‘Rewarding the Wealthy’ versus ‘Looking After the Poor’: Affective Perception of ‘Right’ and ‘Left’ by Candidates in the 2007 Irish General Elections

This research examines cross?party patterns of affective perception of the concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’ by candidates in the 2007 Irish general election. This is done using original data collected in the 2007 Irish module of the Comparative Candidate Studies Project. The authors code candidates' responses to an open?ended question which asks them to describe what the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ mean to them in contemporary politics as indicating either antipathy, neutrality or sympathy. They present a replicable methodology for measurement of this variable. They then analyse the cross?party distribution of affective responses in the Irish system in the light of party positioning on the left–right dimension.