Dear all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
Three quick notices.
1. Most of you will no doubt have noted that Sweden is experiencing its own cartoons crisis, a year and a half after Denmark's. The Economist has a good summary in this week's edition, and the English-language online paper the Local (www.thelocal.se) has also covered it, so I needn't go into details here. Suffice it to say that, interestingly, Swedish newspapers have been generally rather keener to stand up for freedom of speech than they were during the Danish crisis (although their attempts to assert the differences between the two episodes have, if you ask me, been somewhat less convincing).
2. I've had two expressions of interest in presenting papers at the 2008 PSA conference in Swansea, on Swedish or Nordic trade unions. If anyone else thinks that they could contribute a paper in roughly that field, we might have a panel proposal in the pipeline. Let me know if you do.
3. A week ago, Norway held its local elections, and there were mixed fortunes across the spectrum. Many thanks to Nick Sitter of the Norwegian School of Management, who's written an excellent commentary on the outcome, which I attach as a Word file.
Best,
Nick.
Showing posts with label Norway election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norway election. Show all posts
2006-09-05
Scandinavian Politics: elections
Hej to all on the Scandinavia Politics mailing list,
I have two notices about elections in this part of the world.
1. First, the Norwegian election of a year ago. The first report from the
Norwegian Election Studies group - Bernt Aaardal and Stavn Guro, "Enda
flere skifter parti" (www.ssb.no/samfunnsspeilet) - has now been published
by Statistics Norway. As the title suggests, it's in Norwegian. But one of
the authors, Bernt Aaardal, has also written a preliminary report in
English, "How to Lose a Walk-Over Election"
(www.samfunnsforskning.no/page/Publikasjoner/Publikasjoner_Rapporter/7457/29622.html),
based on exit polls and official statistics. (Thanks to Elin Haugsgjerd
Allern of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo for this tip.)
2. Meanwhile, with less than a fortnight to go before polling day, the
already exciting Swedish election campaign is becoming even more so. On
Sunday evening, in a scandal that one political scientist compared to
Watergate (which was perhaps just a slight exaggeration), it was revealed
that senior figures in the Liberal campaign had repeatedly gained access
to the Social Democrats' intranet, which contains sensitive information
about the Social Democrats' election strategy and tactics. The police have
raided the Liberals' central office, and prosecutions are likely. The
Liberal leader has deplored the intrusion, and the trespassers so far
revealed have all been from Liberal Youth. But it seems unlikely that they
kept their information entirely to themselves, and some Social Democrats'
have complained that Liberal campaign initiatives have been uncannily
well-timed to pre-empt those of the ruling party.
This scandal may just fizzle out, or it may help the Social Democrats to
recover in a campaign that has hitherto gone rather badly for them. After
pulling back the lead enjoyed by the four-party, centre-right "Alliance
for Sweden", the Social Democrats and their allies have - according to
most, but not all, opinion polls - slipped back again since the Alliance
agreed, some weeks ago, to abolish the current system of property tax.
(That agreement subsequently unravelled somewhat, but the lead in the
polls remained.)
The real possibility of a rare election defeat for the Social Democrats
might seem odd in the context of the vigorous growth of the Swedish
economy. But this growth has, at least until recently, been pretty much of
the jobless variety, and the Alliance has succeeded in placing
unemployment - which, when people on public retraining schemes are
counted, is about 9 per cent, and considerably higher among the young - at
the centre of the campaign. Indeed, some of the more outspoken Social
Democrats have criticised the response of the party leadership to the
Alliance's emphasis on unemployment, which has basically been to deny that
it's much of a problem.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be
interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message
to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send
something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional
messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia.
I have two notices about elections in this part of the world.
1. First, the Norwegian election of a year ago. The first report from the
Norwegian Election Studies group - Bernt Aaardal and Stavn Guro, "Enda
flere skifter parti" (www.ssb.no/samfunnsspeilet) - has now been published
by Statistics Norway. As the title suggests, it's in Norwegian. But one of
the authors, Bernt Aaardal, has also written a preliminary report in
English, "How to Lose a Walk-Over Election"
(www.samfunnsforskning.no/page/Publikasjoner/Publikasjoner_Rapporter/7457/29622.html),
based on exit polls and official statistics. (Thanks to Elin Haugsgjerd
Allern of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo for this tip.)
