Iceland and the Nordic Model of Consensus Democracy

Abstract

The Nordic countries – including Iceland – have been portrayed in the political-science literature as consensual democracies, enjoying a high degree of legitimacy and institutional mechanisms which favour consensus-building over majority rule and adversarial politics. In this explorative article the author argues that consensus politics, meaning policy concertation between major interest groups in society, a tendency to form broad coalitions in important political issues and a significant cooperation between government and opposition in Parliament, is not an apt term to describe the political reality in Iceland during the second half of the 20th century. Icelandic democracy is better described as more adversarial than consensual in style and practice. The labour market was rife with conflict and strikes more frequent than in Europe, resulting in strained government–trade union relationship. Secondly, Iceland did not share the Nordic tradition of power-sharing or corporatism as regards labour market policies or macro-economic policy management, primarily because of the weakness of Social Democrats and the Left in general. Thirdly, the legislative process did not show a strong tendency towards consensus-building between government and opposition with regard to government seeking consultation or support for key legislation. Fourthly, the political style in legislative procedures and public debate in general tended to be adversarial rather than consensual in nature.

Keywords:

• Nordic consensus democracy
• conflict politics
• corporatism
• Icelandic democracy

Notes

1. Elder and Arter, The Consensual Democracies?; Lijphart, Democracies; Hilson, The Nordic Model. Some scholars, however, take a critical view of the term ‘Nordic model of consensual democracy’. In Democracy in Scandinavia, Arter regards the Nordic political systems not as consensual democracies; they are all majoritarian democracies, he argues, which display varying degrees of consensual legislative practice – see e.g. p. 21. Discussing ‘the Nordic model’ in a broader sense, including political as well as social and economic arrangements, Lars Mjøset is reluctant to use the term ‘model’ although he acknowledges a number of peculiarites that the Nordic states have in common; see Mjøset, ‘The Nordic Model Never Existed’.

2. Petersson, The Government and Politics of the Nordic Countries, 33–4.

3. Similar views on some of these aspects have been presented lately in a number of Icelandic studies, albeit with somewhat different emphases and explanatory framework. See especially Óskarsdóttir, ‘The Use of Incomes Policies’; Guðmundsdóttir, Íslenskur vinnumarkaður á umbrotatímum; Óskarsdóttir, ‘Meirihluti og margræði’; Þórhallsson, ‘The Corporatist Model’.

4. Arter, Democracy in Scandinavia, 5.

5. Rainio-Niemi, ‘Small State Cultures of Consensus’, 41–2.

6. Rainio-Niemi, ‘Small State Cultures of Consensus’, 41–8; MacRae, ‘Contrasting Styles of Democratic Decision-Making’, 279–95.

7. See e.g. Schmitter, ‘Still the Century of Corporatism?’, 85–131; Lehmbruch and Schmitter, Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making; Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets.

8. See e.g. Lehmbruch, ‘A Non-Competitive Pattern’; Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation.

9. Lijphart, Democracies; Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy; Lijphart: ‘Consensus and Consensus Democracy’.

10. Lijphart, Democracies, especially chapter 13; Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, especially chapter 14. See also Lijphart, ‘Consensus and Consensus Democracy’, 102–3.

11. Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, 246–50. For a good review of Lijphart’s analysis and of consociationalism in general, see Andeweg, ‘Consociational Democracy’.

12. Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, chapter 15.

13. See e.g. Hilson, The Nordic Model, chapter 1 and the sources cited there; Petersson, The Government and Politics of the Nordic Countries.

14. Elder et al., The Consensual Democracies?, 190.

15. Elder et al., The Consensual Democracies?, chapter 1.

16. Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, 246–57; Elder et al., The Consensual Democracies?, 172–80.

17. Kristjánsson, ‘Conflict and Consensus’, 171–2.

18. Magnússon, ‘The Icelandic Althingi and its Standing Committees’, 168.

19. The high strike incidence in Iceland goes further back. In the period 1960–1964, on average 1,706 days per 1,000 employees were lost per year, cf. Ólafsson, The Modernization in Iceland, 335.

20. See e.g. Gunnarsson, ‘Sveiflur í landsframleiðslu’; Andersen and Guðmundsson, Inflation and Disinflation in Iceland.

21. OECD Economic Surveys, 62. The sample covers the period 1970–1987.

22. Ursua and Barro, ‘Macroeconomic Crises’, 51, 56.

23. See e.g. Ólafsson, ‘Icelandic Capitalism’; Sigurjónsson, ‘National Sovereignty’; Mjøset, ‘Nordic Economic Policies in the 1970s and 1980s’.

24. Ólafsson, ‘Variations within the Scandinavian Model’; Guðmundsson and Friðriksson, ‘Klassesamarbejde i Island’; Jónsson, ‘The Icelandic Welfare State’.

25. See e.g. Óskarsdóttir, ‘The Use of Incomes Policies’, especially chapters 5 and 7.

26. Korpi and Shalev, ‘Strikes’, 172.

27. See e.g. Kristjánsson, Frá flokksræði til persónustjórnmála, 179–82.

28. Kristjánsdóttir, Nýtt fólk.

29. The first purely left-wing government in Iceland was formed by the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Greens in 2009; it won an absolute majority in elections held in April 2009, which took place in the shadow of the biggest economic crisis in the post-war period.

