Iain McMenamin has been awarded an IRCHSS fellowship
Tuesday 1 April 2008

Iain McMenamin

Iain McMenamin has been awarded an IRCHSS (Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences) Government of Ireland Research Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. He is the first DCU recipient of this award.

The fellowship will allow Iain to devote his time to the writing of a book on 'Follow the Money: Business Contributions and Political Parties'.

According to Iain, business contributions form a substantial part of the income of most of the world's political parties. "These contributions are the subject of great public interest and controversy in many countries. However, very little is known about what drives these contributions. Why, for example, do some businesses contribute to political parties while others do not? Why do contributing businesses choose to target these payments to one particular party or split them amongst parties? Mine will be the first systematic comparative study of this important issue and I will use official databases from Germany, Canada, and Australia".

The work will build on ten years of research into business-government relations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Australia and other countries.