Current Sociology http://csi.sagepub.com/

Social Change and Social Science in Norway Per Otnes Current Sociology 1977 25: 57 DOI: 10.1177/001139217702500104

The online version of this article can be found at: http://csi.sagepub.com/content/25/1/57.citation

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Sociological Association

Additional services and information for Current Sociology can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://csi.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://csi.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - Jan 1, 1977

What is This?

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN NORWAY

Per Otnes

PRESENT SOCIAL SCIENCE TEACHING AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS wo trends are apparent in present Norwegian social science: growth, and dispersion. Norway’s population, (slightly less than say Scotland’s) has shown an increasingly sluggish growth. In the same period our number of social scientists has raced towards unprecedented levels at an increasing rate, up to, if not including, the most recent year or so. For example, at Oslo University, the sociology staff has increased tenfold in 26 years, numbering 22 in 1977. The number of students majoring in sociology and graduating per year slightly exceeds this growth rate, increasing from 2 to about 30. The greatest explosion of all, however, is found in the number of students following one- and one-and-a-half-year sociology courses: from 3 in 1958 to a record of 678 in 1975 (347 in 1976). All these figures refer to Oslo alone. As for dispersion, the last ten years have seen the establishment of academic sociology institutes in the cities of Bergen, Trondheim and Tromso. While staff and student numbers in none of these three can match Oslo’s, they certainly reinforce and accelerate the Oslo growth trend at the national level. Exact figures are not available but national staff and student totals can be estimated at two to three times the Oslo figures of 1977.

From ’social science’ as used here are excluded the whole of economics, education, geography and most of psychology. Given that sociology is the main focus of attention, developments in political science, social anthropology, history and philosophy will be touched upon as well, though with no attempt at comprehensiveness. Arbitrary as this choice may seem, it is based on the vagaries of interdisciplinary contact and lack of contact among Norway’s social sciences. Readers looking for information on our economics and geography may be referred to (180, 206, 234) for a start. Thanks are due to Vilhelm Aubert and Else 0ysen for comments on the draft version of this paper; and to Aase Rellsve who computed Table 1. 57

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 58

Naturally, most professionals welcome both trends. For the author of an article reviewing them, however, this explosive expansion of the discipline presents difficulties. Today, it is no longer possible to be equally well acquainted with every branch and project in our field. In addition to this general limitation, there may also be personal ones. Though generally fairly well informed, I may be slightly less conversant with developments in Bergen and Trondheim, while possessing some detailed personal knowledge concerning the last decade in Oslo and Troms~. Present-day Norway has no more than four universities. All have sociology institutes, viz. lnstituttet for Sosiologi at the University of Oslo, Sosiologisk lnstitutt at the University of Bergen, lnstitutt for sosiologi og samfunnskwl1lskap at the University of Trondheim, and Iiistitutt for samfu1111svitenskap at the University of Tromsø. All offer students 1-2 year introductory courses, as well as a full professional education of 5-7 years duration (introductory year included). Students majoring in sociology may end up with a number of differently named degrees: Cand.polit., Cand.sociol. (Oslo only), or Mag.art. The former two are designed for a mean duration of some five years. The latter, a scientific degree combining a minimum of compulsory courses with a maximum freedom to choose one’s own reading, is probably intermediate between the MA and the Doctoral level. The duration is more flexible, with an estimated mean of seven years’ study. Interdisciplinary ties are traditionally strong in Norwegian social sciences. In the past, interdisciplinary projects brought together researchers with backgrounds in law, philosophy, psychology, economics, history. Out of this combined effort, sociology, political science and social anthropology gradually emerged as more or less separate disciplines, while maintaining close ties and more than slightly overlapping research interests. All four institutes of course have active research staff members, ranging from between five to twenty-five in number. Exact figures are difficult to state on account of the interdisciplinary tradition: for example, the TromW social science institute has no more than five sociologists as judged by their educational background, but well over twenty-five when sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, historians, education researchers etc., are included. The stated range limits are minima rather than maxima. Majoring students, who represent from 5-10 times the number of staff at each institute, also make valuable research contributions. Publication lists, with

