Institutt for samfunnsforskning - Vitenarkiv
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The urban-rural cleavage: Analysing more than 40 years of Norwegian survey data
Get PDFIn recent years, the political divide between urban and rural dwellers seems to have increased. Current literature has described the rise of a green, progressive and left-leaning urban electorate and a nationalist and conservative rural population. However, research usually lacks historical data on these developments outside of majoritarian systems. We provide new insights into the urban-rural divide's evolution in a European multi-party welfare state by analysing more than four decades of data from Norway and asking: How has the urban-rural divide over political issues evolved from a long-term perspective? Using unique election survey data, we analyse how both attitudes and most important issues among rural and urban voters in Norway have changed between 1977 and 2021. We also assess whether urban-rural differences are driven by sociodemographic change. Our results indicate both stability and change. On one hand, we find attitude polarisation in Norway on some issues: Divisions over environmental policy have increased, as the urban population displays more progressive attitudes than rural citizens over time. Rural citizens have become more concerned with centre and periphery issues. However, in other areas, we find stability and a relatively low degree of polarisation. For example, the rural population in Norway has become more similar to urban citizens regarding moral and religious issues. Furthermore, rural citizens have not become more right-leaning on economic questions, which has been a finding in more adversarial systems.The urban-rural cleavage: Analysing more than 40 years of Norwegian survey datapublishedVersio
Party Receptiveness to Interest Group Diversity: Evidence From Policymaking in Six European Democracies
Get PDFLegislative party groups regularly get suggestions from numerous, different interest groups trying to influence policy, but individual party groups are likely to be more receptive to suggestions from groups representing some interests than others. We examine (in)equalities in legislative parties' receptiveness to interest group diversity by asking: what factors explain how (un)equally legislative parties listen to and accept suggestions from different types of interest groups? Combining interest group survey data from six long-established European democracies with data on parties' policy area salience and goal priorities, we find support for three possible party-level explanations. Legislative parties seem more equally receptive to the suggestions they receive from different interests when their party prioritizes office over policy in cases of goal conflicts and in policy areas of high salience to the party. When party salience is high, more equal party receptiveness is particularly associated with greater willingness to compromise on policy to be in office.Party Receptiveness to Interest Group Diversity: Evidence From Policymaking in Six European DemocraciespublishedVersio
Turning non-members into members: Do public subsidies to union membership matter?
Get PDFUsing linked employer-employee data for Norway’s private sector we estimate the impact of changes in tax subsidies for union membership on individuals’ membership probabilities. Increased subsidisation of the union members increases union take-up, while increased union fees reduce the demand for membership. The subsidy elasticity of demand for union membership was 0.29 in 2012, though effects are heterogeneous across workers. In the absence of the hikes in tax subsidies and holding workforce composition constant aggregate private sector union membership density would have fallen by 5 percentage points between 2001 and 2012. The elasticity of union membership with respect to subsidies is higher in segments of the labour market where unions have low representation in the first place, such as among temporary workers, youth, immigrants, and among workers in low-wage firms.publishedVersio
Refugee return: Voluntary or forced? Historical parallels between Bosnian and Ukrainian refugee reception in Norway
Get PDFPolicy brief summary:
Norway has received a record number of Ukrainian refugees since 2022 and has granted them temporary protection, similar to when the Bosnians arrived in the first half of the 1990s. This raises questions about integration and repatriation, as almost half of these Ukrainians are now expressing a desire to stay, regardless of the Norwegian government’s commitment to return them once it is safe to do so. In 1996, Norway's approach to simultaneous integration and return was eventually overturned when the Bosnians were permanently settled after four years of temporary protection. With the present war still ongoing, the two-track approach will likely be challenged once again.publishedVersio
Ambivalent mangfold: Jobbsøkeres tolkninger av bedrifters mangfoldssignaler
