Environmentalism between state and local community: why Greenpeace has failed in Norway

Abstract

Although Norway is often seen as an environmental forerunner with an extensive voluntary sector, the internationally successful environmental organisation Greenpeace has never managed to establish a viable organisation there. The explanation for this lies in a Norwegian political culture that includes two distinct culturally embedded anomalies that configure a specific type of environmentalism. The first anomaly is Norway's state-friendly society in which the political and social system invites adversaries or interest groups to participate in national politics. Greenpeace, with its strict policy of organisational independence, has not fitted in with the state-friendly society. The second anomaly is the local community perspective. Popular environmental concerns take into account and cherish the social hardship and self-sufficiency that for centuries characterised life in the country's peripheries. The protection of man in nature, and its mythologisation, has eliminated animal rights from national environmental ideology. Because Greenpeace's ideology runs counter to this local community perspective, it fails to tap into environmentalist sentiments. The two anomalies interact to inhibit the establishment of Greenpeace in Norway.

Keywords:

• Greenpeace
• animal rights
• environmental organisations
• political culture
• Norway

Introduction

Norway is a country whose environmentalism does not easily fit with the general assumptions underlying definitions of environmentalism that have been generated by the bulk of ‘continental’ or ‘Anglo-Saxon’ literature. We argue that the Norwegian case deviates from the mainstream pattern of environmentalism due to two anomalies. The roots of these anomalies, which more generally define important parts of Norwegian political culture, are found at distinct but interrelated levels of analysis.

The first anomaly, the state-friendly society, concerns how the Norwegian political and social system differs in comparison to systems in most other countries. Adversary actors or interest groups are not excluded from national politics, but instead are welcomed by the government. This anomaly, undergirded by long historical tradition, is primarily found at a structural level. Yet it also ties in with mainstream attitudes and beliefs that define part of Norwegian political culture.

The second anomaly is the local community perspective. Although primarily ideological, it also has strong structural ties because national environmental concern is influenced by a notion of social hardship and self-sufficiency in the country's peripheral districts. With its essence being ‘the protection of man in nature’, it has maintained its influence due to Norway's relatively low level of urbanisation and exceptionally elongated geography. This anomaly is also expressed and sustained through the historically strong tradition of local democracy in the Norwegian polity. 1

The combination and interaction of the two anomalies, we argue, makes the Norwegian case unique within international environmentalism. First, a state-friendly society is characterised by a specific type of close relationship between state and civil society. This societal type is found mainly in the Scandinavian countries and contributes to explaining these countries' universal welfare state regimes. The state-friendly society anomaly therefore excludes the vast majority of countries around the world. 2 Second, something similar to the local community perspective might be found elsewhere, but it is not found in the other Scandinavian countries to the same extent as in Norway.

We claim that the two anomalies, both deeply embedded in Norwegian culture and polity, prevent the internationally successful organisation Greenpeace from establishing itself in Norway. Our argument synthesises years of studies that include but are not limited to analyses of 12 environmental organisations in Norway, among them all the core environmental organisations. 3 Our study draws upon a cluster of sources: extensive surveys of members and supporters of the organisations as well as the Norwegian population; interviews with the organisation leaders on their organisations' strategies, policy documents; and solicited papers on the leaders' views concerning the environmental field (for details of the surveys and interviews, see Grendstad et al. 2006, especially ch. 1; see also Bortne et al. 2001, Strømsnes 2001).

In trying to explain the fate of Greenpeace in Norway, we start by giving a short overview of the organisational field and the context surrounding Greenpeace's attempt to establish itself in the country. Next we discuss the nature and effect of both anomalies within Norwegian environmentalism. Then we demonstrate how significantly Greenpeace deviates from the large majority of environmental organisations. We conclude by stating the easily forgotten rule: context and political culture matter.

Greenpeace and the organisational setting

Voluntary organisations have held a prominent position in Norwegian society for more than a century. The late 1870s to late 1960s comprised a period of traditional social movements with broad purposes. They were upheld by members who played vitally important roles and were organised independently of the state. Yet this organisational autonomy did not exclude strong and enduring cooperation with the state, or financial support. At the same time, the social movements maintained close links to people living in the country's peripheral districts. These movements were crucial to the country's political and cultural transformation as well as the nation-building and democratisation processes (Rokkan 1970, Østerud et al. 2003).

