Project also has background papers and results in English. this includes sumaries of electoral laws and recent articles.

News summaries.
Political news in English from
Radio Poland
New York Times.
Guardian
School of Slavonic and East European studies links to Polish language websites.


Assessments
OSCE observation reports assess the state of democracy and conduct of the elections.
European Platform for Democratic elections.
Silba


Monday 11 May 2015

UK election postmortem.

Last week in our scoop.it page  we collected statements in support of political groups from newspapers.
who did the Economist think should govern Britain?
the sunday express endorsed UKIP
the Observer Labour

This week election post-mortem.
examining the problems with the polls.
examples include: IPSO statement
British Polling Council statement
YouGov post-mortme