Norwegian Party Research Articles

Giving content to new politics

The concept of New Politics is rarely translated into actual political measures differentiated from measures of Old Politics. This article presents a new approach to the categorization of policy measures as either leftist or rightist on an Old Politics or New Politics dimension. The approach is tested on climate policies expressed in the electoral manifestos of four Norwegian parties considered to be representative of the Old Left, Old Right, New Left or New Right. The analysis suggests that it is possible to incorporate actual politics in the hypothesis on New Politics. The article’s main contribution is theoretical rather than empirical, but evidence is presented that points to New Politics as an addition to Old Politics, rather than as a replacement or New Politics being absorbed by Old Politics.

Inside the Black Box: Parties as Multi-level Organisations in a Unitary State

This article addresses the issue of how parties organise and work across territory in unitary states. Concentrating on policy-making in Norway, it provides a multi-dimensional description of intra-party links and power relations. Norwegian parties tend to be well-integrated, partially governed bottom-up, rather centralised, and to allow significant local autonomy. Hence, the findings support the hypothesis that non-hierarchical elements might develop within parties in unitary, as well as federal, settings. However, the parties examined are still quite far from the stratarchical imperative described in Katz and Mair’s cartel party thesis, and the documented degree of vertical integration and, to a lesser extent, centralisation corresponds to the unitary nature of the state. The article briefly speculates on what might explain the somewhat conflicting nature of Norwegian party organisations. Finally, this case study demonstrates that territorial relationships within parties potentially include a complex web of both formal links and informal interactions.

Still Broadcasting the Campaign: On the Internet and the Fragmentation of Political Communication with Evidence from Norwegian Electoral Politics

ABSTRACT This article addresses the fragmentation of political communication in the context of Norwegian election campaigns. The fragmentation thesis refers to two distinguishable, interrelated tendencies: New technology providing incentives to tailor campaign communication to specific voter categories, and the audience fragment due to increasing number of media outlets. The consequence is asserted to be fragmented voter agendas. The findings undermine the fragmentation thesis as a general tendency. Norwegian parties hardly use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to multi-tailor campaign messages to different voter categories. The voters who considered online sources important for electoral information also identified traditional sources as important. Furthermore, the analysis offers no evidence that the voter agenda has fragmented over time, and online voters are preoccupied with the same issues as the rest of the electorate. The article addresses how both general countervailing forces as well as context-specific factors such as aspects of the law and the lack of existing practices concerning voter targeting curb the push towards fragmentation. Moreover, the campaign coverage in advanced democracies is proposed as a general constraint towards fragmentation of campaign communication.

Captain Scott's last camp, Ross Ice Shelf

On 19 March 1912, Captain R.F. Scott, Dr E.A. Wilson, and Lt H.R Bowers reached a latitude of 79° 40ʹS during their return journey from the South Pole. There they camped and were fatally delayed by a blizzard. The date of Scott's last diary entry is 29 March 1912 and he died on, or shortly after, that date, with his two companions, of starvation and cold. They had left their base at Cape Evans in stages from 24 October 1911 with a party of 16. Relay parties returned on 11 and 21 December 1911, and on 4 January 1912. Five men attained the South Pole on 17 January 1912 where they found that an expedition, led by R.E.G. Amundsen from Norway, has preceded them on 14 December 1911. 33 days had elapsed between the departure of the Norwegian party from the pole and Scott's arrival there. During the return journey over the Ross Ice Shelf, roughly along the 169°E meridian, two of the party of five died: E. Evans on 17 February 1912 and L.E.G. Oates on, or shortly after, 16 March 1912.

Partisan Influence on Immigration: The Case of Norway

Do governments decide the size of immigration? This article analyses partisan impact on refugee immigration to Norway.The first part maps party positions on refugee immigration and demonstrates that the views of Norwegian parties are far from consensual. The second part tests whether the number of refugees admitted has been affected by changes of government by way of a panel analysis covering the period 1985‐2005 and 143 sending countries. Controlling for other determinants of immigration both in receiving and sending countries, the analysis suggests that that the number of refugees admitted to Norway has been significantly lower during Conservative rule.Among parties with government experience, the Conservative Party also has adopted the most restrictive stand in its manifestoes. No significant differences between Labour Party and centre governments were found, even though the centre parties express more liberal preferences.