From the late 1960s, traditional movements' membership base declined, heralding changes in the way such organisations operated. They were complemented and challenged by new types of organisations that promoted leisure and special interests. The new organisations gradually replaced societal interests with those of their members. The 1960s, however, also witnessed the birth of new social movements. The post-World War II generation questioned central societal goals and consensual issues like economic growth, modernisation and technological development, and even though the new movements included issues and causes such as peace and women's rights, environmentalism turned out to be the most prominent of the new issues (Dalton 1994, Poguntke 1993).

Although nature conservation organisations were established at the turn of the twentieth century, the environmental field emerged considerably later. Not until the late 1960s or early 1970s could Norwegian society count several environmental organisations. It is interesting to note that in a country with one of the most extensive voluntary sectors in the world (Sivesind et al. 2002, Salamon and Sokolowski 2004, Sivesind 2007), the number of organised environmentalists has been low. 4 While many voluntary organisations in Norway have memberships in the hundreds of thousands, membership in the relatively few environmental organisations range between approximately 1000 and 20,000 members (see Grendstad et al. 2006, ch. 3). 5

From the beginning of the 1980s we see a gradual organisational change. Organisations became more professionalised, specialised and centralised (Tranvik and Selle 2005). Many voluntary organisations changed their view on membership and gave less priority to organisational democracy. The new organisations adopted market logics and cooperated more frequently with market actors. Some organisations moved beyond governmental support and depended heavily on financial contributions from businesses and market actors. Consequently, environmental organisations established after the mid-1980s were different from those established earlier. The pattern of marginalising organisational democracy and concentrating on direct financial support is typical of the general change in the voluntary sector during this period, but the pattern has been most conspicuous amongst environmental organisations (Selle and Strømsnes 1998, Wollebæk and Selle 2002).

Like other western countries in the 1980s, Norway experienced conservative-led governments speaking the ideological gospel of deregulation and liberalisation. In this political context the environmental movement, in many ways, fought an uphill battle. Environmental ideology lost its attraction and from the beginning of the 1990s the movement declined (Gundersen 1996). Despite this, the one environmental issue that received increased attention during the 1980s was pollution, which proved to be a powerful issue in combination with the increasing direct action-oriented behaviour of organised environmentalists (Berntsen 1994). Together with the internal developments of marginalised membership democracy, the external developments of monetary requests, and the societal demands for faster and more efficient solutions, the liberal political context paved the way for a new type of organisation, that which Jordan and Maloney (1997) refer to as ‘protest businesses’. Compared to previous organisations, protest businesses have a concentrated and centralised organisational structure that in no way supports a membership-based organisational democracy. Without being hampered by the internal bureaucracy of their own organisations, protest business activists can strike against polluting factories and companies at their own discretion or in response to media demand.

It was in this period and this political context that the new environmental organisation the Bellona Foundation was founded. Originating in 1986 as a high-profile, direct-action organisation, it made pollution one of its most important issues. Since the late 1980s Bellona has been the most visible and inventive of the new environmental organisations in Norway. Much of the organisation's financial income consists of grants from businesses and project support from the government. It is not a democratic member organisation.

It was also in this new organisational context that Greenpeace first tried to gain a foothold in Norway. It established a Norwegian branch in 1988, but it never really achieved a breakthrough. In 1998 it merged with the Finnish and Swedish branches, and in 1999 the merger was joined by the Danish branch. The new Greenpeace Nordic headquarters is located in Stockholm. Even though Greenpeace still has an office in Norway, the Norwegian branch of the organisation has been effectively dissolved. In 1998 and 1999 Greenpeace Norway had no supporting members at all; in 2000 it had only 200 (Greenpeace Nordic 2006). The Nordic organisation now has about 137,000 supporters – approximately 92,000 in Sweden, 24,500 in Finland, 18,800 in Denmark and 1600 in Norway (Greenpeace Nordic 2008). Even though the number of supporters has increased in Norway since 2000, this highlights the fragile position of Greenpeace in Norway. Its weak position becomes more conspicuous when compared with the number of Greenpeace supporters in neighbouring Sweden. 6

Greenpeace has been in quite a different position compared with Bellona, which has approximately 1000 supporters in Norway. Because Greenpeace, due to its strict policy of independence, does not receive public or business funding, the number of supporters is much more important for Greenpeace than for Bellona. In addition, Greenpeace is almost absent in Norwegian public debate. Harald Sævareid, former campaign leader of Greenpeace Norway, described the situation thus: ‘In Norway Greenpeace has a very low membership rate, praise is rare, and the impression is that the organisation has very little legitimacy and respect in society’ (Sævareid 1996, p. 205, translated).

