Rethinking the Franchise Party: Adding the Ideological Dimension—The Irish Case

Attributing the label ‘franchise’ to parties that possess certain organisational characteristics, such as centralized authority at the national level combined with substantial autonomy at the local level, has become increasingly common. These franchise characteristics have been identified in parties in a wide variety of country cases, in party systems as diverse as those of Canada, Australia, Israel and Ireland. Drawing upon evidence from three original parliamentary surveys in the Republic of Ireland, this article seeks to expand our understanding of franchise parties by focusing on the ideological behaviour adopted by franchise parties at both the national and the candidate levels. An analysis of the Irish case suggests that, in addition to previously studied organisational characteristics, candidates from franchise parties enjoy an unusual degree of flexibility to vary their policy positions.