Culminations of complexity

Abstract

Political discourse in the Norwegian welfare state is characterized by the ambition to establish and secure universal welfare. In comparative terms, it has been quite successful in translating utopian goals to practical politics. The modernization of Norway, more so than most other western countries, has nourished a shared sense of politics as a collective activity and as the privileged tool for the realization of humanistic goals. The article attempts to show how this presumably salient element of Norwegian political culture developed as a part of the extraordinary continuity, characterizing both economic growth and the strengthening of a sense of political community, transcending the divisive effects of class differences. The contemporary version of local political discourse in Norway, while keeping the ambition of universal welfare very much alive, is faced with severe overload problems. Thus, local politicians, responsible as they are — both ideologically and institutionally — for providing welfare for the local population, find themselves simultaneously deeply involved in attempts to control swelling budgets and act according to the ideals of rational organizational management. These politicians think and act within an institutional field that, probably more so than most other such fields in modern society, is characterized by deep contradictions. By focusing on the complexity of the ideological and institutional field of local politics, the article demonstrates not only that this particular field absorbs contradictions, but that it transforms political activity and the politicians' sense of self in specific ways. Politicians often experience a sense of personal fragmentation as they attempt to represent their constituencies and `the weak ones in society', develop policies, represent the state's budget reduction requirements, control the municipal organization, while remaining loyal both to the bureaucracy and their sense of moral self. The concept of complexity helps to illuminate the ways in which the cleavages of early industrial society have `migrated', as it were, from the realm of political collectivities to the level of the self.