It may seem reasonable to argue that the establishment of the Bellona Foundation in 1986, two years prior to Greenpeace, is the main explanation for Greenpeace's lack of success in Norway. According to this argument, even if the organisations are very different in structure, the Bellona Foundation captured and still occupies the direct action space that would otherwise have been reserved for an organisation like Greenpeace. We argue that such a conclusion is spurious and that the fate of Greenpeace is primarily explained by the two anomalies of Norwegian environmentalism: the state-friendly society and the local community perspective. These anomalies define and restrict the opportunity structure for actors and organisations, and, in the case of Greenpeace, they do so in an unusually direct and visible way.

An inclusive polity in a state-friendly society

Although the Scandinavian states and governments play a dominant role, they are inclusive, heavily influenced by societal groups and open to citizen requests. Inversely, citizens of these countries are rather friendly and open-minded towards the states in which they live. In Norway, the relationship between the state and environmental organisations (or any type of voluntary organisation) cannot be understood without what has been called the ‘state-friendly society’ thesis (see Kuhnle and Selle 1990, 1992, Tranvik and Selle 2005). Voluntary organisations turn to the state for cooperation, funding and legitimacy. Consequentially, an organisation that seeks influence in the political process must turn to the state and not away from it (Selle and Strømsnes 1996, Tranvik and Selle 2005). It does not follow, however, that the organisations are discouraged from criticising the state. Within this Scandinavian system, governments and authorities are – within limits, of course – open-minded towards criticism of their policies.

Evidence of Norway being a state-friendly society in Europe can be found in the level of its citizens' trust in institutions. The European ‘Beliefs in Government’ study shows that trust in political institutions (i.e., armed forces, education system, legal system, police, parliament and civil service) was higher in Norway than in other European countries both in 1982 and in 1990. Norwegians ranked second only to Ireland on trust in more private institutions (i.e., church, the press, trade unions and major companies). On a generalised trust score, Norway ranked number one at both points in time (Listhaug and Wiberg 1995). More recent studies show that trust is still high despite a slight decline in some of the measures (Listhaug 2005). Much trust – both from citizens and from organisations – accumulates through the process by which almost any group can be consulted in the state's decision-making processes. 7

To what extent do Norwegian environmental organisations and their members consider the state an opponent or an ally in environmental battles? Because of public financing and government backing, state proximity might be necessary for organisational survival. The advantage for the organisations is increased efficiency and legitimacy as well as influence over policy. For organisations whose interests exceed mere survival, state proximity is not the problem but the solution. Yet because the voluntary organisations are being tied to the state, there is also a price to pay, such as increased responsibility, loss of autonomy and ideological dilution. The organisations must take into account not only demands from their members but also demands from the state (Olsen 1983). Meanwhile, environmental organisations are not alone in recognising that the benefits outweigh the cost of cooperation, for so also do the rest of the voluntary sector and the population at large (see Grendstad et al. 2006).

The prevailing state-friendliness tempers the environmentalists and pulls their organisations closer to the state and to political decision-making. This proximity makes genuine opposition not only more difficult but also less desirable if the organisations seek political influence. In other words, the proximity limits the political repertoire of various political groups. Even so, this open political system provides organisations with autonomy to make their own decisions, but also allows their agendas to exercise influence.

Generally speaking, we are dealing with a political system that, from a comparative perspective, is definitely a ‘thick’ rather than a ‘thin’ democracy, and a system that includes a specific type of state–civil society relationship. On this issue we disagree with Dryzek et al. (2003), who argue that the Norwegian system, due to too much state and too little civil society, lacks an active and oppositional public sphere. ‘The enforced moderation of environmental groups’, they argue, ‘means that a number of issues that ought to be on the public agenda (e.g. commercial whaling, animal welfare) are just not there’ (Dryzek et al. 2003, p. 107). We hold that moderation and state-friendliness are not things government bodies force upon environmentalists. Rather, from a comparative perspective, the distinct political culture makes environmentalists and their environmental organisations moderate from the start. Moderation is clearly illustrated by the fact that the environmentalists' general and environmental attitudes and behaviours converge with those of the general population (see Grendstad et al. 2006, ch. 5 and 6). The Dryzekian argument (i.e., too close a collaboration between the state and the civil society) does not explain why whaling and animal welfare are absent from the public debate. Rather, the absence is embedded in the political culture and, in particular, in the local community perspective (see next section).

