| Review of: | Explaining Irish Democracy by Bill Kissane |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Fearghal McGarry |
| Reviewed in: | Political Studies Review |
| Date accepted online: | 04/03/2004 |
| Published in print: | Volume 1, Issue 2, Pages 196-301 |
Britain and Ireland
Of all the 'successor' states created in the wake of the First World War, the Irish Free State was the only one to remain fully democratic. Kissane evaluates the merits of a range of potential explanations for Irish democratic stability in this excellent political study. He argues that Ireland was not immune from the pressures which led to the collapse of democracy elsewhere, but that the preconditions for democracy (an ethnically homogenous and well-educated population residing within a comparatively urban, modern society with relatively equitable land distribution) were favourable. Such factors explain the establishment of Irish democracy, but not its interwar consolidation. The Irish political elite made the most of its circumstances. Cumann na nGaedheal's achievements included establishing an impartial civil service and police force and peacefully conceding power to its enemies less than a decade after civil war. De Valera's subsequent constitutional reforms (and Britain's relatively benign attitude towards them) legitimized the state in the eyes of republicans and achieved what Cosgrave could not: the reconciliation of majority rule and popular sovereignty.
This book's strengths include its ambitious combination of political theory and historical research in a firmly comparative European context. Given its breadth, there are inevitable gaps. The importance of the emergence of civil society in nineteenth-century Ireland, particularly in its elite forms, receives sustained analysis, but the separatist tradition during the same period receives little attention despite its influence upon the Free State's political elite. This may be due to the author's focus on comparative political science rather than Irish political consciousness. Similarly, the attempts to analyse the chaotic events (if not the distinctive mentalities) of 1922 in terms of political theorists such as di Palma, while sometimes illuminating, is not always convincing. This is an original and important contribution to our understanding of Irish politics.