Explaining Irish Development

Abstract

A number of studies of Irish industrial development examine the interaction of political power and economic strategy as the primary explanatory variables accounting for the successes and failures of the Irish industrial growth experience. While many of these studies focus attention on the links between state and market, some of them examine development in exclusively economic terms and negate the influence of politics on developmental outcomes (Barry, 1999; Sachs, 1998). Other works explore the historical and economic processes that operated to consistently confine political possibilities and the state’s potential to promote development (O’Hearn, 1998, 2001). Alternatively, a number of theorists outline the central causes of industrial developmental change in Ireland in terms of the performance of the Irish state. Although they vary in their explanations of the mechanisms adopted by the state in promoting developmental growth, they all present the state as a central explanatory variable in the changes that have occurred in Ireland (Adeshead et al., 2008; Boyle, 2005; Kirby, 2002, 2010; O’Connell & Ó Riain, 2000; O’Donnell, 1999, 2008; O’Malley, 1989, 1992, 1998; Ó Riain, 2004, 2008, 2010; Smith, 2005). A number of these works offer viable frameworks to account for the socio-economic backdrop or context within which Irish tourism was expected to develop.