The state-friendly society has moved Norwegian environmental organisations closer to the state and, to some extent, made them dependent on the state. However, it also means the state agencies have moved closer to the organisations. Due to this close relationship, the state is also influenced by the organisations. With the exception of foreign aid, in no other field is this more true today than within environmentalism. This field is characterised by largely professionalised and scientifically based organisations working in close cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment and other governmental bodies (Bortne et al. 2002). Even though Norwegian environmental organisations are relatively weak when measured by the size of membership, they really do matter. They have played a critical role in transforming the political language and strongly influence how governmental bodies operate within this policy field. 8

The state and civil society's ‘cohabitation’ is deeply embedded in the political culture, and it reflects a more sophisticated relationship than one of mere state domination. Without the organisations, governmental environmental policies would be less extensive, they would be structured differently, and environmental thinking would play a less important role in public discourse. Within another type of state, the environmental movements' organisational form, ideology, and repertoire of collective action would have looked quite different (see Grendstad et al. 2006).

Here Greenpeace is a case in point. Its policy of independence dictates that it does not accept funding from the public or business sectors. This policy has two important consequences. First, members or supporters are financially much more important for Greenpeace than for other environmental organisations that also receive financial support from government or market actors. Second, and more importantly, this implies that Greenpeace fails to be integrated in the state sphere to the same extent as other environmental organisations in Norway. Accordingly, it participates less in the network of cooperation between state agencies and environmental organisations. Due to its organisational policy of independence from the state, a high number of supporting donors is crucial. Cooperation with the state in the Norwegian system would have meant an increase in the organisation's financial resources but also an increase in its political influence and popular legitimacy. Therefore, Greenpeace's policy of independence makes it more difficult to recruit the necessary number of supporting donors.

The local community perspective

In addition to Greenpeace not being a part of the dynamic relationship between state actors and civil society organisations in the Norwegian system, the local community perspective is of particular importance. Rooted in the nation-building and democratisation processes of the late nineteenth century, this perspective tightly interlocks with Norway's development as a state-friendly society and its commitment to the values of local government (Tranvik and Selle 2005).

Nation states are geographical entities that link their centres and peripheries in a common political system of governance (Rokkan 1970, Flora et al. 1999). The centre is usually the capital city, where the most important political, cultural, economic, and financial institutions are also located. What is referred to as the periphery extends beyond the smaller cities and larger towns and includes rural or non-urbanised areas located some distance from the centre. The nation state therefore demonstrates a hierarchical structure.

The democratic organisation of the nation state means that popular demands and interests are communicated bottom-up whereas binding decisions are communicated top-down. In most south and central European countries, the justification for this hierarchical order is that the centre represents all that is modern and progressive, whereas the periphery represents all that is backward and primitive; therefore, the survival of the periphery must be ensured through its subjection to the political, cultural, and economic leadership of the centre (Tranvik and Selle 2005).

Norwegians have traditionally held a different view of the relationship between centre and periphery. True, Norwegians have also imagined that the farther away you get from the south-eastern area around the capital Oslo, the further back in time you go. Yet instead of going back to a primitive culture ‘with no tomorrow’, the voyage to the periphery has been interpreted as a long journey ‘back to the future’. The immediate roadblock on this journey is Norway's 500 years under foreign rule: first ‘the 400 Years’ Night' under Danish rule, then the ‘False Dawn’ of 1814, followed by 91 years of political union with Sweden. This ended in 1905 when Norway gained full independence as a constitutional and hereditary monarchy.

Independence notwithstanding, 500 years of foreign rule had left its mark. The merchant and administrative urban centres were thought to have been contaminated by foreign rule. The rightful basis for a new national identity and culture was therefore believed to have been preserved in the peripheries where the tentacles of foreign rule had made little impact. This means that the periphery was both primitive and modern at the same time. Cultivation of the periphery was seen as necessary for building a nation. The idea that the periphery is the cultural cradle of the nation is manifested, inter alia, in Norway's regional and agricultural policy, the temporal migration of Norwegians during vacations and weekends to their cabins in the mountains and along the fjords, Norwegian scepticism of the European Union, anti-urbanism, and not least the wide acceptance of whaling and seal hunting. This peripheral mystique is an intimate part of the national culture, and it offers Greenpeace a rather unfriendly organisational environment.