Political Culture, Values and Economic Utility: A Different Perspective on Norwegian Party-based Euroscepticism

Drawing on a content analysis of party manifestos and a survey of Norwegian MPs, this article examines the nuances in, and the causality of, the different Norwegian parties’ Euroscepticism. The study of the comparative party politics of Euroscepticism, which focuses on ideology and strategy, falls short of accounting for the Norwegian case, where, unlike other European countries, the parties’ Euroscepticism is exceptionally stable and appears across the political spectrum. Therefore, the article tests an alternative set of theories, drawn from the literature on opinion formation on European integration, to find a more suitable framework for analysing and explaining the motivation of Norwegian Euroscepticism. The analysis shows that Norwegian party-based Euroscepticism can be divided into three types when it comes to its strength and policy opposition, with the Centre Party and the Socialist Left Party on the ‘hardest’ end of the Euroscepticism scale, followed by the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, and finally, the Labour Party and the Progress Party. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that Norwegian Eurosceptic party stances on Europe are primarily driven by political values and political culture concerns, except for the Progress Party, which base its Eurosceptic motivation on economic utilitarianism and political culture.

Norwegian Parties and Web 2.0

ABSTRACT The focus of this article is on Norwegian political parties' adaption of Web 2.0 before and during the long campaign for the local elections in September 2007. By 2007, most parties had learned to use their Web sites as instruments for professional political marketing. In this process of streamlining, party presence on the Web acquired the characteristics of what is now conceptualized as Web 1.0. This article asks whether the emergence of Web 2.0, with its potential for grassroots participation and networking, as well as multilateral interactivity, was a catalyst of “e-ruptive” change towards greater pluralism or participation. The data indicate that in terms of party competition, Web 2.0 had at best a weak pluralizing effect, as party visibility in Web 2.0 environments roughly reflected party vote share. However, Web 2.0 enhanced participatory democracy by lowering the threshold for the involvement of the party grassroots and other sympathizers.

Party Feminism: Gender Gaps within Nordic Political Parties

On the basis of surveys of Danish and Norwegian political party members, this article shows that female presence is comparatively high in Danish and Norwegian parties, and that there are a number of consistent and politically significant gender differences in political opinions within the parties. These gender gaps are largest regarding issues that are not central to the ideological core of the parties and on issues where women are particularly affected. The study still reveals the importance of party in the sense that the differences between the members of different parties are greater than the gender gaps within parties. In the Nordic party systems, gender as such does not constitute a political force transcending the left–right dimension.

Cleavage Formation in Norway: The Contextual Dimension

To explore the mechanism underlying the formation and persistence of cleavage structures the author applies a contextual approach in the case of Norway where regional variation in political cleavages persists over time. This study focuses on the time period between 1890 and 1930, the formative years of the Norwegian party system. The premise of the argument is that a factor contributing to persisting patterns of electoral mobilization is the location of new voters in patterns of social interaction deriving from the class composition in different regions. Initial electoral mobilizations coupled with enduring social structures can be carried on for a long time. These social conditions may pose high costs of mobilization to new parties in a political system. The article shows the persistence of a distinct class composition across regions in Norway and demonstrates the contextual effect by examining the behaviour of new voters in the 1900 election. It evaluates the contextual argument against other party incentives for mobilization by means of a statistical model that incorporates contextual incentives in addition to incentives deriving from electoral rules and political competition.

Norwegian parties and the party system: Steadfast and changing

Norwegian political parties have changed in terms of party membership and organisational modes, significantly reducing the value of the mass party and catch-all party models. Membership has declined and decision-making processes have opened up to increased networking, although the formal organisational structures remain close to those of the old mass party. Political changes have transformed the old two-bloc system, making it more open and fluid. This ‘diffused’ party system is more dependent on small electoral changes and post-election negotiations than was the traditional and more predictable bloc system. Norwegian democracy has thus become more differentiated and representative, but at the same time less accountable to the electorate.

