Marianne Sundlisæter Skinner

Norwegian Euroscepticism: Values, Identity or Interest

Norway is the only country which has turned down EU membership in two popular referenda. It occupies a unique place in the study of Euroscepticism due to its population’s stable and persistent misgivings about European integration. The thesis seeks to find out what Norwegian Euroscepticism really is and how it can be explained. Adopting a theoretical framework drawn from the Norwegian and comparative literature on EU support and a sequential exploratory mixed methods research design, the thesis first examines how the Norwegian Eurosceptic discourse has played out in a major national newspaper and the party political arena in the last fifty years, through the three periods of heightened Euroscepticism (1961-62; 1970-72; 1989-1994) and one period of latent Euroscepticism (1995-2010). Subsequently, the results of the qualitative analysis are tested on the 1994 Referendum Study to ascertain whether the issues mobilized in the public debate do indeed resonate on the popular level. The thesis finds that there are essentially two broad types of Norwegian Euroscepticism, mainstream (centre/left) and right-wing Euroscepticism. It argues that concerns about postmaterialist Values, political Culture and Rural society (VCR) are at the heart of mainstream Norwegian Euroscepticism, that values (the desire to make Norway and the world a better place), political culture (selfdetermination) and rural attachment are much more potent explanations for the phenomenon than economic interest (wanting to make Norway a richer place) or national identity concerns. Right-wing Euroscepticism, however, has an altogether different structure. Although it shares the political culture element with its mainstream counterpart, it does not exhibit postmaterialist or rural society sentiments. Conversely, it is driven by economic utilitarianism and the view that the EU is not sufficiently neo-liberalist. The findings also suggest that perceived cultural threat might be relevant to right-wing Euroscepticism, but this is an issue which must be investigated further by future research.This article presents a new theory – the VCR (Values, political Culture and Rural society) model – to clarify what Norwegian Euroscepticism is really about and explain why so many Norwegians do not want their country to be a member of the European Union. It argues that at the centre of Norwegian Euroscepticism is a concern for post‐materialist values, political culture and rural society, and that values (the desire to make Norway and the world a better place) is a much more potent explanation for Norwegian Euroscepticism than economic interest (the desire to make Norway a richer place) or perceived threat to Norwegian national identity. The VCR theory finds support in the empirical study conducted: a thematic analysis of newspaper debates in a major Norwegian newspaper from the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. The findings also indicate that the Euroscepticism found in Norway in the 1990s is extremely similar to that which was formed during the first membership debates in the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to contributing towards the literature on Norway and the EU, the article makes a contribution to the general study of Euroscepticism by putting forward a new approach to studying and comparing the subject across time and across countries.

Voluntary Work in the Norwegian long-term Care Sector: Complementing or substituting formal Services?

ABSTRACT Across Europe, governments call for increased involvement of volunteers to shoulder some of the welfare burden. Nevertheless, there is little research into what kind of work and how much volunteers currently contribute in the long-term care services and whether this has the potential to substitute formal services. Drawing on findings from a survey of employees in Norwegian nursing homes and home care districts, we examine the nature and volume of voluntary, unpaid work in the long-term care services in Norway. Our data suggest that volunteers to a very limited degree carry out work that has traditionally been considered the formal system’s domain: personal care and practical help. Nearly all the voluntary, unpaid contributions in our data takes place within cultural, social and other activities aimed at promoting mental stimulation and well-being, indicating a classic specialisation of tasks between volunteers and professionals. However, there has been an expansion of the formal care system to include activities aimed at promoting well-being in recent decades. This may indicate that there is a certain level of task sharing between voluntary and formal care. Thus, social workers need to consider voluntary service provision when assessing the needs of clients.

Enveiskjørt samarbeid? En studie av kommunale ledere og legers erfaringer fra samarbeid med helseforetak om kommunale akutte døgnenheter

The Norwegian Coordination Reform of 2012 transferred responsibilities from the state-run specialist health service to the municipality-run primary healthcare service, simultaneously aiming to improve coordination and cooperation between the two levels. This article investigates how managers and doctors in the municipalities have experienced cooperation with the hospitals on the service level since the reform was implemented. The study focuses on municipal emergency bed units, which are to be introduced in all 428 Norwegian municipalities by 2016. Qualitative interviews with representatives from eight emergency units were conducted in order to identify routines for hospital-municipality cooperation on the service level. The study indicates that there is a majority of cooperation-passive municipality/hospital constellations and a minority of cooperation-active constellations. Furthermore, it is unclear who has the responsibility for initiating and maintaining cooperation. It is argued that both parties have to be active to establish effective cooperation structures on the service level.