The local community perspective strongly influences the structure of civil society and the relationships between the state and local levels. Its argument involves three claims. First, what was conceived as particularly Norwegian was located in the historical continuity of the peripheries and not in the centre's so-called avant-garde and elitist culture. Second, the legitimacy of the periphery has led to a national egalitarianism which maintains that political and economic power should be distributed evenly. In contrast to what may be observed in other European countries, this egalitarianism has thwarted the area around the Norwegian capital and the capital itself from developing a dominant political, cultural, and economic position. Third, in a mountainous country where human dwellings are few and far between, and where the centre is viewed with some suspicion, voluntary organisations have operated as real intermediaries between the national and the local levels of government and have helped maintain political unity.

The year 1814, with the nascent country's constitution in place, marks the start of a national awakening. Yet with the end of Danish rule, there was little upon which to build a national culture and identity. Since Norway, in its national myths, ‘overslept the Renaissance’, it was harder to construct a past consisting of intellectual, cultural and civilisational progress. Nevertheless, two significant survivors or comparative advantages of the 400-year night merged into a phenomenon of paramount importance.

The first advantage was cultural. For whatever reason, during their rule the Danish kings under-taxed the free Norwegian farmers to a degree that allowed them to emerge buoyant when the new country gained independence (that is, they under-taxed compared with contemporary aristocratic usurpers elsewhere in Europe). One cannot speak of an affluent class of independent farmers, however. Toil and struggle on small farms was the daily routine. But in the absence of a brokering nobility, free and independent farmers provided the country with a profound and almost unalterable egalitarian social foundation. In many ways, the nation had history, culture, and geography on its side.

The second advantage pertained to Norway's natural landscape. It became evident when the young nation started comparing itself with its former ruler. The key characteristics of the Norwegian landscape are mountains and fjords. In contrast to the flat Danish topography, mountains had a nationalistic potential that can hardly be overestimated. Thus culture and nature coalesced in the image of the free and independent farmer, who toiled on meagre soil between the mountains and the long, surf-beaten shore of a vast ocean.

The independent Norwegian farmers not only functioned as a bridge between the strong Norwegian nation state in the Middle Ages and independence in 1814, they also accorded the peripheral areas a high degree of legitimacy. In a sense, independent Norwegian farmers fuelled anti-urban sentiments in Norwegian society. Cities were and still are regarded with considerable scepticism, and urban movements have never gained any kind of momentum against the rural areas. Not until the 1990s do we find rudiments of an urban policy. To the contrary, ‘opposition to central authority became a fundamental theme in Norwegian politics’ (Rokkan 1967, p. 368). Even within a rather centralised unitary state, it follows from this opposition to central authority that a strong grassroots-based and politicised civil society has, historically speaking, added a great deal to the political system. This has contributed to strong cross-level integration (Tranvik and Selle 2005). When we look closer at the environmental movement, however, a somewhat paradoxical situation emerges. Compared with the voluntary sector in general, the environmental organisations have been more centralised and more professionalised and maintained a weaker organisational base at the local level. Even so, a strong cognitive or ideological orientation toward the local level still exists, also amongst organised environmentalists (see Grendstad et al. 2006, ch. 5).

Nina Witoszek (1997, pp. 214–215) argues that in the nineteenth century, Norwegian patriotism ‘celebrated Nature as a source of national identity’ and that ‘[s]o strong was the equation between nature and nationality that in the “politically correct” images of Norwegianness of the time, there was little room for an urban imagery. … Urban culture, associated with extraterritorial (i.e., Danish) clergy, bureaucracy and townsfolk, was alien to the folk spirit. It was nature, not culture that was national’. She further observes that ‘[f]rom the organic perspective of dwellers in the land, their natural surroundings were less a romantic landscape and more a “task-scape” … , a dynamic man-in-nature gestalt imbued with action’. Furthermore, she adds, it ‘is not Nature seen through romantic lenses, but through pragmatic lenses, a nature that will deliver as long as we heed her and know exactly the horizon of limits to our interventions’ (Witoszek 1997, pp. 220, 222). A consequence of this perspective, where nature becomes culture, is that nature does not become a museum, unused or unspoiled (Setreng 1996). 9

This organic way of viewing the relationship between humans and nature is based on the way small local communities can survive in close relationship with nature. The local community perspective is based on an understanding of humans and nature that is neither purely anthropocentric nor purely ecocentric (see note 1). Although human beings can be regarded as situated in the centre, it is more of an equalisation of humans and nature. Nature is neither sacred nor divine. It is a place where people make a living and where they harvest and survive, yet not beyond (local) nature's carrying capacity.