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 59 or (lamentably) most often without translations of titles, are obtainable. A number of Regional Colleges (Distriktsh~gskoler) provide an even more marked trend towards dispersion. Started on a provisional basis in 1969, the number has grown almost annually to reach today’s ten. They are situated in the towns of Halden, Kristiansand, Bo, Stavanger, Lillehammer, Sogndal, Volda, Molde, Bodo, Alta. Most, if not all, offer one-year introductory courses in sociology, or with some sociology, combined with other disciplines such as education, business administration or psychology. The courses are designed to have an applied angle - preparing graduates for tasks in the private enterprises, organizations, or public administration of each region. Though not really designed for it, most Regional Colleges do some research as well. Topics may derive from staff and student interest in regional social problems, or from local business, union or administrative demands. The amount of research that should be done at Regional Colleges is a matter of some dispute, however, as is the rating of their courses - on or slightly below university course levels. In addition, Bergens’s National College of Business Administration (Norges Handelshoyskole) should be mentioned. Offering courses to students since 1936, it was a national pioneer in most of the fields it covers. Sociology as a separate institute is not however included, the College having been more concerned with those parts of economics, business and marketing which lend themselves to practical application. The college does comprise Institutes of Psychology of Work and Personnel Administration, and Geography. At Oslo University’s Faculty of Law there is an Institute for Sociology of Law (lnstitutt for rettssosiologi), probably quite unique in the world. Originally built up around the research interests of Torstein Eckoff and Vilhelm Aubert, Thomas Mathiesen holds the senior post today. Several non-sociological university institutes have nevertheless hired sociology staff members, permanently or on a temporary basis: notably Oslo’s Institute of Criminology and Penal Law (lnstitutt for kriminologi og Strafferett), a separate Institute for Press or Mass Communications Research (lnstitutt for presseforskning), and (within Oslo’s Faculty of Medicine) the Institute of Social Medicine (Institutt for sosialmedisin). And, of course, the Institutes of Psychology, and Political Science, have both hired sociologists, and vice versa. When we turn to bodies with no teaching responsibilities, a number

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 60 of ’pure’ research institutes come to mind. Oslo’s Institute of Social Research (Institutt for sainJi1nfisforskfiiiig) perhaps deserves first and foremost mention. A mere 26 years old, it nevertheless has provided a fertile seedbed for much social science research in our country. Even today it retains, to a degree, the standing of a nucleus in the field. While remaining a private foundation, at present a closer cooperation with the State’s more recent Institute of Applied Social Research (Institu tt for annendt sosiahJitenskapelig forskning, Oslo) is planned. Oslo’s Peace Research Institute (PRIO for short), originally a branch of the Institute for Social Research, started work as a separate organization in the early sixties. A chair for peace research at Oslo University was founded in 1969 for PRIO’s initiator, Johan Galtung. Other research institutes with sociologists on their staff include the State Institute for Alcohol Research (Statens institutt for alkoholforskning), the State Institute for Consumer Research (Statens institutt for forbntkerforskning), The Fund for Market and Distribution Research (Fondet for inarkeds- og distribusjonsforkningJ, the (State) Institutes forr Work Research (Arbeidsforsknings-institutterze, comprising separate Work Hygiene, Physiology, and Psychology of Work Institutes), the City and Region Research Institute (Norsk institutt for by- og regionforskning, or NIBR, which includes research on planning), the Construction Research Institute (Norsk byggforslcningsinstituttJ, the Norwegian Computer Centre (Norsk regnesentral), the Productivity Institute (Norsk produktivitetsinstitutt, closely tied to a more recent Society for Future Research, or Selskapet for fremtidsstudierJ. Two pioneering institutes also deserve mention: Bergen’s Chr. Michelsen Institute for Science and Intellectual Freedom, and Oslo’s Institute for Comparative Research in Culture (Instituttet for sammenliknende kulturforskning). Both were private initiatives but receive some state support. Starting work in the twenties and early thirties, they have sponsored important work in, for example, political science, linguistics, and history. Today the approach, particularly of the latter, may be classified as more a traditional Humanities one than a Social Research one. The sociological profession in Norway has of course been rapidly expanding. There is a Norwegian Sociologists’ Association, (Norsk sosiologforening) numbering some 150 members today. The Association’s work up to now has consisted in providing a forum for colleagues’ discussions, rather than being fashioned to a more

