Ireland’s February 8th, 2020 national election ended in a virtual three-way tie between the dominant center right and center left parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and the historically marginalized populist party Sinn Fein. The Sinn Fein historically occupied a background role in Irish politics, shunned by a society still stinging at the memory of its that still remembers its role as the Irish Republic Army’s political mouthpiece during the devastating infamous decades-long bloody sectarian conflict with Northern Ireland. The devoutly nationalist, pro-reunification Sinn Fein nonetheless defied pundits’ assumptions that it languished on the nation’s political fringes by securing 22.3% of the vote. This performance leveled the playing field between Sinn Fein and Fine Gael and Fianna Fail which collected 22.4% and 22.2% of the vote, respectively. Ireland’s February 8th, 2020 election results stoked anxieties about the ranked-choice system’s capacity to seal off the electoral process from radical intrusions. Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole sounded a death knell for Irish politics’ fraying centrism and bipolar party system: “this we know and know full well: that old system is finished and it is not coming back any time soon.”
It is too early to definitively declare the death of “that old system” and the onset of democratic erosion in Ireland. Dynamism molds political orders’ metamorphosis. and backsliding is typically characterized as an incremental process that occurs along a spectrum. Ellen Lust and David Waldner conceive democratic backsliding as “a change in a combination of competitive electoral procedures, civil and political liberties, and accountability” that incite a “decline in the quality of democracy.” The Irish election signal a potential for a decline in democracy’s quality by giving Sinn Fein, a populist fringe party, a foothold in mainstream politics and entrapping the incumbent moderate government between its centrist priorities and tradition and the public’s growing affinity for populist, more radical voices. Ranked-choice voting’s inability to compensate for deepening public disenchantment with establishment politicians may create a breeding ground for democratic norms and institutions’ gradual corrosion.
The left-wing Sinn Fein, while not as blatantly destabilizing as Europe’s right-wing populist factions, is nonetheless a Trojan horse threatening to precipitate democratic erosion. The party’s ascension exposes and exploits the frailty of Ireland’s two party system, further complicates coalition building, and breeds the conditions for inflamed political polarization in a predominantly moderate state. Harvard University political scientists Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt emphasize the vitality of democratic gatekeeping in neutering populist threats to democracies’ structural and normative integrity. They assert in How Democracies Die that “successful gatekeeping requires that mainstream parties isolate and defeat extremist forces.” The two leading parties displayed desire to serve as gatekeepers by pledging to exclude Sinn Fein from a potential coalition government during the campaign cycle. Moreover, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail formed a coalition government following the 2016 elections, symptomatic of Irish politics’ collaborative modus operandi between ideologically opposed parties. However, the main parties’ failure to capture even a quarter of the vote strips the political center of the electoral leverage needed to justify shutting Sinn Fein out of the ruling coalition. Excluding Sinn Fein would pummel the mainstream parties’ legitimacy, already faltering due to public frustration with years of perceived stagnancy in economic development and infrastructure improvements. The parties’ promised exclusion of the populist party constitutes a disregard for what Sinn Fein’s supporters consider a fair outcome in a competitive, free election and the suppression of a party beholden to the “common will” rather than insider maneuvering..
While Ellen Lust and David Waldner argue, in making a case for democratic backsliding shapeshifting quality, that “apparently exclusionary measures can further democratization, allowing regime stability necessary for further strengthening,” it’s difficult to ascertain whether Sinn Fein’s rise signals a normal change in the political winds or an actual threat to Irish democracy’s long-term health. Thus, excluding the party from a coalition, while a responsible means of democatic preservation in many cases, may not justify imperiling the Irish public’s faith in the government to faithfully execute elections and honor the norm of top performing parties forming an inclusive coalition. By divorcing coalition government-building from accountability to the electorate, edging Sinn Fein out of the ruling coalition could disincentivize the public from actively participating in future elections or trusting the government to remain faithful to norms, such as honoring electoral results. Yale political scientist Robert A. Dahl, albeit tussling with an idealized rather than real-life manifestation of democracy, theorized, “a key characteristic of democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered political equals.” Fine Gael and Fianna Fail’s proposed exclusion of Sinn Fein qualifies as lackluster responsiveness, and thus accountability, to the population. Ironically, mainstream attempts to preserve the government’s long-term immunity from more extreme radical influence would constitute an encroachment on conventional democratic norms.
The structural buffer offered by ranked-choice voting failed to suppress fringe opinions’ influence in the Irish general elections. However, formalized institutions only fulfill their intended functions if reinforced by complementary norms. Robert Lieberman pinpoints norms’ core purpose as “binding political leaders to routinized patterns of behavior and instilling in citizens expectations about how democratic governance is to be carried out. ” Ranked-choice voting’s supporters trumpet as a salve to electorate polarization and fragmentation, both insidious catalysts for democratic erosion by weakening politicians and the public’s commitment to preserving democratic norms over partisan “winning.” Dahl exposed the fundamental tension between political polarization and a cooperative government by mulling “the greater the conflict between government and opposition, the more likely that each will seek to deny opportunities to the other to participate effectively in policymaking.” Thus, ranked-choice voting can structurally impede democratic erosion by creating a political climate incompatible with tribalism that encourages prioritization of party success over responsiveness to the general population.