Moving from the ideological or cognitive level to the more structural level, Norway is, comparatively speaking, more rural than most European countries, even if the proportion of people living in so-called urban areas is 75%. Today, Norway has a population of almost 5 million people. It has a density of 13 people per square kilometre, which is among the lowest in Europe. Many small communities are found at the bottom of remote fjords and on remote islands. In a Norwegian setting, ‘urban’ does not really mean urban living as is found throughout most of Europe. There are more than 400 Municipalities in Norway. Of these, more than 77% have fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. Only nine municipalities have more than 50,000 inhabitants, their total population of 1.3 million inhabitants being equal to the total population of the 337 smallest municipalities. The largest Norwegian cities are rather small when viewed in a European context. The capital, Oslo, has approximately 500,000 inhabitants. The second, third, and fourth largest cities range between 222,000 and 103,000 inhabitants.

With a large territory and a scattered population, small and medium-sized cities in Norway are often perceived as asphalt islands in a rural sea. Consequently, city dwellers usually find the travelling distance between city life and nature comfortably short. Nature is found immediately outside the city limits. In addition, a late and incomplete urbanisation has resulted in a high percentage of city residents still having close relatives who live on farms (Grendstad et al. 2006). City dwellers often participate in recreation in the great outdoors and voluntary organisations emphasising recreation enjoy high membership figures. This accounts for the alleged puzzle that city residents can still have a genuine rural and local orientation.

Another important structural feature explaining the strength and continuity of the local community perspective is the strong tradition of local democracy, by which municipalities have retained autonomy from the state on important matters. Despite being a unitary state, the Norwegian system of government must be characterised as relatively decentralised. The municipal level provides many of the most important welfare services, and local governments have traditionally had the power to adjust national welfare schemes to local conditions. In addition, the Norwegian Municipality Act of 1837 long held a special position. For peripheral areas, the act established and institutionalised local self-rule through democratic elections. This local autonomy is not only important for the survival of the local community perspective but also for the survival of the state-friendly society. Government is not something distant. It remains close to the inhabitants because it takes care of important daily life tasks like welfare, education, and social security. 10

One important consequence of the local community perspective is that animal rights have a weak position within Norwegian environmentalism. An example is the national policy on predators. Norwegian predators include wolves, bears, lynxes, and wolverines. 11 During the summertime, many farmers in the south-eastern parts of the country allow their herds of sheep to graze in unfenced parts of the land. Unsurprisingly, the sheep are easy prey. Because the predators seriously interfere with farmers' livelihoods, it is maintained that they, and wolves especially, should be killed, or firmly relocated in neighbouring Sweden where there is even more unpopulated wilderness. There have been conflicts between central and local governmental bodies in these matters. Whereas the central government seeks to balance the interests of wildlife and local communities, local government bodies argue for the right to decide themselves and tend to side with the farmers.

Environmental organisations in Norway (except for WWF) have been very passive in these matters. This passivity would have been difficult to understand had it not been for the local community perspective. We observe that in regulating predators, the conflicts within governmental bodies have been deeper than conflicts between the state and environmental organisations.

The defiant Norwegian views on whaling and seal hunting must be understood within this context. Support for small-scale, local community-based whaling and seal hunting is rooted in an organic way of life whereby the local community is linked to nature through its use of the resources nature offers. 12 Thus, the supportive and mainstream Norwegian opinions of whaling and sealing should be understood also as protection of Norwegian local communities as well as a rational harvest of nature. 13 In addition, one can also view Norwegian whaling as a symbol of independence and rural self-determination, as it is difficult for the central government to bypass the local government in these matters. 14

Environmental organisations also strongly support whaling. A former leader of Nature and Youth, an environmental organisation strongly influenced by ‘ecosophy’ and ‘deep ecology’, has stated that ‘as long as there are enough whales, we can harvest them in the same way as we harvest elk and reindeer’ (Haltbrekken 1996, p. 159, translated). Haltbrekken also freely admitted that Nature and Youth had supported seal hunting in the early 1980s, even though killing seals took its toll on the organisation's international reputation. From an international perspective, it is somewhat surprising that an organisation claiming to be part of the ‘deep ecological movement’ would support whaling and seal hunting (Haltbrekken 1996, p. 157). From a local community perspective, we do not think this position should raise any eyebrows. The short distance between organised environmentalists and the population at large on such issues further underscores the limited space available for organisations like Greenpeace in Norway.

