Britishness, Irishness and Party Systems in Flux

In this chapter, we look to develop the book’s theme of institutions (and their relationship with identities and constitutional futures) by examining the changing nature of one particularly consequential set of institutions: the party system(s) in the UK and Ireland. Here, we take party systems to be the “particular pattern[s] of competitive and cooperative interactions displayed by…given set[s] of political parties” (Webb and Bale 2021: 1). Across these islands, these systems are in a state of flux, in a way which mirrors, reproduces and drives debates about both identity and the constitutional future. Asking how parties have navigated heightened national and territorial contention, we explore how their efforts have influenced (and been influenced by) the trajectory of Britishness and Irishness as political identities.