Understanding the Consequences of Gendered Political Violence: the Case of the Republic of Ireland

This paper investigates the consequences of violence (harassment, intimidation, threats and abuse) against politicians in the Republic of Ireland. As an advanced democracy with low levels of women’s political representation, a candidate-centred electoral system (PR-STV), and historically conservative political culture, Ireland represents a context where such political violence is has the opportunity to take place. In a survey conducted as part of The Cost of Doing Politics: Gender Aspects of Political Violence project (Research Council of Norway Project No. 300618), we find that political violence in the Republic of Ireland is gendered (Buckley, Keenan & Mariani, 2025). In comparison to men, women running in the 2019 local and 2020 general elections in Ireland experienced political violence more often, were more frequently subjected to psychological violence, and were more likely to experience violence with sexual connotations. The data also suggests that the consequences of experiencing such violence are gendered. Women were more likely to say that their political engagement had made them feel afraid, and that that they would be less likely to run for office in future. However, women representatives (those who were successfully elected) exhibited similar levels of political ambition to their male counterparts, suggesting that the consequences of political violence are likely to vary within groups as well as between them. Building on this work, we investigate the consequences of political violence for those who experience it. First, we explore whether such consequences are gendered. We hypothesise that men in politics benefit from gender power arrangements (Duerst-Lahti & Kelly, 1995) and interpersonal resources (homosocial capital) (Bjarnegård, 2013) which combine to confer positional power (Verge & Claveira, 2023), mediating both the extent and consequences of political violence (the “band of brothers” hypothesis). Second, we hypothesise that while women politicians may not enjoy the same degree of positional power as their male counterparts (see Martínez-Cantó & Verge, 2023), elected women have the opportunity to accrue such power. We therefore hypothesise that compared with unelected or junior politicians, women with seniority and long political careers (Muriaas & Stavenes, 2023) will be better insulated from the consequences of political violence (the political office hypothesis). We test these hypotheses by conducting interviews with men and women who have previously run for office in the Republic of Ireland. Interviewees vary with respect to the office they contested (local or national), electoral success (elected or unelected), and career stage (new entrant, mid-career, retired). We supplement this data with analysis of the political careers of interviewees, compiled using archival methods.