2. Meanwhile, with less than a fortnight to go before polling day, the
already exciting Swedish election campaign is becoming even more so. On
Sunday evening, in a scandal that one political scientist compared to
Watergate (which was perhaps just a slight exaggeration), it was revealed
that senior figures in the Liberal campaign had repeatedly gained access
to the Social Democrats' intranet, which contains sensitive information
about the Social Democrats' election strategy and tactics. The police have
raided the Liberals' central office, and prosecutions are likely. The
Liberal leader has deplored the intrusion, and the trespassers so far
revealed have all been from Liberal Youth. But it seems unlikely that they
kept their information entirely to themselves, and some Social Democrats'
have complained that Liberal campaign initiatives have been uncannily
well-timed to pre-empt those of the ruling party.
This scandal may just fizzle out, or it may help the Social Democrats to
recover in a campaign that has hitherto gone rather badly for them. After
pulling back the lead enjoyed by the four-party, centre-right "Alliance
for Sweden", the Social Democrats and their allies have - according to
most, but not all, opinion polls - slipped back again since the Alliance
agreed, some weeks ago, to abolish the current system of property tax.
(That agreement subsequently unravelled somewhat, but the lead in the
polls remained.)
The real possibility of a rare election defeat for the Social Democrats
might seem odd in the context of the vigorous growth of the Swedish
economy. But this growth has, at least until recently, been pretty much of
the jobless variety, and the Alliance has succeeded in placing
unemployment - which, when people on public retraining schemes are
counted, is about 9 per cent, and considerably higher among the young - at
the centre of the campaign. Indeed, some of the more outspoken Social
Democrats have criticised the response of the party leadership to the
Alliance's emphasis on unemployment, which has basically been to deny that
it's much of a problem.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be
interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message
to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send
something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional
messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia.
2005-10-18
Scandinavian Politics latest
Hej to members of the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group's mailing list,
There have been several interesting and/or entertaining developments in Scandinavian politics recently, and I thought I'd send a brief summary to the list.
- In NORWAY, unprecedented coalition talks between the parties of the "red-green" alliance that won a majority of seats (though not votes) in last month's election have concluded successfully. The new government was announced yesterday.
* Labour's leader, Jens Stoltenberg, will of course be the new prime minister. Including his, Labour gets ten of the 19 cabinet seats. One of those is the new foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, described by Aftenposten as "a cosmopolitan, a European [he studied political science in France, apparently] and a red flag for the EU opponents" in the two other coalition parties (although the "suicide clause", by which the coalition agrees to dissolve if one of its number mentions EU membership, remains).
* The Socialist Left gets its first five cabinet positions. More notable is that its leader, Kristin Halvorsen, gets the finance minister's job.
* The Centre Party gets the four remaining places. They include the regional-government portfolio, taken by party leader Åslaug Haga, and the oil-and-energy job, which goes (surprisingly) to an ex-leader, the splendidly named Odd Roger Enoksen.
- In SWEDEN, with less than a year to go now before the election, the field has become even more crowded and even more interesting.
* Two weeks ago, the June List (www.junilistan.se), which did so well in last year's European election, decided that it would contest the national election, too. A recent poll gave it nearly 5 per cent support, which would take it into parliament.
In addition to its soft Euroscepticism ("Yes to Europe, No to an EU state"), the party's preliminary platform has two other pillars: decentralisation ("Shift power into the country") and employment ("A people in work"). The mix could be described as modestly economic liberal, with things like tax rebates for work to improve incentives. But there are a few classic populist crowd-pleasers – decisive referendums on citizens' initiatives, a big cut in the number of MPs – thrown in.