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 61 businesslike trade union or professional association pattern. Several non-sociologists (by educational background) are members, and not all sociology graduates join the association. Some prominent professional journals should be mentioned. Of course, the inter-Nordic (English language) Acta Sociologica is a very solid leader in the field, solid perhaps even to the point of appearing slightly dull. The principal Norwegian publication is the Journal of Social Research (Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning), printed since 1960 and carrying brief English summaries to the papers after the 1967 volume. The Journal of Peace Research is edited in English (with Russian summaries); it is an international journal although Norwegian contributions are frequent. The (English language) Inquiry is a philosophers’ forum where an occasional sociological contribution will be found. Perhaps slightly less solid, but definitely more vigorous and provocative, is Sociology Today (Sosiologi idag). Originally a student initiative ( started in 1971), it has recently improved and expanded greatly, while retaining an editorial staff of postgraduate students. There are no English summaries. The Norwegian Journal of Philosophy (Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift) is similar in this respect, as is Kontrast. The latter is a general rather than a professional journal - a modest kind of New Society though appearing roughly on a monthly basis - nevertheless it contains much of professional interest. In the last six to seven years, its tinge has been definitely Marxist, though reasonably ecumenical within this tradition. Two (English language) yearbooks deserve mention: Scandinavian Political Studies, whose eleventh volume appeared recently, and Scandinaoian Studies in Criminology, which has now reached its fifth volume. Both contain much of interest to sociologists; there is, however, no comparable sociological yearbook.

A GLIMPSE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE PRE-HISTORY 1850-1950

In Norway the first academic chair bearing the name of sociology was established in 1948. Predecessors wearing slightly different names, but practising shades of the same trade, are, however, easily found, from the early 1850s onwards. A study by the present author (230) attempts to place a number of these forerunners in a sociology-of-science

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 62 perspective. A large amount of historical data were surveyed with a view to verifying the following three hypotheses:

(1) The rise and growth of an ’objective’ (or ’value-free’) and independent social science is reinforced when the surrounding society is characterized by political consensus and a steady economic growth. Economic insecurity, stagnation, or recession, and political dissensus, on the other hand, are unfavourable to social science thus conceived.

(2) Despite the lack of academic institutes of sociology, instances of social surveys or investigations approaching or attaining a scientific character may be found, dispersed over most of the period 1850-1950. However, in periods characterized by political dissensus, and when economic prospects are uncertain or receding, the social science surveys etc. frequently give up claims to strict ’objectivity’ (‘value-freedom’) and independence.

(3) Norwegian social science between 1850-1950 displays a fairly general tendency for the slightly critical report, survey etc. to prevail over less critical, less innovatory reports. Though no primordial force, our social science has often engendered or been an expression of social change in favour of the broad popular masses, rather than of smaller, special interest groups. We can boast, though not unequivocally, of a progressive tradition, one of social criticism, but hardly a’revolutionary’ one: Norwegian revolutionaries, with very few exceptions, have not engaged in social science, at least not in our ’pre-historic’ period 1850-1950. The reservations and nuances one would like to add to these hypotheses can be found in (230) and with one exception they will not be reproduced here: we do not expect the variables of (1)-(3) to be very strongly related but rather to find modest, but fairly significant correlations between them. For ( 1 )~2) a simple quantitative test was attempted (to supplement other evidence). Looking at Table 1, a number of comments suggest themselves:

(a)The Ns may be found rather small. However, they are not samples, but totals (with insignificant omissions) of Norwegin social (statistical) surveys in each period. (b) The Ns display a rather steady and impressive growth in the volume of social statistics. A few ’great leaps forward’ mav be found: the

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 63

Table 1. Independent vs. Dependent Social Survey Reports, by Five Year Periods, 1850-1949. Percentages.

Source: (168). The criterion distinguishing ’independents’ from ’dependents’ is very simple: the first are published under the author(s)’ name, indicating their personal responsibility for design and results; the latter, while individual author(s) may be identifiable, are published under an organization’s name (e.g. Bureau of Statistics, Ministry, Parliament, Printers’ Union), indicating collective responsibility for design and results.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 64

1890s, the 1910s, the later 1930s and the post-1945 years. One single factor accounting for much of this is the simultaneous growth in social welfare legislation and institutions. Indeed, a sizeable proportion of the surveys were undertaken in direct connection with report and committee work preparing social reforms. e.g. the Poor Relief Acts (1866), the Factory Act (1892), the (un-enforced) Pensions Act (1918).

