Introduction
In the last decade, Western societies have been confronted with several serious challenges. The international financial crisis that started in 2008 caused severe problems for several national economies, increasing unemployment, shrinking welfare budgets and increasing national debt. Many observers and scholars alike have blamed national elites for allowing the financial crisis to unfold or have ascribed outright responsibility to them for having caused it. In several countries, elites have also been blamed for increasing socioeconomic inequality, giving rise to widespread popular anger. Trust in political institutions has decreased or even plummeted in several countries, another indication of the increasing distance between elites and ordinary citizens.
Against this background, Norway and the other Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden have received much attention for having been able to ward off several of the challenges facing many other nation states. The Nordic countries have managed to maintain fairly high levels of employment and welfare states which offer their citizens universal and relatively generous economic benefits. The Nordic countries exhibit industrial relations characterised by close cooperation between the main partners in the labour market. This cooperation has kept industrial conflicts and inflation at bay. At the same time, it has stimulated investment and productivity. Economic inequality is among the lowest in the world. Interpersonal trust is widespread, and the political institutions enjoy fairly high levels of citizen trust. Norway in particular has received much international credit for its economic policies. Through a prudent use of oil revenues, Norway has avoided the âcurse of plentyâ, which has been detrimental to many other oil-producing countries. Moreover, the success of the Scandinavian model is not a recent phenomenon. According to Barth et al. (2014), both Norway and Sweden have, since 1982, experienced higher economic growth rates than the USA.
To a large extent, the Norwegian version of the Nordic welfare-state model rests on an elite consensus grown out of previous class compromises, and compromises between opposing interest groups. Both the state and various popular movements, particularly the labour movement , have been important partners in these compromises. The compromises were forged between the leaders of the various class and interest organisations or movements. In that sense, these compromises were elite compromises , in accordance with the theory of Higley and Burton (2006), and were also examples of elite accommodation, as discussed by Lijphart (1969a, b) and Presthus (1973).
Will the elite compromises behind the Norwegian version of the Nordic model be upheld? Will the elites continue to endorse a generous welfare state and peaceful industrial relations ? Have the challenges confronting Norwegian society over the last decade affected the elitesâ willingness to support the Norwegian model?
To a large extent, the viability of Norwegian society will depend upon, and be influenced by, global economic and technological changes, pressures beyond the control of the Norwegian nation state or its politicians. The challenges of decreasing oil prices, global recession, climate change and the huge increase in the number of refugees will all fundamentally impact Norwegian society.
Political changes within Norway also put pressure on elites. After the parliamentary election in 2013, a right-wing minority coalition formed the new government. This government consisted of the Conservative Party and the Progress Party, a right-wing populist party, both of which advocate reduced taxation and more market-based solutions, and gradually implemented political changes in accordance with this ideological position.
Nevertheless, I believe the fate of the Norwegian version of the Nordic model will depend, to a large extent, upon choices made by the members of all the various elite groups within Norwegian society. The aggregate effects of their actions and decisions will affect how Norway responds and adjusts to both external and internal challenges. In this context, I will emphasise the importance of the willingness of national elites to maintain significant compromises. It is therefore vital to learn how Norwegian elites today relate to the various domains of the Norwegian model and to the various political issues dominating discourse in Norway. Moreover, the outcome of the elitesâ judgements and decisions is dependent upon whether there is consensus or disunity among the various elite groups. In other words, are the elites united in their attitudes towards the Norwegian model, or is there divergence of opinions or even polarisation among powerful elite groups?
Norway is frequently described as an egalitarian society in which the welfare state relies on widespread support for social equality. Elites are persons and groups who have power by virtue of holding top positions in large organisations or by disproportionally controlling large amounts of economic capital. The very presence of elites seems, therefore, to be opposed to the ideals of an egalitarian society . Whether this seeming paradox represents a tension in Norwegian society depends, primarily, on the distribution of power and benefits. To what extent do citizens have equal opportunities to be recruited to elite positions and to enjoy a fair share of the income created in society? Second, it depends upon the elitesâ willingness to support egalitarian values. In other words, despite their own privileged positions, do they hold egalitarian ideals high? I will attempt to shed light on both issues.
The ability of elites to affect the development of Norwegian society will, however, also hinge upon the opinions of the population. As indicated above, in several countries, elites and citizens are in discord. This has, for instance, been manifested in decreasing popular trust in elites and political institutions. What is the situation in Norway? Is there a growing gap between elites and citizens here as well? In this book, I will explore the relationship between elites and citizens in depth. I will, for instance, compare attitudes to significant political issues and compare elite and popular trust in political institutions. I will also examine the extent to which elites hold elitist opinions towards the citizenry in general.
