The Brian Farrell book prize

The executive committee of the PSAI has decided to name its annual book award, The Brian Farrell book prize, in honour of Prof. Farrell's long distinguished contribution to the study of politics in Ireland both as an academic and broadcaster.

The PSAI awards an annual prize for the best book published in political science by a member of the Political Studies Association of Ireland. The prize is awarded each year at the annual conference.

The competition is open to single-authored and jointly-authored books written by PSAI members and published in the previous year. Nominations for the book prize are sought each year in May.

Previous Winners
The PSAI is delighted to award the 2012 Brian Farrell book prize to Russell J. Dalton, David M. Farrell and Ian McAllister for their book Political Parties and Democratic Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy published by Oxford University Press in 2011. The committee agreed that work represented an outstanding contribution to political research meriting this year’s book prize.

This comprehensive volume assesses the central role of political parties in representative democracies. Using data drawn from the cross national Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey, the authors have examined how parties link the individual citizen to the formation of governments and then to government policies. The book is divided into three broad sections which explore firstly, parties and election campaign, second the role of parties in electoral choice and finally, parties in government. Decisively, the volume concludes that political parties are alive and well and continue to operate at the core of modern democracies, dispelling the idea of terminal decline in parties. The work presents compelling arguments that political parties are adaptable institutions which have evolved and reshaped in line with changes in political systems and the authors conclude that ‘modern democracy is synonymous with political parties.