(c)The pauses or slight recessions found in N development all coincide with the periods of most intense dissensus in our political history: the early 1880s with the heated struggle between the emerging left Liberals, proponents of Parliamentary rule, vs. the traditional Right, favouring the old Balance of Powers system; the late 1920s and early ’30s, when the Labour and Communist parties proposed revolutionary programmes (later dropped by Labour); and, of course, the (latter) war years with the struggles between partisans vs. occupants.

(d) The proportion of ’independent’ research work declines steadily from the tranquil 1850s and 60s towards the more tempestous 1870s and 80s. Indeed, the 1860s level has never been regained in our pre- historic period.

(e)There is, however, another considerable upsurge of ’independent’ social surveys, namely the first decades of this century. Internationally, this is the heyday (and ensuing fall) of German imperialism, of which the Weberian conception of social science may be considered one of a myriad component parts. In Norway, it is also the years of (Parliamentary) political début for the labouring masses, following the introduction of universal (male) suffrage (1898). The Norwegian independent social science of the period is, however, not usually fashioned after the Weberian ’objective’ model. The picture is multi- faceted. Prolonged, even intense economic growth there was, from say 1900-1921, but political consensus, on the other hand, could hardly be said to prevail. Between the Conservatives (Old Liberals) and the New Social-Liberals, consensus was increasing but important differences remained, for example over social issues, like what to do with the emerging Third Force in politics - Labour, its adherents and organizations. Here, a major source of new, increased dissensus, or at least increasingly vocal dissensus, is apparent. Though the mere numbers in the table do not show it, the detailed data do confirm that ’the second independent upsurge’ usually follows

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 65 the trend suggested in hypothesis (2) (p.62), i.e. the surveys do not claim a strict ’objectivity’, a typical form being the report(s) of conflicting experts, questioning each others’ bases in facts and values.

(f) The Trade Union or Employer’s Association sponsored surveys are singled out mainly because of their very uneven distribution. They are unfailingly ’dependent’ (of collective responsibility) in character, and generally concerned with wages, work milieu, and statistics, with a view to use in wage negotiations. The comparatively brief duration of TU social survey work nevertheless warrants comment: (i) The upsurge coincides very neatly with the heyday of revolutionary currents in the Norwegian Labour movement. The statistical work, however, is definitely, even exclusively, provided by the ’reformists’, not the revolutionaries. (ii) After the latter current calmed and (largely) found its way back to the mainstream, the unions (to this day) have relied almost exclusively on State and Employers’ Association statistics, even for use in negotiations, with little checking, controlling or opposition on anything approaching a scientific basis. Hypothesis (3) is less easily supported or confirmed quantitatively. Some selected instances are in order: Eilert Sundt (1818-75), a theologian by education, is author of most of the independent surveys in the first five periods of Table 1. For example, his demographic work is still held in high esteem (167). An ardent and active opponent of the (rough) Norwegian equivalents of the Chartist movement, Sundt nevertheless later took an active part in Committee work preparing the Poor Relief Act of his time. The social criticism most apparent in his work is, in a sense, directed against the popular masses. His writings abound with the theologian’s reproaches and castigations of the lower classes for their many immoral ways. Though less apparent, modest criticisms of middle and upper class views are also present in Sundt’s work. As a philanthropic, paternalistic type of traditional (Manchester) Liberal, Sundt favoured policies of class compromise rather than class struggle. While the main causes of extensive pauperism (in Sundt’s opinion) were to be found in the moral shortcomings of the poor themselves, Sundt also provided convincing proof that lower class ’irresponsibility’ could not alone be held responsible. And while the main cure for pauperism was to be found in the individual, moral reform of the poor themselves, Sundt also favoured sizeable increases in both Poor Taxes, or voluntary contributions, to a degree that few of his contemporary middle and upper class confreres would follow.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 66