The questions above will be discussed with reference to historical studies of Norway and to data from two survey studies of elites in Norway. The first one was conducted in 2000 and the second in 2015 (Torsteinsen 2017). The two studies are presented in detail in Appendix A.
The Structure of Elite Compromises
The elite compromises in Norway follow a two-tiered structure (Engelstad et al. 1999; Gulbrandsen et al. 2002). First-order elite compromises are those historic settlements which establish a basic consensual unity among the main elites (Higley and Burton 2006). They frequently lay down the constitutional structure of a society. Second-order compromises are sector-specific agreements.
A first-order elite compromise in the history of the Norwegian nation was the liberal Constitution of 1814, one of the most democratic at that time. This constitution established the individual rights which have formed the political landscape ever since. For instance, the fathers of the constitution made the right to vote contingent upon the ownership of property, granting independent farmers and even rural leaseholders the right to vote (Myhre 2017). This meant that the demographic majority of society, the peasants , had a say in national political matters. According to Kuhnle, âMore than elsewhere in Europe peasants were carriers of freedom and equality in Scandinaviaâ (2000: 209). This social group would, later in the century, become a significant political force in Norwegian society. The Constitution also gave citizens freedom of speech. A couple of decades later, this freedom was an important precondition for the massive upsurge of voluntary associations. Many of these associations later developed into national popular movements which had considerable political influence.
From the late nineteenth century onwards, we can identify at least three more first-order elite settlements in Norway which were important preconditions for the emergence and development of the Norwegian welfare-state model. In 1884, a parliamentary system of government was introduced. This entailed constitutional recognition and legitimation of conflict between political parties. This reform was pushed forward by a coalition of peasants , representatives of popular movements and urban intellectuals. Together these groups founded the Liberal Party (Venstre) in 1884, in opposition to the ruling elite of senior civil servants and urban burghers. Representatives of the latter groups established the Conservative Party (Høyre), also in 1884. Three years later, in 1887, the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) was formed. The basic elite compromise behind the establishment of a parliamentary system gave rise to new ways of channelling political demands into the political system from below.
The next decisive elite settlement was made around 1905, when Norway gained independence from Sweden. Most Norwegian elites worked together to achieve independence. During the first years thereafter, political debates were toned down in favour of the project of building the new nation. The last first-order elite compromise in Norwegian history appeared in 1945. At the end of the Second World War, the various Norwegian elite groups were firmly determined to work together for national reconstruction. This elite settlement manifested itself in a joint political program formulated and endorsed by all the main political parties in Norway.
In addition to these first-order elite compromises , consensual unity and political stability have been secured in Norway through several sector-specific elite compromises. In this paper, I will focus upon the compromises behind two of the most prominent elements of the Nordic model : (1) the welfare state and (2) the extensive collaboration between the trade union movement and employersâ associations.
The Nordic Model and Its Norwegian Version
The idea that the Nordic countries make up a special group of democratic, welfare-capitalist countries is widely accepted. In his well-known analysis of welfare capitalism, Esping-Andersen (1990) identified three types of welfare states: (i) social democratic, (ii) conservative, and (iii) liberal. The Nordic countries were analysed as the prototypical examples of social democratic welfare states. In the âvarieties of capitalismâ literature (Hall and Soskice 2001), the Nordic countries have been denoted as a variant of âcoordinated market economiesâ, as opposed to âliberal market economiesâ.
What are the main elements of this Nordic model ? There is no consensus in the literature on its exact nature or content. Each of the Nordic countries has a unique economic and social system. Nonetheless, the Nordic countries share a specific combination of institutions and policies. This justifies considering them a distinct category of democratic welfare states.
Welfare State and Welfare Policies
According to welfare-state researchers (Christiansen et al. 2006; Kvist et al. 2011; Pedersen and Kuhnle 2017), the Nordic welfare-state model is characterised by comprehensive public responsibility for the well-being of citizens and residents, a large public sector and comparatively generous welfare benefits. A key characteristic of the Nordic welfare states is the principle of universal social rights for the entire population.
The Nordic welfare-state model clearly differs from the liberal-welfare model that is prevalent in the USA and some of the other Anglo-Saxon countries. Liberal-welfare states typically offer little more than minimum income protection, so that security beyond that minimum must be bought as market-based insurance in which benefits depend upon how much the individuals have paid. The Nordic model...