30. In the period 1941–1970 the Social Democrats in Sweden polled on average 48% of the vote, in Denmark 39% and the Labour Party in Norway 46%. After 1970 their strength diminished somewhat; Social Democrats in Sweden gained on average 42% of the vote 1972–2007, in Denmark 32%, in Norway 35%. In Finland, the Social Democrats commanded around a quarter of the vote in the latter half of the century. See Arter, Scandinavian Politics Today, 73.

31. Again, Finland has more in common with Iceland than the other Nordic countries in the decades following the Second World War with regard to the weakness of Social Democracy, deep cleavage between the Right and the Left and undeveloped corporatism. The development of consensus-orientated political culture in Finland and Austria after 1945 is examined in Rainio-Niemi, ‘Small State Cultures of Consensus’.

32. Scholars tend to see the 1930s as the formative period of corporatism and ‘consensual’ politics; see for example Maier, ‘Preconditions for Corporatism’; Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets; Petersson, The Government and Politics of the Nordic Countries; Hilson, The Nordic Model; Rothstein, ‘Explaining Swedish Corporatism’.

33. Kristjánsson, Corporatism in Iceland?, 11–14; Kristinsson, Jónsson, and Sveinsdóttir, Atvinnustefna, 43–5; Þórhallsson and Vignisson, ‘Life is First and Foremost Saltfish’, 78–86. On different degrees of corporatism, see e.g. Lehmbruch, ‘Concertation and the Structure of Corporatist Networks’.

34. Kristjánsson, Corporatism in Iceland?, 9–10; Óskarsdóttir, ‘The Use of Incomes Policies’; Sigurðsson, ‘Upphaf “félagsmálapakka”’.

35. See also Þórhallsson, ‘The Corporatist Model’; Guðmundsdóttir, Íslenskur vinnumarkaður, especially 236–64; Ólafsson, ‘Icelandic Capitalism’.

36. Arter, Scandinavian Politics Today, 231.

37. Arter, Democracy in Scandinavia, 6; Rasch, ‘Parliamentary Government’.

38. Magnússon, ‘Samþætting meginvaldþátta ríkisins’, 341.

39. The longest serving minority government lasted only 11 months, cf. Óskarsdóttir, ‘Þingmeirihluti og einkenni ríkisstjórna’, 295.

40. Magnússon, ‘Samþætting meginvaldþátta ríkisins’, 323–60, 343–5.

41. Magnússon, ‘Samþætting meginvaldþátta ríkisins’, chapter 12.

42. See e.g. Damgaard, ‘Parliament and Government’, 275. It must be noted, however, that the great majority of bills passed by the Alþingi in 1932–2008 was passed without opposition, cf. Magnússon, ‘Samþætting valdaþáttanna og hlutverk Alþingis’, 370.

43. Jensen, ‘Party Cohesion’, 228–31.

44. Magnússon, ‘Samþætting valdaþáttanna og hlutverk Alþingis’, 408.

45. This has prompted several parliamentary motions to change the standing orders regarding debates.

46. See e.g. ‘Smávegis’: 248; Lögberg, 25 January 1934: 2; Stefánsson, ‘Sjálfstæðismálið’: 4; Morgunblaðið, 5 November 1944: 7; Morgunblaðið, 7 November 1951: 6; Þjóðviljinn, 21 September 1955: 6; Alþýðublaðið, 10 October 1967: 16; Morgunblaðið, 2 November 1963: 48. Since the 1960s the issue of the adversarial character of Icelandic politics has emerged from time to time but never as forcefully as 2003–2007 with criticism of the divisive and destructive partisan politics, which many commentators linked to the long reign of the Independence Party, and again during the economic crises of 2008–2011.

47. Hermannsson, ‘Einkenni Íslendinga’, 29.

48. See e.g. Suðurland, 17 February 1912: 147–8; Östrup, ‘Reykjavík’; ‘Íslendingar’; Bluhme, ‘Ísland’.

49. Jensdóttir Harðarson, Anglo-Icelandic Relations during the First World War, 34.

50. Kjartansson, Ísland á 20. öld, 162–3. See also Magnússon, ‘Samþætting valdaþáttanna og hlutverk Alþingis’, 403–8.

51. Kristinsson, ‘Clientelism in a Cold Climate’; Kristinsson, ‘Valdakerfið fram til viðreisnar 1900–1959’.

52. Kristjánsson, Ræður og riss, 114.

53. Lijphart and Crepaz, ‘Corporatism and Consensus Democracy’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Guðmundur Jónsson

Guðmundur Jónsson (b. 1955) is Professor of History at the University of Iceland. He is currently participating in a research project entitled ‘How Does Democracy Work in Iceland? Practices, Norms and Understanding.’ He has published widely on the 19th-century and 20th-century social, political and economic history of Iceland, including economic growth, economic policy, consumption, the welfare state and Iceland’s European policy. His publications include: ‘The Icelandic Welfare State in the Twentieth Century’, Scandinavian Journal of History 26, no. 3 (2001); ‘Efnahagskreppur á Íslandi 1870–2000’ [Economic Crises in Iceland, 1870–2000], Saga 47, no. 1 (2009); ‘Coming to Terms with Europe. Iceland’s Entry into EFTA and Its Implications’, EFTA 1960–2010 (Reykjavík, 2010); ‘The Impossible Dream: Transferring the Danish Agricultural Model to Iceland’, in Alan S. Milward and a Century of Change (New York, 2012); and ‘Icelandic Consumers in Boom and Crisis’ (with Magnús Sveinn Helgason), in Retrenchment or Renewal? Welfare States in Times of Economic Crisis (Helsinki, 2013).