It is far from clear how the coalition of cross-spectrum Eurosceptics that the List attracted so successfully last year will be maintained on the basis of even this fairly parsimonious policy stance. A selection of issues on which the June List's candidates will be expected to set out their "own platforms" implies that a very wide range of opinions among its candidates is envisaged – yet it seems unlikely that many away from the centre-right would sign up to the core platform.
Then there's the organisational challenge. Party leader Nils Lundgren is already talking of "democratising" the List's entirely elite-led internal structure; as yet, it doesn't even have members. How he attempts that will be fascinating to watch.
* What's more, there may be yet more competition in that part of the spectrum. On Sunday a conference of numerous regional "healthcare parties" decided on a basic platform of their own. This, too, looks cautiously to the right. It expresses opposition, for instance, to the government's attempts to stop the engagement of more private companies in delivering healthcare. Still, some of the regional parties are against forming a "Swedish Healthcare Party" to run in the national election. The big decision on whether to do so will be taken on December 3rd.
* Last but certainly not least, Feminist Initiative (www.feministisktinitiativ.se) has had more than its fair share of attention in the Swedish media recently. Just over a month ago, its founding conference confirmed that it would stand in the 2006 election. Even before that congress, however, and certainly since, Feminist Initiative has tested sternly the old dictum that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
For some time, three broad ideological elements have been observable in Feminist Initiative's ranks. There are the "old feminists", associated with earlier political movements and concerned primarily about basic distributional issues. Then there are the radical feminists, who share a sweeping view of the structural oppression of women by men. They have probably been most visibly represented by one of the three "spokespeople" elected by the congress, the former Left Party leader, Gudrun Schyman. Third, there are the "gender feminists", who push "HBT" (homosexual, bisexual, transsexual) interests, and who are often academics associated with post-modern or "queer" theories of gender-construction.
The trouble is, the first and the third of those groups have been in increasingly acrimonious conflict. Last week some astonishingly bitter personal attacks appeared in the media. Several traditional feminists have resigned from their executive positions in Feminist Initiative in protest at the influence exercised by the gender-feminist element. Last week, a central figure in that element - a professor of gender studies and, by all accounts, a rather abrasive personality - had accusations of academic plagiarism thrown at her. She too then resigned from Feminist Initiative's national executive, declaring that, with her subject under such "systematic" attack, she had decided to prioritise its defence over her political engagement.
It will be quite a task for Schyman to lead Feminist Initiative over this disastrous period of infighting. In stark contrast to its profile in the headlines, the new party is currently invisible in the opinion polls.
- Finally, DENMARK has also seen some colourful politics recently. Three weeks ago, the minister of social affairs, Eva Kjer Hansen, declared that inequality can be a dynamic force in society. This, of course, is a scandalous assertion in Scandinavia, and she was forced to retract immediately.
But some of her party colleagues have been less prepared to avoid controversy. A couple of weeks ago, Liberals frustrated at the ultra-pragmatism of Anders Fogh Rasmussen's government launched a new party, which seeks the sort drastic tax-reductions and scaling back of the welfare state that Fogh Rasmussen himself, in his youth, used to advocate. The new party's name in Danish, Liberalisterne (www.liberalisterne.dk), I think is best translated as "Libertarians". But I'm open to alternative suggestions.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
There have been several interesting and/or entertaining developments in Scandinavian politics recently, and I thought I'd send a brief summary to the list.
- In NORWAY, unprecedented coalition talks between the parties of the "red-green" alliance that won a majority of seats (though not votes) in last month's election have concluded successfully. The new government was announced yesterday.
* Labour's leader, Jens Stoltenberg, will of course be the new prime minister. Including his, Labour gets ten of the 19 cabinet seats. One of those is the new foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, described by Aftenposten as "a cosmopolitan, a European [he studied political science in France, apparently] and a red flag for the EU opponents" in the two other coalition parties (although the "suicide clause", by which the coalition agrees to dissolve if one of its number mentions EU membership, remains).
* The Socialist Left gets its first five cabinet positions. More notable is that its leader, Kristin Halvorsen, gets the finance minister's job.