Get PDFFor å tiltrekke seg søkere med etnisk minoritetsbakgrunn prøver mange bedrifter å signalisere at de er en inkluderende arbeidsplass som ser på mangfold som verdifullt. Spørsmålet vi undersøker i denne artikkelen, er hvordan målgruppen selv tolker slike signaler om mangfoldsvennlighet. Sosialpsykologisk forskning tyder på at positive signaler kan skape forventninger om tilhørighet og rettferdig behandling hos minoriteter, men også at negative signaler kan forsterke minoriteters bekymring for diskriminering. Basert på kvalitative intervjuer med 52 minoritetsnordmenn finner vi at mangfoldssignaler i jobbannonser – som oppfordringer til minoriteter om å søke og bilder som viser et etnisk sammensatt team av ansatte – snarere tolkes med dyp ambivalens. På den ene siden skaper signaler om mangfoldsvennlighet usikkerhet rundt hvem tiltakene er til for, skepsis knyttet til tiltakenes troverdighet, og frykt for at vektlegging av egen minoritetsbakgrunn i praksis kan føre til diskriminering. På den andre siden oppfattes mangfoldsarbeid som viktig, og flere informanter beskriver også signaler som oppfattes som positive og troverdige. Vi diskuterer hvordan denne ambivalensen kan forstås, reflekterer over dilemmaer knyttet til ulike mangfoldsforståelser, og drøfter mulige tilnærminger til videre arbeid med mangfold og inkludering i norsk arbeidsliv.publishedVersio
Frivillig arbeid, livsfase og motivasjon
Get PDFI denne rapporten undersøker vi den frivillige innsatsen som befolkningen i Norge utfører i ulike faser av livsløpet. I analysene sammenlikner vi tre befolkningsgrupper: unge voksne (under 30 år), foreldre med hjemmeboende barn og pensjonister. Analysene er basert på fire spørreskjemaundersøkelser over en periode på fire år (2019–2023).publishedVersio
Duality of the idea of civil society as institutionalized societalsphere and as common world of action
Get PDFCivil society has usually been mapped as a self-contained ‘third sector,’ yet recent scholarship shows that its boundaries blur and its internal moral grammars are plural. Responding to this impasse, the article advances a dual model that conceives civil society simultaneously as (i) a recognizable institutional sphere whose anchors in law, journalism and voluntary association make democratic solidarity possible, and (ii) a distinct order of worth whose higher common principle is engagement, understood as public-oriented participation that confers equal dignity on diverse ethical claims. The model nests two sequential tests of legitimacy: first, interactions must respect civic procedures of reciprocity, publicity and equal standing; second, within those procedures actors may invoke market, industrial, domestic, fame or inspired grammars, whose compatibility is assessed against the engagement criterion. Incivility – refusal to dignify opponents’ values – marks the moral ‘fall.’ The dual model allows explaining why civil initiatives oscillate between autonomy and interpenetration with state and market, and offers a research agenda for tracking when nested civic tests succeed or fail in an era of populism and ecological crisis.publishedVersio
Unpacking New Public Management in Norway – A Policy Fields Approach
Get PDFSince the 1990s, Norway has introduced market-emulating steering tools inspired by the New Public Management agenda in statutory welfare services. Across service fields, non-profit service providers experienced these changes in various ways. We apply the theoretical lenses of policy fields to demonstrate the distinct institutional context these NPM reforms represented in each service area. We compare five policy fields with distinct trajectories regarding NPM governance and non-profit responses: early childhood education and care, the school sector, child protection services, asylum reception services, and hospital services. Among these service areas, we analyze why some non-profit actors succeeded and some failed in terms of lobbying for policy change in support of non-profits. We conclude that NPM is a multifaceted phenomenon and that general inferences about the negative effects of NPM reforms on non-profit service provision are unwarranted, even within this Scandinavian welfare state. NPM instruments not only vary but are also often layered on the existing institutional structure within a policy field. Thus, the preceding institutional setup is important, and outcomes are not completely determined by policy changes. Furthermore, the non-profits are not simply passive recipients. They may also have influence in terms of institutional resources and the recognition of civil society added value, which they can use to both handle new polices and influence the regulatory framework itself.publishedVersio
Social origins and socioeconomic outcomes: a combined twin and adoption study
Get PDFParents and children tend to have similar socioeconomic status (SES). Sociological theory has often emphasized the role of social mechanisms in intergenerational transmission, including the influence of the broader rearing environment as well as parental investments and aid, but often not allotted an important role to genetics. Accumulating evidence suggests that genetics play an important role in the transmission of SES from parents to children. Yet, estimates differ substantially across data sets, measures and methods. Using two research designs that account for potential genetic confounding, and high-quality data from Norway, we estimate the strength of the intergenerational social transmission of a range of SES indicators. By triangulating data and designs, we obtain estimates that are more robust to idiosyncratic modelling assumptions. Measures of Norwegian parents’ socioeconomic position predict their children’s socioeconomic outcomes, but purely social mechanisms only account for a fifth of the total explained variance in intergenerational transmission.publishedVersio