Jacob Mohn (1838-82), lawyer by education, conducted social surveys of a high quality on several important reform issues of his day; viz. a draft Child Labour Act, and proposals to extend the franchise. His work on rural class structure (crofters and landlords) and on the urban income distribution is most impressive even today, and accorded a quite unmerited degree of inattention. For a short period in the early 1870s, Mohn also did important pioneering work in the early consumers’ co-operative movement. While much less of a moralist than Sundt, Mohn was by no means of a socialist inclination. He did, however, examine the full scale of the class structure, where Sundt usually confined himself to the lower, even lower-lower (vagrant) groups and classes. Mohn represented less of a paternalistic, and perhaps more of an early, emerging social-liberal point of view. He was more ready to accept that solutions to social problems must imply permanent restrictions on Sundt-style economic and social liberalism. Axel Holst (1860-1931), a professor of medicine in Oslo, is best known for his work on scurvy, clearing the way for the discovery of vitamins. Working in bacteriology and hygiene, he also conducted an important social survey of the housing conditions of Oslo’s labouring classes. Published in 1895, and probably inspired by contemporary work by Charles Booth, Holst was able to show for example that over- crowding was considerably worse in Oslo than in most other European capitals of the time. His report, in the longer run, was instrumental in the establishing of Oslo City Council institutions ( 1911 ) to solve or alleviate the grave housing problems. Wilhelm Thagaard (1890-1970) was a lawyer-cum-political economist by education. A leading left Liberal for several decades, he was widely used in public committee work. His work on price regulations, starting with the First World War, won him a life-long position in the State Prices Directorate (and its fore-runners). Thagaard, fairly typical of his generation (though perhaps more leftist), is a full-fledged Social Liberal. His survey work, however, shows deficiencies when judged against strict research standards. For example, he often relied on secondary sources and very seldom collected new, first-hand data. However he showed a pronounced reliance on his social science education and experience in undertaking a great amount of applied work and he is prominent among a generation of social scientist-cum-top-administrators, of a type infrequently found in recent decades (excluding, as we have noted, the post-war role played by economists). None of these four have had works translated into

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 67

English.

Concluding remarks on the ’pre-history’ of social science

A. The Norwegian social science tradition is clearly and unequivocally empiricist. No outstanding theorists, concept-coiners, Webers or Durkheims, (again outside of economics) are found. Within this empiricist tradition, a number of contributions do stand out, for their research quality, for their value as historical sources, as well as of some relevance even today.

B. The choice of basic social research strategy exhibits a kind of long- term U-curve variation: e.g. both in the work of Sundt, and present day social science, bi- and multivariate statistical analysis is very prominent. Those coming in between, however, rely on pure frequency distributions to a far higher degree. For example, both Mohn and Holst were able, and by and large content, to point out a sort of univarate scandal: that the extent of child labour, or overcrowded housing, was far greater, far worse in Norway than in other comparable countries. They provoked social changes by challenging the proverbial national complacency. The remedies they had in mind had a degree of initial coarseness to them: State legislation, or other public action, to solve, alleviate or even prohibit different kinds of social problems. Traditional or modern liberalism, with its greater reluctance to take such direct measures, may, like Sundt, be more prone to search for indirect, round-about solutions. Thus it might be claimed that the multivariate upsurge in the 1950s could be linked directly to a kind of second d~but for liberal ideologies in that period. A more likely explanation would hold that, after the most basic social-liberal reforms were instituted, less coarse and more nuanced measures and revisions were needed. And as more options and levers for public (state or local) action became acceptable, more foresight and co-ordination, i.e. more multivariate models for action, were required in their appliance. Still, the well-documented univariate scandal- model for social research remains an interesting and potentially a powerful one.

C. ’Positivism’ by some of its critics, is conceived as the insistence on Naturwissenschaftliche, not (merely) Geistewissenshaftliche, or Philosophical, ideals of data collection, methods and theory (196).

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 68

While in basic agreement with many other points of criticism against ’positivism’, the historical instances here seem to disprove the refutation en bloc of all ’positivism’ as co-extensive with use of Naturwissenschaftliche methods in social science, as much too simplistic. In particular, given that exact, statistical methods of collecting and presenting data are typical of Naturwissenschaft, we have seen that the most zealous application of such methods (e.g. by Mohn, Holst) nevertheless may provoke, or at least express and reinforce, social change in ’progressive’ directions. ’Positivism’ in this conception therefore does not seem to ’leave everything as it is’, (as Wittgenstein’s dictum, on philosophy, has it). On the other hand, there are instances of Norwegian social investigations in the Geisteswissenschaftliche, or even philosophical, tradition, having non-progressive, even proto-fascist traits. German sociologists discuss their Carl Schmitt, a pupil of Max Weber. who later became a leading Nazi philosopher of law. Though little known today, Norwegian counterparts, of a definitely un-positivist kind may be found (1965).