* The Centre Party gets the four remaining places. They include the regional-government portfolio, taken by party leader Åslaug Haga, and the oil-and-energy job, which goes (surprisingly) to an ex-leader, the splendidly named Odd Roger Enoksen.
- In SWEDEN, with less than a year to go now before the election, the field has become even more crowded and even more interesting.
* Two weeks ago, the June List (www.junilistan.se), which did so well in last year's European election, decided that it would contest the national election, too. A recent poll gave it nearly 5 per cent support, which would take it into parliament.
In addition to its soft Euroscepticism ("Yes to Europe, No to an EU state"), the party's preliminary platform has two other pillars: decentralisation ("Shift power into the country") and employment ("A people in work"). The mix could be described as modestly economic liberal, with things like tax rebates for work to improve incentives. But there are a few classic populist crowd-pleasers – decisive referendums on citizens' initiatives, a big cut in the number of MPs – thrown in.
It is far from clear how the coalition of cross-spectrum Eurosceptics that the List attracted so successfully last year will be maintained on the basis of even this fairly parsimonious policy stance. A selection of issues on which the June List's candidates will be expected to set out their "own platforms" implies that a very wide range of opinions among its candidates is envisaged – yet it seems unlikely that many away from the centre-right would sign up to the core platform.
Then there's the organisational challenge. Party leader Nils Lundgren is already talking of "democratising" the List's entirely elite-led internal structure; as yet, it doesn't even have members. How he attempts that will be fascinating to watch.
* What's more, there may be yet more competition in that part of the spectrum. On Sunday a conference of numerous regional "healthcare parties" decided on a basic platform of their own. This, too, looks cautiously to the right. It expresses opposition, for instance, to the government's attempts to stop the engagement of more private companies in delivering healthcare. Still, some of the regional parties are against forming a "Swedish Healthcare Party" to run in the national election. The big decision on whether to do so will be taken on December 3rd.
* Last but certainly not least, Feminist Initiative (www.feministisktinitiativ.se) has had more than its fair share of attention in the Swedish media recently. Just over a month ago, its founding conference confirmed that it would stand in the 2006 election. Even before that congress, however, and certainly since, Feminist Initiative has tested sternly the old dictum that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
For some time, three broad ideological elements have been observable in Feminist Initiative's ranks. There are the "old feminists", associated with earlier political movements and concerned primarily about basic distributional issues. Then there are the radical feminists, who share a sweeping view of the structural oppression of women by men. They have probably been most visibly represented by one of the three "spokespeople" elected by the congress, the former Left Party leader, Gudrun Schyman. Third, there are the "gender feminists", who push "HBT" (homosexual, bisexual, transsexual) interests, and who are often academics associated with post-modern or "queer" theories of gender-construction.
The trouble is, the first and the third of those groups have been in increasingly acrimonious conflict. Last week some astonishingly bitter personal attacks appeared in the media. Several traditional feminists have resigned from their executive positions in Feminist Initiative in protest at the influence exercised by the gender-feminist element. Last week, a central figure in that element - a professor of gender studies and, by all accounts, a rather abrasive personality - had accusations of academic plagiarism thrown at her. She too then resigned from Feminist Initiative's national executive, declaring that, with her subject under such "systematic" attack, she had decided to prioritise its defence over her political engagement.
It will be quite a task for Schyman to lead Feminist Initiative over this disastrous period of infighting. In stark contrast to its profile in the headlines, the new party is currently invisible in the opinion polls.
- Finally, DENMARK has also seen some colourful politics recently. Three weeks ago, the minister of social affairs, Eva Kjer Hansen, declared that inequality can be a dynamic force in society. This, of course, is a scandalous assertion in Scandinavia, and she was forced to retract immediately.
