The eroding of representative democracy in Norway

Abstract

The Norwegian Power and Democracy Study concluded that representative government is eroding. Popular participation has moved from long-term organizations and political parties to short-term action groups and associations with immediate concerns. Public sector reforms seem to weaken municipal autonomy and strengthen central control in emphasizing greater efficiency and better quality of municipal service provision. The judicialization of politics has strengthened the legal system and weakened the autonomy of local democracy, while the expansion of market forces further affects the span of parliamentary rule. Mass media have become politically more independent, while they adapt more closely to economic forces and the quest for return of investments. There has, accordingly, been centralization of economic power through mergers and acquisitions following the globalization of the Norwegian economy, while corporatism is partly weakened and partly restructured. The so-called Scandinavian (or Nordic) model is increasingly strained, putting pressure on the Norwegian social contract that has been characterized by high levels of institutional centralization balanced by a high level of citizen control.

Keywords:

• Civil society
• corporatism
• globalization
• judicialization
• local government
• representative democracy

Notes

1. This paper is based on conclusions from the Norwegian Power and Democracy Study (1998–2003). Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Workshop on Small States, Nordic House, Reykjavik, 17–18 September 2004, and at the Symposium on Scandinavian Democracy, CEFOS, University of Gothenburg, 23–24 February 2005. In 1997 the Norwegian Storting decided to launch a power and democracy study to analyse Norwegian democracy at the dawn of the twenty-first century (following up on the Norwegian power study from the 1970s). An independent steering committee, consisting of five researchers, was assigned. Fifty million Norwegian kroner or approximately eight million US dollars were allocated to the project. The committee started its work in the spring of 1998 and published its conclusions in August 2003 (Østerud et al. 2003). Close to forty books and more than one hundred articles/reports were produced as part of the project.

2. Egalitarianism in a Norwegian context means a unique combination of ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘equality of result’ not to be elaborated on here. See Grendstad et al. (2006).

3. The county level of government was for a long time relatively weak: representatives to the county councils were indirectly elected, and they had no independent sources of funding. This changed in 1975, when the county councils were, for the first time, elected by the people and gained the power to levy a special tax. Since then, however, the regional level has been systematically downgraded – by lack of popular interest/support and because of state policy. So, even if we do not include the regional level in our discussion, the developments here seem to confirm our message: the political system is gradually becoming more centralized. However, within the parties on the centre-left there are now strong forces which want to build a much stronger regional level of government to stop the centralization of the Norwegian polity. For an analysis, see Selle (2005).

4. These qualities are: (1) closeness between citizens and representatives, (2) greater lay participation in public decision-making processes, and (3) effectiveness in setting priorities, i.e. national schemes are more sensibly fitted to local needs and conditions through the use of municipal institutions (see Wickwar 1970).

5. The political significance of voluntary welfare organizations in the development of the welfare state, especially women's associations, is largely overlooked by contemporary researchers, who tend to overemphasize the role of the labour movement and organizations in typically male-dominated areas, such as farming, fishing, labour or economic policies (see Berven and Selle 2001).

6. However, many of the strictly local associations can survive with very little financial support even from their own members and are not really dependent on governmental support to survive.

7. The point here is, of course, not that nothing positive can come out of this. The Sami population has, for instance, been favoured by status as an indigenous people in international law and recognized through a representative institution with consultative status from 1989, the Sami Parliament (Bjerkli and Selle 2003). This new and important democratic institution – building on general elections among the Sami population – has increased the autonomy and public position of the Sami people. Its development has to be understood in light of the increased judicialization of Norwegian politics and the new Norwegian role within foreign affairs.