New Technology in Ageing Parties

The primary organizational innovation in political parties during the 1990s was the employment of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The article explores the use of ICTs in party membership organizations and the impact these have on intra-party communication and participation: first, the extent to which party members participate in activities facilitated by these new technologies, and second, the ‘digital divide’ separating organizational strata. Data from Danish and Norwegian party member and party congress delegate surveys conducted in 2000/01 indicate that ICTs have become fully integrated parts of party work among top-level and middle-level elites, and that the extent to which rank-and-file party members participate in these activities remains limited. Even though some members who did not engage in traditional party activities were attracted by these new activities, the impact was limited during the early 2000s.

Who Should Govern Political Parties? Organizational Values in Norwegian and Danish Political Parties

The article explores party member attitudes towards internal party democracy and party leadership in Danish and Norwegian parties. The focus is on the relationship between party members’ public policy values (measured by means of ‘old politics’ and ‘new politics’ value dimensions) and their organizational values (i.e. ideas about internal democracy), but the members’ educational and activism levels as well as indicators capturing factors specific to individual parties are also applied to explain party members’ organizational values. We find that positions on the two policy value dimensions are related to party members’ organizational values. But the relationships are not particularly strong, and their signs are contrary to expectations. One explanation may be that the ‘new politics’ literature draws a misleading picture of the organizational values of New Left and New Right party members – at least in the Danish and Norwegian cases. We also find that the social democratic parties in both countries differ considerably from the other parties in the sense that the dissatisfaction with the leadership was much stronger in these parties.

Democracy within Norwegian Political Parties

How democratic are the political parties in Norway? We use survey data from Norwegian party members (1991 and 2000) and Congress delegates (2000-1) to discuss two main questions: how do party members and Congress delegates evaluate the state of intra-party democracy? And what kind of intra-party democracy do they prefer? The analyses do not support the thesis of an increasing centralization of party decision making. Members were reasonably satisfied with the leadership, but those in positions of power were more satisfied than the grassroots. Participants at all levels preferred the present delegatory type of democracy to more direct democratic procedures. The attitudes of the participants do not indicate any strong pressure for organizational change, but declining membership and lack of legitimacy may still bring changes to intra-party decision-making.

Norway: Madisonianism Reborn

This article discusses citizen control in Norwegian parliamentary democracy, and specifically the changes that have recently taken place. Around 1960 Norway had reached a constitutional form that, apart from the consequences of proportional representation, looked much like a Westminster system. From that point on, however, Norwegian democracy has generally moved away from this model. A series of minority governments has given rise to parliamentary reassertion. The Norwegian party system has fragmented, and the individual parties have atrophied as mass membership organizations. A wave of corporatism and later a heightened assertiveness on the part of the judiciary have helped to contain parliamentary power. Two critical European Union membership referendums in 1972 and 1994 have firmly established the role of direct democracy in critical political decisions. And despite the results of these two popular consultations, international constraints have become ever more significant.Compared with most others in Europe, however, Norway is a relatively unconstrained polity. There are few important ways in which the citizenry is partitioned into multiple democratic principals, and the country is a reasonable fit to the parliamentary ideal type of an unfettered hierarchy controlled by the median voter. At the same time, the trend is unmistakably one towards greater policy‐making complexity and increasing constraints on policy makers. Norway's reluctant but seemingly inevitable incorporation into a larger Europe is the greatest and most decisive of these constraints, but it is not the only one. Judicial institutions are likely to play an increasingly important political role, and direct democracy perhaps likewise. And although central bank independence has met with greater scepticism than in most other European countries, it is not likely to be reversed. All in all, it seems that Norwegian parliamentary governance is becoming at least a little more Madisonian and a little less Westminsterian.

A decline of linkage? Intra‐party participation in Norway, 1991–2000

Abstract. The decline in party membership in Western Europe is generally taken as an indicator of party transformation. This article looks beyond membership figures and asks whether membership decline should be interpreted to mean that the activities and motivation of the remaining members are changing. Hypotheses on changes in party activism and motivation for party membership are tested with data from the 1991 and 2000 Norwegian party member surveys. Rather than uncovering evidence of change, most analyses point to a remarkable level of stability. Active and passive members seem to have disappeared at about the same rate. The general diagnosis of party decline is neither improved nor aggravated, but the analysis casts doubt on propositions about the transformation of the grassroots organisation. The Internet is used by party office‐holders and the young, but the grassroots rarely use the new technology for political purposes. The character of the representative and participatory linkages provided by parties has, however, changed as a consequence of a shrinking party membership.