But some of her party colleagues have been less prepared to avoid controversy. A couple of weeks ago, Liberals frustrated at the ultra-pragmatism of Anders Fogh Rasmussen's government launched a new party, which seeks the sort drastic tax-reductions and scaling back of the welfare state that Fogh Rasmussen himself, in his youth, used to advocate. The new party's name in Danish, Liberalisterne (www.liberalisterne.dk), I think is best translated as "Libertarians". But I'm open to alternative suggestions.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2005-09-13
More on Norway's election
You've had the raw figures, now here comes the analysis - from Professor Nick Sitter of the Norwegian School of Management BI in Oslo.
-----
The final counts are still being adjusted; Labour now seems to be getting 61 seats, not 62 (the Conservatives pick up the seat, and get 24, not 23).
Bondevik will tender his resignation after presenting the budget on October 14th, three days after the official opening of parliament. A new 'red-green' government of Labour, the Socialist Left and the agrarian Centre Party could be in place by Monday the 17th.
As Nick [ie, me – NA] says, Labour and the Progress Party are the big winners, partly because Labour promised more spending on public services; and Progress has long promised more spending across the board. The big question is how these two electoral successes will affect Norwegian politics, and not least public expenditure in an oil-rich country.
First, local commentators appreciate that it may seem somewhat odd to outside observers that parties presiding over such economic results (and the country's repeated high rankings in UN and World Economic Forum league tables on standard of living and competitiveness, respectively) are punished so severely by voters. Much of the answer is (as Nick notes) that the left promised higher spending on public services. The results confirm that the election was more about how to spend than about economic performance. Kindergartens, schools and the elderly dominated the campaign. The EU was not mentioned.
Rising incomes evidently do generate rising expectations, as many academics have argued. Economic prosperity is not enough; when countries accumulate (oil) wealth, the debate soon turns to how to spend it. Progress has been keen to spend more, as has the Socialist Left. The Conservatives and Labour have generally been more reluctant to spend oil money. So far Norway has kept the brakes on 'oil-spending', but even the outgoing centre-right government spent more than its own guidelines allowed for. This might be the emergence of a new 'curse' for Norwegian governing parties: a dilemma that reflects the need to maintain prudent fiscal policy in the face of popular demands for more spending. The Conservatives look forward to 2009.
Second, the Norwegian Labour Party has moved considerably to the left, both in its own campaign and in its choice of partners. The party is now considerably further from the Blairite Third Way than it was at the time of the last election. Given the particularly bad result in 2001, when the party lost votes to the Socialist Left, Labour seems to have feared that the unions might shift their support to (or share it with) that party. So this shift leftwards was hardly a surprise. But it raises the interesting question of how far the centre-left government will actually go in reversing recent industrial relations initiatives (the Confederation of Trade Unions, LO, has already made a series of 'urgent demands').
The big question here is whether this is a real (ideological?) change, or merely a tactical (opportunistic?) shift on the part of Labour. The campaign certainly helped not only to recapture votes lost to the Socialist Left, but also to strengthen the centre-left as a whole. Labour has been considerably more oriented toward 'public sector modernisation' in the recent past (i.e. positive towards Third-Way-style ideas).
Third, despite Labour's (apparent?) turn to the left, the coalition of Labour, the Socialist Left and the Centre Party faces a big challenge, given their policy differences. Labour has the advantage not only of being the major partner, but also of a comparatively strong election result. The election result was clearly not ideal as far as the Socialist Left is concerned, but whether this will make the party weaker in negotiations with Labour, or whether it will make it more recalcitrant, remains to be seen. Informal negotiations are already underway.
It is perhaps surprising that the 'red-greens' managed to cobble together a pre-election pact at all, given policy differences on a range of topics including environmental policy and industrial policy; spending the 'oil money'; schools reform; kindergartens vs paying mothers to stay at home; and spending on roads or public transport. However, distances between the mainstream Norwegian parties on economic policy are relatively small (this also hold across to the centre-right) and should not be exaggerated. Consensus remains the norm.
This does, however, raise the question of whether the three-party majority coalition will prove stronger in terms of policy-making than the minority governments that have ruled Norway for the last two decades. Labour claims that it will.
