Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 57 No. 1, 93–107 © Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government 2004; all rights reserved 10.1093/pa/gsh008 Political Mediation in Ireland: Campaigning Between Traditional and Tabloid Markets BY NEIL COLLINS AND PATRICK BUTLER POLITICS in Ireland shares some of the ‘malaise’ characteristics of other western democracies in relation to the mediation of the politician to the citizen. Commentators suggest that the Irish, like others, are increasingly disengaged from politics, frequently displaying low levels of knowledge about their democratic institutions, and routinely effect a mistrust of government leaders. The changing nature of the Irish media is to blame, say critics, as market forces seem to dictate a more sensationalist and shallow press, as well as a style of broadcast interviewing and reporting that pitches the journalist as champion critic and the politician as artful dodger. Almost as culpable are the political marketers with their emphasis on politics as spin rather than substance. An alterative pers- pective, typifes the accounts of so-called media malaise as ‘claiming that common practices in political communications by the news media and party campaigns hinder civic engagement’. 1 This malaise inhibits citizens learning about public affairs, trust in government and political activism. It is true that participation in Ireland as measured by turnout at elections is declining and that trust in politicians has been severely dented by the revelations about corruption of recent years. Nevertheless, politics remains a focus of huge public interest, with current affairs chat shows, newspaper readership and audience fgures for news and political analysis relatively steady. Furthermore, Irish politicians still rely on other traditional forms for mediation that are either in decline elsewhere or are afforded little signifcance in the literature on larger political systems. That is, the mediation of politicians in Ireland reFects broader trends but is modifed by the impact of both the particular political system and the structure of the national and local media. International observers may feel familiar with Irish politics because the vocabulary is the same as that of the UK. Indeed, the political insti- tutions of the Republic are, for the most part, based on the Westminster model. Each of the institutions referred to in the Irish Constitution — the presidency, the Oireachtas (parliament), the government and the courts— is given specifc powers, to be exercised in accordance with the general principles of a British-style parliamentary democracy. This can lead commentators to assume a greater degree of similarity between the politics of the Republic and those of the UK than actually exists. The Constitution does, however, have some signifcant features not found in