In the article, published in Icelandic,  Gudmundur Jonsson argues that consensus politics is not an apt description of the political reality in Iceland in the second half of the 20th century. Relations on the labour market have been marked by conflict and strikes have been one of the most frequent in Europe. Strained relations between government and trade unions can largely been explained by the political weakness of the pro-labour parties and the strength the right-wing Independence Party and the Progressive Party. Corporatism developed therefore late and only in limited areas of policy. Lastly, majority governments have been a rule and the pressure to seek for broad cooperation between government and opposition has therefore not been as great.