Fourth, turning to the centre-right, the rise of the Progress Party to a clear place as Norway's second-biggest party in the Storting may change the dynamics of opposition considerably! Progress has been the exception to the general rule of consensual economic policy, particularly in its demand for spending 'oil money'. On occasion, it out-performs the Socialist Left and Centre in terms of spending demands, which could leave these two smaller coalition parties in an awkward position, defending themselves against charges of 'low' spending.
Fifth, the EU question is (in all probability) on ice for another four years. The Conservatives and Labour are pro-EU, but the Conservatives agreed a 'suicide clause' for the 2001-2005 coalition with the Liberals (Eurosceptical, turning neutral) and Christian People's Party (oppose EU membership). This meant that the government would collapse if the EU issue was raised; and Labour is now set to embark on a similar pact with its two hard Eurosceptical partners.
Finally (and as Bernt Aardal pointed out on TV on election night), this was an election for which a high turnout should be expected: a close race between two clearly defined alternatives. Admittedly, the 76.1% turnout was up 1.6 points from 2001, but it is still the third-lowest since world war two (and below any average of the last two, three, four, etc elections that one might want to calculate).
It might also be worth noting that in terms of the actual number of votes cast, the three governing parties and the Progress Party together now seem to have outpolled the three red-green parties (Labour, the Socialist Left and the Centre) by 21,000 votes – about 1,271,000 votes to 1,250,000.
-----
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
-----
The final counts are still being adjusted; Labour now seems to be getting 61 seats, not 62 (the Conservatives pick up the seat, and get 24, not 23).
Bondevik will tender his resignation after presenting the budget on October 14th, three days after the official opening of parliament. A new 'red-green' government of Labour, the Socialist Left and the agrarian Centre Party could be in place by Monday the 17th.
As Nick [ie, me – NA] says, Labour and the Progress Party are the big winners, partly because Labour promised more spending on public services; and Progress has long promised more spending across the board. The big question is how these two electoral successes will affect Norwegian politics, and not least public expenditure in an oil-rich country.
First, local commentators appreciate that it may seem somewhat odd to outside observers that parties presiding over such economic results (and the country's repeated high rankings in UN and World Economic Forum league tables on standard of living and competitiveness, respectively) are punished so severely by voters. Much of the answer is (as Nick notes) that the left promised higher spending on public services. The results confirm that the election was more about how to spend than about economic performance. Kindergartens, schools and the elderly dominated the campaign. The EU was not mentioned.
Rising incomes evidently do generate rising expectations, as many academics have argued. Economic prosperity is not enough; when countries accumulate (oil) wealth, the debate soon turns to how to spend it. Progress has been keen to spend more, as has the Socialist Left. The Conservatives and Labour have generally been more reluctant to spend oil money. So far Norway has kept the brakes on 'oil-spending', but even the outgoing centre-right government spent more than its own guidelines allowed for. This might be the emergence of a new 'curse' for Norwegian governing parties: a dilemma that reflects the need to maintain prudent fiscal policy in the face of popular demands for more spending. The Conservatives look forward to 2009.
Second, the Norwegian Labour Party has moved considerably to the left, both in its own campaign and in its choice of partners. The party is now considerably further from the Blairite Third Way than it was at the time of the last election. Given the particularly bad result in 2001, when the party lost votes to the Socialist Left, Labour seems to have feared that the unions might shift their support to (or share it with) that party. So this shift leftwards was hardly a surprise. But it raises the interesting question of how far the centre-left government will actually go in reversing recent industrial relations initiatives (the Confederation of Trade Unions, LO, has already made a series of 'urgent demands').
The big question here is whether this is a real (ideological?) change, or merely a tactical (opportunistic?) shift on the part of Labour. The campaign certainly helped not only to recapture votes lost to the Socialist Left, but also to strengthen the centre-left as a whole. Labour has been considerably more oriented toward 'public sector modernisation' in the recent past (i.e. positive towards Third-Way-style ideas).