The fact that the Norwegian brand of environmentalism excludes animal rights runs counter to environmentalism in most other countries. Rootes (2003) also finds that animal rights, especially in Britain, are not always fully integrated into the overall environmental movement. This partial absence stems mainly from the lack of coordinated action across different environmental fields. In the Norwegian case, exclusion of animal rights from environmentalism takes place on a more general and profound level. When most people think of environmentalism, animal rights are not within the cognitive horizon.

With the exceptions of two organisations, NOAH – for animal rights and Greenpeace, not even the environmental organisations include protection of animals as part of their definition of environmentalism (Strømsnes 2001). In Norway, you can be a true environmentalist, profess environmental concern, and still support whaling and sealing. Our survey shows that animal rights are endorsed neither by the general population nor by organised environmentalists (Grendstad et al. 2006). In general, if there is a conflict between local communities and animal rights, then both the general population and organised environmentalists (with the exception of members of NOAH – for animal rights and Greenpeace) strongly side with the interests of the local communities. Furthermore, leaders of the environmental organisations underscore this lack of endorsement of animal rights (Strømsnes 2001).

All in all, the local community perspective accounts for the weak position of animal rights in Norwegian environmentalism. This perspective, which also makes the Norwegian position on whaling understandable, is crucial in explaining why Greenpeace has never managed to establish itself as an environmental organisation with any influence in the country.

Evidence and conclusion

The importance of state-friendliness and the primacy of local communities in explaining Greenpeace's awkward position within Norwegian environmentalism can be demonstrated graphically by survey data. First, we use the animal rights issue to gain access to the local community perspective. Our surveys of the general population and the 12 environmental organisations (see note 3) use an index based on 10 questions on animal rights and protection. This additive scale includes the following items: biotechnological improvement, the use of laboratory animals, painful extermination of vermin, the use of animals for entertainment, 15 protection of wild animals, restrictions on industrial farming, hunting, fur trade, sealing, and whaling. Higher scores are associated with animals not having a privileged position and indicate a greater commitment to the local community. 16 Second, we construct an index measuring state-friendliness based on trust in three institutions (i.e., the environmental authorities, the political system and political parties). The two indexes measure the two anomalies and range between zero and one. Figure 1 shows the mean scores of the general population and the 12 environmental organisations included in our survey.

Figure 1. The local community perspective and state friendliness.

Supporters of both Greenpeace and NOAH – for animal rights (also a marginal organisation) deviate significantly not only from the Norwegian population (represented by a solid bullet), but from all other environmental organisations as well. Greenpeace and NOAH combine a moderate state scepticism with a strong rejection of the local community perspective. The general population and the 10 environmental organisations (other than NOAH and Greenpeace) primarily show variance along the state-friendliness dimension. On the local community dimension, the 10 organisations show a high degree of consensus as well as agreement with the population at large. Overall, Figure 1 reveals quite clearly the political-cultural distance that Greenpeace (and NOAH) has established between themselves and mainstream Norwegian environmentalism. In comparison, the Bellona Foundation – located immediately to the right of the general population – and the rest of the environmental organisations are placed close to the general population.

This demonstrates quite clearly how Greenpeace's ideology as well as independent and confrontational approach are at odds both with the Norwegian state-friendliness and with the proud and defiant local community tradition. First, the organisers behind Greenpeace in Norway have failed to gain access to the rewarding political networks that, in return for cooperation, dole out government funding. Second, Greenpeace's animal rights policy falls on barren ground because the emphasis on protection of ‘humans in nature’ makes it difficult for most Norwegians to grasp why certain animals should be ascribed a privileged position. Greenpeace's ideology and political strategy are simply anathema to the general Norwegian public and the national political culture. The fate of Greenpeace in Norway, we think, shows the importance not only of accounting for national anomalies, but also of accounting for political culture in general.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at European Consortium for Political Research, Joint Sessions of Workshops, Nicosia, 25–30 April 2006 and at the 7th international conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research, Bangkok 9–12 July 2006. In addition to valuable comments from these conferences, we thank Dag Wollebæk and Allan Sande for comments.

