Research Undertaken

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2007: Wrote a 60-page country paper on Ireland for a project of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) on policy regimes and poverty reduction. This paper forms part of a larger project seeking systematically to learn the lessons of the mix of macroeconomic and social policies that successfully reduced poverty in a range of countries around the world, and the institutional and political conditions that fostered this mix of policies. An early version of the paper on Ireland was presented at a seminar in Geneva in February 2007 and was published by UNRISD in early 2008.

2005-06: Co-edited with Maura Adshead (UL) and Michelle Millar (NUI Galway) a book entitled ‘Contesting the Irish State : Lessons from the Irish Case’ to be published by Manchester University Press in May 2008. Apart from the editors, contributors include Pat O’Connor (UL), Seán Ó Riain (NUI Maynooth), Mary Murphy (NUI Maynooth), Rory O’Donnell (NESC) and Joe Lee (Glucksmann Institute, NYU). Contributors read draft of their papers at a seminar in Limerick in September 2005.

2005-06: Co-edited with David Jacobson and Deiric Ó Broin a book entitled ‘Taming the Tiger: Social Exclusion in a  Globalised Ireland’ published by Tasc and New Island Books in 2006. This is a follow-up work to both editors’ previous book ‘In the Shadow of the Tiger’ (DCU Press, 1998) and includes some of the same contributors such as Dermot McCarthy (secretary to the Government). Other contributors examining changes in Irish society and their impacts for local government and the area-based partnership companies include Dr Terry McDonagh (NUI Galway), Maria Hegarty (of Equality Strategies), Mary Murphy (DCU), John Tierney (Dublin City Council), Deiric Ó Broin (NorDubCo) and Helen McGrath (DCU). The book consists of papers given at a seminar series organised by NorDubCo in conjunction with Tasc in DCU from September 2005 to January 2006.

2004-05: The role of civil society in poverty reduction in Central America:  This study, was undertaken in conjunction with the Instituto de Estudios Nicaraguenses (IEN) in Managua, Nicaragua is part of a wider research project being co-ordinated by the Centre for International Studies, DCU, and funded by the Advisory Board of Irish Aid (ABIA). The study surveys civil society organisations (CSOs) in the five republics of Central America to collect their views and analyses on their role in poverty reduction, identifying models of good practice, relations with donors, governments and other CSOs, and tracing the historical development of civil society in each of the republics (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua). Findings were presented at a series of seminars in the CIS in Dublin in November 2005 attended by partners from Managua , Dar es Salaam , Addis Ababa , Gothenburg and Aalborg . The full report is available on: http://www.dcu.ie/~cis/civilsociety.html

2003-05: Wrote a book entitled ‘Vulnerability and Violence: The Impact of Globalisation’ published by Pluto Press in January 2006 and launched by Professor Noam Chomsky in Dublin that month. This book argues that vulnerability is the distinctive impact globalisation is having on society and defines the concept as involving both an increase in risks and a weakening of people’s coping mechanisms. The book traces the growing use of the term by intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), it describes the increase in threats (financial, economic, social, political, environmental and personal) and the weakening of coping mechanisms (personal, human, social and environmental assets), and it traces these to the shifts of power from state to market associated with neoliberal globalisation as well as to the growing influence of commercialised media and the consumerist culture these promote. The book uses the work of Karl Polanyi to examine the significance for society of growing vulnerability and analyses through the lens of psychology and psychotherapy the human consequences involved. Its final two chapters examine the prospects for reversing growing vulnerability. Research for the book was funded through a research grant from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

2002: September to December: Consultancy contract with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to prepare a substantial paper (+30 pages) on ‘Economic Success and Social Vulnerability: Lessons for Latin America from the Celtic Tiger’ presented to a seminar of senior policy-makers from around Latin America in Santiago , November 2002, and subsequently published by CEPAL. 

2001: Grant of IR£12,000 from the National Committee for Development Education (NCDE) for research on a book on Latin America and globalisation to be written during a year’s sabbatical leave, 2001-02. 

2000: Contract with Sage Publications in the UK to write a textbook entitled Introduction to Latin America: Twenty-first Century Challenges which was published in 2003. 

1998-99: Consulting editor on international affairs for the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Irish Culture. 

1996: ‘The Impact of Neo-liberalism on Chilean Society’, a report for Irish development agency, Trócaire. 

1990: An evaluation of a project called Community Works, an organisation established in Dublin to help set up community co-operatives as a way of addressing the unemployment problem. The evaluation report was published in a limited edition in January 1991. 

1989: I was invited to join a group of six international researchers to produce a report on youth culture in the Swedish city of Vasteras , funded by the city council as a project to mark the city’s millennium in 1990. The report was published in Swedish and I was invited back in October 1990 to present my findings at an international conference.