Third, despite Labour's (apparent?) turn to the left, the coalition of Labour, the Socialist Left and the Centre Party faces a big challenge, given their policy differences. Labour has the advantage not only of being the major partner, but also of a comparatively strong election result. The election result was clearly not ideal as far as the Socialist Left is concerned, but whether this will make the party weaker in negotiations with Labour, or whether it will make it more recalcitrant, remains to be seen. Informal negotiations are already underway.
It is perhaps surprising that the 'red-greens' managed to cobble together a pre-election pact at all, given policy differences on a range of topics including environmental policy and industrial policy; spending the 'oil money'; schools reform; kindergartens vs paying mothers to stay at home; and spending on roads or public transport. However, distances between the mainstream Norwegian parties on economic policy are relatively small (this also hold across to the centre-right) and should not be exaggerated. Consensus remains the norm.
This does, however, raise the question of whether the three-party majority coalition will prove stronger in terms of policy-making than the minority governments that have ruled Norway for the last two decades. Labour claims that it will.
Fourth, turning to the centre-right, the rise of the Progress Party to a clear place as Norway's second-biggest party in the Storting may change the dynamics of opposition considerably! Progress has been the exception to the general rule of consensual economic policy, particularly in its demand for spending 'oil money'. On occasion, it out-performs the Socialist Left and Centre in terms of spending demands, which could leave these two smaller coalition parties in an awkward position, defending themselves against charges of 'low' spending.
Fifth, the EU question is (in all probability) on ice for another four years. The Conservatives and Labour are pro-EU, but the Conservatives agreed a 'suicide clause' for the 2001-2005 coalition with the Liberals (Eurosceptical, turning neutral) and Christian People's Party (oppose EU membership). This meant that the government would collapse if the EU issue was raised; and Labour is now set to embark on a similar pact with its two hard Eurosceptical partners.
Finally (and as Bernt Aardal pointed out on TV on election night), this was an election for which a high turnout should be expected: a close race between two clearly defined alternatives. Admittedly, the 76.1% turnout was up 1.6 points from 2001, but it is still the third-lowest since world war two (and below any average of the last two, three, four, etc elections that one might want to calculate).
It might also be worth noting that in terms of the actual number of votes cast, the three governing parties and the Progress Party together now seem to have outpolled the three red-green parties (Labour, the Socialist Left and the Centre) by 21,000 votes – about 1,271,000 votes to 1,250,000.
-----
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
2005-08-24
website and Norwegian election
Dear members of the Scandinavian Politics mailing list,
Just a quick message on two matters.
1. SCANDINAVIAN POLITICS GROUP WEBSITE (www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia).
This is now up and running, so do give it a quick surf. I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.
Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?
* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.
* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a strong possibility.
2. NORWEGIAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN. With less than three weeks to go (the vote is on Monday September 12th), this is now in full swing. With thanks to my colleagues Nick Sitter and Niklas Bolin for their comments, here's a concise summary of the state of play.
* Unusually, two clear alternative governments are on offer to Norwegian
voters: (i) the governing minority coalition of the Christian People's Party (who provide the prime minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik), the Conservatives and the tiny Liberals; and (ii) a centre-left alliance of Labour, the Centre Party and the Socialist Left.
This opposition alliance is a real departure in Norway: wartime apart, Labour has never governed in a coalition, never mind pledged to do so before an election. After getting his fingers badly burnt during a short, unhappy time in government in 2000-1, the Labour leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is determined to have a firmer parliamentary base for his next spell in office.
* The polls, usefully summarised by political scientist Bernt Aardal on his website (http://home.online.no/~b-aardal/), suggest that the left alliance will indeed win a bare majority of the vote, which – if, as predicted, the Liberals fall below the 4 per cent threshold - should be enough for a comfortable parliamentary majority. But precisely how votes will translate into seats remains to be seen. The Norwegian periphery is overrepresented, although this time the seats reserved for making the overall result more proportional has risen from 8 to 19.