Notes

1. It is important to note that this is neither pure anthropocentrism nor pure ecocentrism, but a distinct combination of the two. ‘In Norway there is a tendency within environmentalism and nature protection to consider the human society, the local society, together with nature. The protection concerns humans at work, in close relations to wild nature. This is an extreme non-urban background, which is very difficult for foreigners to understand. This has led to controversies with Greenpeace and others because of sealing and whaling’ (Setreng 1996, p. 110, our translation, see also Grendstad et al. 2006, ch. 7).

2. Something similar is supposedly found in Belgium and the Netherlands. See van der Heijden (1997).

3. The 12 organisations are the Norwegian Mountain Touring Association, the Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature, Nature and Youth, World Wide Fund for Nature, Norwegian Organization for Ecological Agriculture, the Future in Our Hands, the Bellona Foundation, Greenpeace Norway, NOAH – for animal rights, Women – Environment – Development, the Environmental Home Guard and Green Warriors of Norway.

4. Almost three-quarters of the general Norwegian population between 16 and 85 years old are members of at least one voluntary organisation. Each person is, on average, a member of two voluntary organisations. The average number of memberships is 2.4 (Wollebæk et al. 2000, Sivesind 2007).

5. The exception is the Norwegian Mountain Touring Association, which has more than 200,000 members. This organisation is however not fully comparable with the other environmental organisations. Its activities lie on the fringe of environmentalism, since its main purpose is to organise outdoor recreation activities by marking and maintaining paths and trails, and operating tourist cabins.

6. The number of supporters in Sweden has been reduced from a peak in 1991 when it was 210,000. Greenpeace has, however, been in trouble in several countries. In the United States the decline was dramatic, from more than 1.8 million supporters in 1990 to approximately 166,600 in 2005 (Greenpeace Nordic 2006).

7. An example of openness and state–organisation linkage is when the Ministry of Agriculture allows NOAH – for animal rights, one of the most radical environmental organisations in Norway, the opportunity to inject the organisation's view into the state's policy on animals (see Martinsen 1996).

8. The fact that the Ministry of the Environment was established in 1972 (as the first ministry in this field in the world) implies that the environmental field early became an important part of government.

9. The special relationship with nature and its links to national history are also noted by David Rothenberg, who observes that Norway's ‘entire history is interwoven with the land. Norwegian national identity is nothing without nature’ (Rothenberg 1995, p. 201).

10. This political arrangement implies that a possible weakening of the local community perspective and of local government might, in the long run, have consequences also for the amount of state-friendliness. For a discussion of this, see Grendstad et al. (2006, ch. 9) and Tranvik and Selle (2005).

11. The number of animals are estimated to be approximately 20 wolves, 70 bears, 420 lynxes and 360 wolverines (Directorate for Nature Management 2008).

12. Norwegian whaling was a major industrial business in the Antarctic area from the beginning of the twentieth century. Such whaling is significantly different from whaling based in or strongly linked to local communities.

13. In our survey, about 80% of the general Norwegian population said that to prohibit Norwegian seal and whale hunting was either ‘not very important’ or ‘not important at all’ (Grendstad et al. 2006, ch. 7).

14. For a discussion of the governance structure and decision-making concerning these matters, see Grendstad et al. 2006, ch. 7.

15. To a Norwegian mindset, animals in sports and entertainment include circuses and horse racing. Because they appear more exotic and are found in other countries, cock fighting, fox hunting and bullfighting are, in this context, most likely not associated with sports and entertainment.

16. First, we distinguished between questions measuring animal protection (preventing pain and suffering) and animal rights (which can come into conflict with the survival of local communities). With the exception of the item ‘banning animals in sports and entertainment’, there is a high level of agreement in the answers to questions about animal protection (preventing suffering and pain). When animal rights are framed within a local community perspective, agreement drops. We have, however, chosen to employ one single scale of animal rights and animal protection attitudes. When we cast all 10 animal rights and protection items into principal component analyses in order to determine the degree of dimensionality, they yielded one moderately strong dimension to which all variables contributed significantly. Eigenvalues and Cronbach's alphas for organised environmentalists and the general population were 3.9 and. 82, and 3.4 and. 77, respectively. For details, see Grendstad et al. (2006, ch. 7).