In Ireland all of the political parties represented in parliament support the political system in which priorities are set, decisions are made, infrastructure is positioned by way of campaigns which put pressure on the government/political class. They may differ on campaign issues and favoured interest groups but there is no opposition to the basic system.
This is not to say that the Irish political system is unique but it may be an extreme example of the exploitation of – to put it bluntly – gullible voters. Now, the successful UK Brexit campaign showed that this could work on a huge scale, i.e. Dominic Cummings and co. via Cambridge Analytica found out the issues which enthused masses of voters and told them that voting for Brexit was the best option for fixing their issues. In Ireland the same process is low tech, low numbers, local and involves delivery of stuff. Moreover, it’s far from new; in 70s and 80s Ireland when phone connections were scarce and in huge demand, it was common for candidates to tell voters that if elected, they could get them a phone.
Remember too when Shane Ross, a minister in Government “delivered” a local Garda Station for Stepaside (a town in his constituency). Well, in the town of Lucan another Minister, Frances Fitzgerald, was actively delivering a different cargo, a swimming pool. The Stepaside delivery provoked an outpouring of contrived disapproval. It was argued that reopening Stepaside Garda station was a disgraceful political stroke and no way to establish priorities in state provision. No such outrage was expressed over Lucan deliveries. Indeed a local on-line magazine sees delivery of cargo for the “local community” as the sole criterion when evaluating elected politicians.
Moreover, politicians are regarded as an undifferentiated group; political values or ideology simply don’t feature. Leaflets from potential candidates and elected representatives almost without exception talk about getting stuff and supporting campaigns to get stuff; an over-used slogan is, “Delivering for the people of Lucan”. All of these “deliverers” are fighting an “establishment” which it is feared is delivering elsewhere for rival citizens.*
As the majority of the citizens see it, ministers Ross and Fitzgerald were doing their job; they were operating the Irish political system of cargo/pressure. Now, Stepaside and Lucan are relatively prosperous areas and very likely have relatively well informed electorates. It’s not a simple case of deprived people tricked into “selling” their votes. They are people who agree with the proposition: “All politics is local”. They see no other way of prioritising or they have thought about politics and see the Irish system as preferable.
There remains, however, some sense of shame. If that were not so, the audience for ritual condemnation of “stroke politics” would be tiny, but there is no substantial, real opposition. Ireland has a functioning, conservative system, supported by the majority and one which no political party opposes.
The point is that emphasis on cargo politics, issues and serving gullible voters is a far cry from a meaningful republic.
It gets worse.
Ireland has regulated political lobbying and lobbyists. The idea was to take this shady activity and make it transparent. The lobbyists and their companies are of course pleased; they’ve been institutionalised (No, they’ve been quasi-constitutionalised.) made respectable and given professional status. They can say honestly that they are essential to the political system. In truth the reason a dodgy, undemocratic process of influence was not banned is that it IS integral to the accepted political system.
It gets worse still.
Many of those who would wield influence greater than that of a citizen consider themselves advocates and reject the idea that they are lobbyists. They argue that because their employers are not big business but charities, non-government agencies etc. and because their demands are praiseworthy, they are altogether different. Their demands are indeed different but in terms of wielding influence greater than that of a citizen, they are the same. Moreover, they are salaried professionals using their skill to operate within the system.
Then there’s the staff at independent statutory bodies. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) for example is charged among other things with advocating in favour of competition; it even has a Director of Advocacy.**
Do you think it couldn’t get worse?
At this point it becomes very, very serious because the cargo/pressure system has absorbed activists and they are not only happy about it, they even continue to believe they are anti-establishment. There might have been a time when a citizen motivated by political values or by an alternative view of what constitutes the good society, would join roughly like-minded people in a political party. The idea being to effect change by the parliamentary route. Today such a citizen would be decried as “establishment” and would likely face opposition to assuming the label, “activist”.
Political parties per se are now often rejected. That rejection reduces the likelihood that the orthodox will be challenged by a coherent view of a different good society. The experience now is of a tyranny of issues and if an issue is not recognised or if a citizen wants to talk about matters larger than issues, there is little chance of gaining a place within public discourse.
The label political activist today is generally accepted without question. People become political activists. Some are full time. Others mention it in their portmanteau of occupations which helps express an identity. It is assumed that they favour social justice and that they are anti-establishment.
The political activist of today selects issues but what they do next can seem quite strange. Yes, many become part of a campaigning group but they may join a political party. Now, if that party emphatically were not a party of government, it might make sense to see it as campaigning and anti-establishment. However, since even government ministers campaign, there is no compelling argument against an activist having membership of a governing party. The objective is always to force the establishment to concede on an issue which generally speaking and after a familiar struggle it does but without damaging the system. Following a concession or “victory over the establishment”, activists refocus and attention turns to another issue. It is a stable, conservative system and processing or resolving isolated issues constitutes orderly management.
The Irish system prefigured or was at least well prepared for the arrival of what some commentators see as a new form of democracy, a democracy changed so as to accommodate a near universal disdain for politics with citizens and politicians sharing what Peter Mair has called an ‘anti-political sentiment’.*** The term refers to the abandonment of any kind of universal objective and the decline of traditional forms of parties which represented such objectives. Reminiscent of polyarchy, this is nothing less than the replacement of the republican demos with shifting civil society groups and alliances, together with “rational” or “practical” approaches to policy – doing whatever works without recourse to divisive debate about values or long-term objectives.
Apart from occasional outbursts of mock outrage over stroke politics this all works very well and has widespread support. Conservatives see little change. Members of the government can campaign for cargo to be delivered to their constituency and their re-election may depend on it. The influence of the rich and powerful is now codified, transparent and quasi-constitutional. Charity can lobby for a bit more. Media can accommodate and aid the campaigning of the causes they favour. All can make demands without being asked at whose expense those demands should be satisfied. With almost everyone keen to be seen as anti-establishment, real dissent is rare and unlikely to be effective. On the left, revolution has been abandoned and working class has been reduced to a campaigning pressure group.
It could be argued that there that there is a need – a space – for at least one opposition party, to become meaningfully anti-establishment and oppose the present system. The risk to a party setting out on such a course is very real because the number of republican/participative citizens who oppose the established cargo/pressure system is unknown but whatever their number, they are unrepresented and they seldom, if ever, feature in public discourse.
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* A Cargo Cult is a group which believes that if proper ceremonies are performed, shipments of riches will be sent from heaven.
** https://www.ccpc.ie/consumers/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/10/Org-chart-Oct-2017.pdf
*** I’ve expanded on that here: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/ireland-is-a-leader-in-mairs-anti-political-sentiment/
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