The public’s intensifying disenchantment with the moderate mainstream weakens the centrist norms that generally discourage Irish from voting for radical candidates en masse. Sinn Fein successfully campaigned as a harbinger of change, following the well-worn populist road of posturing itself as a tonic to a sick and malfunctioning establishment. Therefore, it leaves the elites with little outright choice but to co-opt the populist voice into government. The public still expects the government to fulfill its normative obligation to facilitate collaboration between different political ideologies, even if populism historically proves itself capable of slowly unraveling democracy from the inside. The Irish government must strike a delicate balance between honoring and reinforcing norms that furnish Ireland’s democracy while attempting to avoid co-opting a populist voice that, albeit seemingly open to compromise, may prove unpredictable and hostile to the existing democratic regime. It’s a tricky situation whose paths fail to illuminate a clear destination.
Works Cited
Beggin, Riley. “Irish Election Yields a Three-Way near Tie – and a Sinn Féin Surge.” Vox, Vox, 9 Feb. 2020, www.vox.com/world/2020/2/9/21130167/irish-election-results-tie-sinn-fein-fine-gael-fianna-fail.
Dahl, Robert. 1972. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chapter 1.
Fortin, Jacey. “Why Ranked-Choice Voting Is Having a Moment.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/us/politics/ranked-choice-voting.html.
Laurent, Lionel. “Ireland Brings New Twist to Populism.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 2020, www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-10/ireland-brings-new-twist-to-populism-in-european-union.
Levitsky, Steven & Daniel Ziblatt. (2018). How Democracies Die. New York: Crown.
Lieberman, Robert C., Suzanne Mettler, Thomas B. Pepinsky, Kenneth M. Roberts, & Richard Valelly. “Trumpism and American Democracy: History, Comparison, and the Predicament of Liberal Democracy in the United States.” Working paper.
Lust, Ellen and David Waldner. 2015. Unwelcome Change: Understanding, Evaluating, and Extending Theories of Democratic Backsliding. Washington, DC: USAID. pp. 1-15.
I agree with your concerns about the Irish parliamentary elections. While the Sinn Fein party has many significant differences from the typical far-rights political party in Europe, the role it is currently playing in Irish politics is the same. Regardless of whether or not the Sinn Fein party is incorporated into the next governing coalition in Ireland, it has already significantly disrupted the Irish political system with its shockingly strong showing, an event which will likely reverberate for years to come. This is exactly what William A. Galston warned about in his book “The Populist Challenge to Liberal Democracy”. The threat posed by the Sinn Fein party towards democracy in Ireland is not nearly as immediately severe as elsewhere in Europe, but it has serious long-term implications that should leave anyone who cares about liberal democracy feeling deeply concerned.
The situation in Ireland is unusual, as the Sinn Fein party is on the far-left of the political spectrum, rather than being on the far-right like most disruptors. It also lacks the authoritarian tendencies of most far-right political parties. However, while the specifics of its political ideology differ from the far-right parties causing chaos all across Europe, they are spiritually one and the same. Like the far-right, the Sinn Fein party rails against the status quo, insisting that more mainstream parties have failed the people of Ireland and that they must be thrown out fo power in favor of new, more radical leadership. Sinn Fein also has a checkered past. Much like France National Front and its ties to Nazi sympathizers, the Sinn Fein party previously served as the mouthpiece for the Irish Republican Army during The Troubles, something which had previously made it unelectable. Speaking of The Troubles, the Sinn Fein party openly campaigned on reunification between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, an extremely contentious issue that will lead to much strife in the coming years as Brexit plays out. Like the far-right, Sinn Fein surge signals a growing disillusionment with mainstream political parties among voters as well as a weakening of the country’s institutions, both of which are warning signs of democratic erosion.
All of this is a recipe for disaster and an indication that gate keeping has failed in Ireland. While Ireland has numerous parties other than the Finn Gael and Fianna Fail parties, in practice those two were previously the only two parties with any viability, essentially making Ireland a two party system, which is meant to crowd out more extreme views and political parties. That has changed now with Sinn Fein’s surge.
While it is not clear exactly what the next government will look like, it is more likely than not that Sinn Fein will be apart of it, despite the fact that both mainstream parties have previously pledged to not enter into a coalition with it. In her paper “New Alliances: Why Mainstream Parties Govern with Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties,” Sarah DeLange outlines the reasons why mainstream parties in Europe are forced to ally themselves with more radical parties. These reasons include: pressure to honor the results of an election, as it could provoke a backlash among voters if a party that gets a significant amount of votes is shut out of the government altogether; a desire to remain in power no matter what; and being closer to the radical party in terms of policy ideas than the more mainstream opposition party. While DeLange was obviously talking about right-wing parties, the same principal applies here. Additionally, the collapse of the governing coalition between Finn Gael and Fianna Fail is what caused the most recent election in the first place, making a new coalition between the two highly unlikely. In fact, the messy and public nature of the fallout between Finn Gael and Fianna Fail likely contributed to the feeling of disillusionment that caused the Sinn Fein surge. All of these factors make a scenario where Sinn Fein ends up in a governing coalition more likely.
The only thing that is certain about Ireland’s political future is that nothing will ever be the same. Sinn Fein is almost certainly here to stay as a major electoral contender. If the mainstream parties cut it out of any coalition negotiations, there will be outrage and an eventual electoral backlash from voters. If Finn Gael or Fianna Fail (more likely the latter due DeLange’s policy alignment theory), does form a coalition with Sinn Fein, it will send a shockwave through the Irish political system and potentially unleash chaos in the region. Both of these options would be extremely destabilizing, but it seems like one of them will come to fruition, All we can hope for now is that whichever option is the least destabilizing is the one that gets chosen. The future is looking very unclear in Ireland.