Predestined Parties?

In this article, we analyse changes, and the debates about changes, in the relationship between Norwegian political parties and their members. We ask whether parties develop from mass parties towards a ‘network model’, and whether such changes represent organizational convergence. The organizational diagnoses of the parties and their prescribed cures are similar. Thematic network structures, increased inclusiveness and membership ballots are debated within the parties, but actual change has been modest. While the Internet has brought about substantial change in the internal communication of parties, there is remarkable stability in Norwegian party organizations. Many of the structures and practices of the mass party remain, but network structures have emerged as an alternative ideal.

Assimilation and contrast effects in voter projections of party locations: Evidence from Norway, France, and the USA

Abstract. In the standard Downsian model, voters are assumed to choose parties based on the extent of ideological proximity between the voter's own position and that of the party. Yet it is also well known that there are rationalization and projection effects such that voters tend to misestimate the policy platforms of candidates or parties to which they are sympathetic by overstating the correspondence between those positions and the voter's own preferences (see, e.g., Markus & Converse 1979; Granberg & Brent 1980; Granberg & Holmberg 1988; Merrill & Grofman 1999). Here we follow insights in the psychological literature on persuasion (Sherif & Hovland 1961; Parducci & Marshall 1962) by distinguishing between assimilation and contrast effects. Assimilation refers to shortening the perceived ideological distance between oneself and parties one favors; contrast refers to exaggerating the distance to parties for which one does not intend to vote. Using survey data on voter self–placements and party placements on ideological scales for the seven major Norwegian parties, five major French parties, and two major American parties we show that both assimilation and contrast effects are present in each country to a considerable degree.We also investigate the possible effects of randomness in party placement and scale interpretation – effects that can easily be confounded with assimilation but not so easily with contrast.

Pariahs in their midst: Belgian and Norwegian parties react to extremist threats

When extremist parties enter representative institutions through legitimate democratic means, how do established, mainstream parties respond? Traditional conservative parties throughout Europe face the reality that radical right‐wing parties are winning representation across all levels of the polity: subnational councils, national legislatures, and the European Parliament. While the political science literature has endeavoured to explain the recent electoral gains of such parties as Belgium's Vlaams Blok and Norway's Progress Party, scant attention has been paid to the equally important question of how established democratic parties cope with extremists once inside legislative assemblies. This article compares the observations and preferences of elected representatives who, by democracy's lot, are confronted by pariahs in their midst. Evidence from local councillors in Antwerp and Oslo reveals significant internal party uncertainty over strategy and suggests that electoral ambition and perceptions of ‘democratic responsibility ‘ help shape strategic preferences.

Mapping the Norwegian Political Space

This research note reports the results of an expert survey on party positions in Norway in 1998. This was a partial replication of the 1989 survey conducted by Laver and Hunt (1992). The survey results are used to describe important aspects of Norwegian party competition, including issue ownership and the dimensionality of the Norwegian political space. These results indicate that important elements of the centre-periphery cleavage are now much more aligned with the overall left-right dimension than was the case in 1989. The convergence of positions of the Socialist Left and Center parties is not surprising, given the extensive cooperation between them during the 1994 campaign debate on EU membership. The emphasis on non-material values in the 1997 campaign further contributed to the importance of moral issues for the second dimension in Norwegian politics. The mismatch between traditional party alliances and current party positions has made the process of government formation quite problematic.

Norwegian Education Policy Rhetoric 1945‐2000: education philosophy in the political party platforms

Is education policy rhetoric in Norway after World War II dominated by continuity/stability or by a paradigm shift? This paper is based on the Norwegian party platforms presented prior to all parliamentary elections held every 4 years from 1945 to 1997. Using the platforms as sources offers excellent opportunities for comparisons as to particular periods and parties and the platforms function as reliable barometers of the political climate of contemporary history. The main findings of the paper are that even if the basic ideas of social democratic progressivism emphasising equality, solidarity and individual emancipation are carried forward into the 80s and 90s, there is a shift to the right emphasising freedom, competition, different alternatives and more consideration of the interests of business and industry. Hence the typical characteristic of the party platforms during the last two decades appears to be the wish to enjoy the best of both worlds.