Henry Valen

Norway: A storting election in the shadow of the EU

Abstract The Storting election of 13 September 1993 turned out to be one of the most widely deviating elections in Norway since the Second World War. The swing to the right, which had been the long-term trend since the 1970s, was reversed. Jointly the two parties of the right, the Conservatives and the Progress party, lost about 12 percentage points of the total vote, while the Agrarian Centre party won an additional 10 per cent by a virtual landslide. This result contrasts sharply with the polarization of the preceding Storting election (1989), when the two extreme parties, the Socialist Left and Progress, jointly gained nearly one fourth of the votes. The 1993 election also deviated in the sense that the turnout level was unusually low. Only 76 per cent of the electorate participated, a decline of 7 per cent compared to 1989. As far as Storting elections are concerned, we have to go back to 1927 to find a lower turnout than in 1993. Another remarkable aspect of the last election was the great changes during the campaign. Thus, according to numerous opinion polls, the Labour party increased its share of the vote by 10 percentage points from May–June to the election in September. Great electoral volatility, which has been evident since the beginning of the 1970s, reached a peak in 1989 when nearly four out of ten voters shifted position compared to the preceding election (Valen et al. , 1990, p. 28). The volatility, which is likely to have been at least as high in 1993, forms a necessary condition for the great electoral changes this year. The topic of this initial analysis is the question of why the 1993 election deviated from the ‘normal’ pattern. Which issues dominated the campaign? How did they affect the competition among political parties? And how may the reactions of the electorate be explained in relation to the current political situation?

A more fragile chain of governance in Norway

Abstract Although in practice Norway has been a parliamentary democracy since 1884 its political institutions differ in a number of ways from the typical parliamentary model. Among its peculiar features is a lack of parliamentary dissolution powers and a set of informal and permissive cabinet formation rules which have contributed to Norways high and increasing frequency of minority governments. This article explores the distinctive features of the democratic chain of delegation and accountability, from voters to ultimate policy-makers, in Norway. It focuses on three increasingly problematic aspects of this chain of delegation: (1) the growing constraints on popular sovereignty due to judicialisation and Europeanisation, (2) the declining importance of parties as vehicles of democratic delegation, and (3) most specifically the Norwegian inclination towards minority government and its consequences. The increasingly fragile minority governments since the 1980s have complicated prospective as well as retrospective accountability in Norway.

The Norwegian Storting: ``People's Parliament" or Coop for ``Political Broilers"?

The article is concerned with the Norwegian Storting and the composition of its MPs over the last 60 years. It asks whether a professionalization of the legislative body has taken place, and then discusses it in terms of social, economic and demographic backgrounds. To what extent has there been a replacement of certain groups, so that some are represented whereas others are falling out? How representative are the elected representatives for the population at large? In analyzing these questions, the article demonstrates how central features of the recruitment system impact the composition of the political elite.

Norway: The 1981 election confirms trend to the right

Abstract The Storting election of 13 and 14 September 1981 resulted in a marked swing to the right, a trend which has been evident since the middle of the 1970s (Valen, 1976; Valen, 1978; Kristiansen & Holbaek Hansen, 1980). The socialist parties lost their majority in the Storting, and the Labour minority government which had been in power since 1973, resigned. After an unsuccessful attempt to form a coalition government between the three leading bourgeois parties, the Conservative party, the Agrarian Centre party and the Christian Peoples party, the Conservatives formed a minority government with parliamentary support from the two other parties.