* What's more, there's always the great unpredictable player in Norwegian
politics: Carl I. Hagen, leader of the right-wing Progress Party. He implicitly backed the Christian-Conservative-Liberal government when it was formed in 2001, which gave it a parliamentary majority, and has mostly continued to do so in budget deals since then. But in June Hagen threw a grenade into the campaign when he said that Progress would NOT support another Bondevik government.
This has been a big blow to the governing parties' credibility. It's seen as an attempt by Hagen to force the Conservatives into thinking about doing a Schüssel – ie, to risk the condemnation of everyone to their left and bring the radical right into government, as happened in Austria in 2000. But could there possibly be a parliamentary majority that would accept that scenario?
And would Hagen really tolerate a left government in preference to a Christian-led one? (He did topple a centre-right coalition in 1986.) These and many other questions remain tantalisingly open.
* Policy-wise, some say that Labour has moved to the left for this campaign.
True, its foreign policy has pretty much nothing in common with that of the Centre Party, which is against EEA membership, or that of Socialist Left, which is against both EEA and NATO membership. But the three parties have simply agreed not to raise such tricky issues. Indeed, the question of EU membership has not reached the agenda, and is highly unlikely to in the next parliament. With their respective alliances both containing strongly anti-EU parties, Norway's only two pro-EU parties, Labour and the Conservatives, each know that pushing the issue would be political suicide.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
Just a quick message on two matters.
1. SCANDINAVIAN POLITICS GROUP WEBSITE (www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia).
This is now up and running, so do give it a quick surf. I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.
Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?
* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.
* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a strong possibility.
2. NORWEGIAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN. With less than three weeks to go (the vote is on Monday September 12th), this is now in full swing. With thanks to my colleagues Nick Sitter and Niklas Bolin for their comments, here's a concise summary of the state of play.
* Unusually, two clear alternative governments are on offer to Norwegian
voters: (i) the governing minority coalition of the Christian People's Party (who provide the prime minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik), the Conservatives and the tiny Liberals; and (ii) a centre-left alliance of Labour, the Centre Party and the Socialist Left.
This opposition alliance is a real departure in Norway: wartime apart, Labour has never governed in a coalition, never mind pledged to do so before an election. After getting his fingers badly burnt during a short, unhappy time in government in 2000-1, the Labour leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is determined to have a firmer parliamentary base for his next spell in office.
* The polls, usefully summarised by political scientist Bernt Aardal on his website (http://home.online.no/~b-aardal/), suggest that the left alliance will indeed win a bare majority of the vote, which – if, as predicted, the Liberals fall below the 4 per cent threshold - should be enough for a comfortable parliamentary majority. But precisely how votes will translate into seats remains to be seen. The Norwegian periphery is overrepresented, although this time the seats reserved for making the overall result more proportional has risen from 8 to 19.
* What's more, there's always the great unpredictable player in Norwegian
politics: Carl I. Hagen, leader of the right-wing Progress Party. He implicitly backed the Christian-Conservative-Liberal government when it was formed in 2001, which gave it a parliamentary majority, and has mostly continued to do so in budget deals since then. But in June Hagen threw a grenade into the campaign when he said that Progress would NOT support another Bondevik government.
This has been a big blow to the governing parties' credibility. It's seen as an attempt by Hagen to force the Conservatives into thinking about doing a Schüssel – ie, to risk the condemnation of everyone to their left and bring the radical right into government, as happened in Austria in 2000. But could there possibly be a parliamentary majority that would accept that scenario?
And would Hagen really tolerate a left government in preference to a Christian-led one? (He did topple a centre-right coalition in 1986.) These and many other questions remain tantalisingly open.
* Policy-wise, some say that Labour has moved to the left for this campaign.
True, its foreign policy has pretty much nothing in common with that of the Centre Party, which is against EEA membership, or that of Socialist Left, which is against both EEA and NATO membership. But the three parties have simply agreed not to raise such tricky issues. Indeed, the question of EU membership has not reached the agenda, and is highly unlikely to in the next parliament. With their respective alliances both containing strongly anti-EU parties, Norway's only two pro-EU parties, Labour and the Conservatives, each know that pushing the issue would be political suicide.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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