A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL SCIENCE POST 1950

MAIN TREND OF SOCIAL CHANGE: GROWTH, MIGRATIONS, CONCENTRATION

Real economic growth, prolonged and without serious setbacks or recessions, is of course an important and major tendency, as the following graph witnesses: see Figure 1. The growth effects on income distribution may be debated - as a whole it may have become more, or less, skewed. However, it is very likely that the level of income (or standard of living by most indicators) has increased somewhat at both extremes - if not to the same extent as seems likely. Many economists hold that increased mobility is the price we have to pay - or even the prize we win - for upholding real growth. Whatever the reason, (geographical) mobility certainly has increased, to quite un-precedented levels: see Table 2. The Norwegian changes stand out, in contrast to the relative stability of the UK. The last quarter century is quite unique in all of Norwegian history: we never moved so much before. Both the number, and the

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 69

Figure 1. Index Numbers of Production in Mining and Manufacturing 1909-1975. 1938 = 100

Table 2. Work F’orce According to Population Census (except 1975), by Main Sector of Occupation. Norway and United Kingdom. Percentages

Source: National, UN, and of Nations statistics. Downloaded Leaguefrom csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 70

proportion, of working people, changing their way of life from the rural-farming-fishing setting to the urban-service-industry sectors, is of record height. In rough comparison, our rapidity of ’Structural Change’ is well above that of France and Italy, whilst clearly below that of (Federal) Germany and Japan, the world leader. More detailed statistics on the total Norwegian farming-fishing population, i.e. family members being included, show that their actual number remained remarkably stable; on or slightly below the 1 million level from say 1875 to 1949. But following 1950, a rapid decrease set in, until today only something between a half and a third are remaining on the farms. Obviously, this is no longer only a ’natural decrease’ of ’excess population’, but involves actual migrations on a mass scale (221, table 76; 222). Regarding concentration, Norway used to be a country of dispersion, of small and scattered units. It still is, but to a decreasing extent. While our median farm about thirty years ago had an acreage of approximately three Hectares, the corresponding figure today would be about five Hectares. The small have thus become less numerous, and slightly less small, but still, by almost any European comparison, Norway is a leader in smallness. A rather similar trend could be produced for manufacturing, but here, as in most western countries, important changes have taken place on top: our ten leading Industrial Corporations used to account for some 12-15% of total mining and manufacturing turnover ten years ago. Today (1975) the comparable figure would be about 20%. The actual figures for a single year may be uncertain, but not the trend of development (220). Again, a roughly comparable figure for the UK’s ’top ten industrials’ might be somewhere between 35-40% of total mining and manufacturing turnover (1974) (193, 236). Even for trade and services, a similar tendency is noticeable. Generally, then, if ’Small is Beautiful’, Norway still can boast a position near the top, though it has declined slightly in recent years. The latter trend is likely to continue. It should be mentioned, though, that an increasingly vocal opposition is heard today: the defenders of keeping, or even increasing, smallness and dispersion, have gained some headway recently, even in, or near, decision-making circles. On the international scene, the growth and position of the Giant Corporations, the Multinationals, raises problems of definition: the March issue (1971) of the magazine Vision featured a list consisting of the hundred greatest economic units in the world, including both Nations and Corporations. The former were measured by their gross

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 71 national products (GNP), the latter by their turnover. The giant concerns occupied ftfty four of the hundred places. General Motors, ranked fifteenth. After that they came thick and fast - General Motors, Esso, Ford and Shell all well ahead of Norway. The magazine did not list the socialist countries. On the other hand, it was rather generous in measuring the ’western’ countries, who do not control their GNP in the same way that the giant concerns control their turnover. The state does not own the national product. State or public expenditure would be a better indicator, and would have given rise to an entirely different list on which General Motors would probably advance from number fifteen to number three or four. Norway would hardly enter the list at all. Now, when equalling or surpassing many nations in economic strength, what really are the features that distinguish corporations from states? Traditionally, of course, states are territorially based and demand effective monopoly on the use of (physical) power within their borders. But there have been reports indicating that some giant corporations contain concealed armed security forces of their own (241). As for the powers of State to raise taxes, how do these differ from the part played by monopoly in pricing products in general use (say steel or oil) - in what respects does this really differ from a Value Added Tax? Differences between the Private and Public remain, of course, but perhaps less so than a decade ago, posing dangers and challenges as traditional borderlines weaken.

THE CRITICS AND THE COMPLACENT

The choice of a meaningful periodization of Norwegian social science or general history is not too a difficult task after 1950. The choice of meaningful criteria for the selection and evaluation of research reports, on the other hand, poses problems. This is less marked where purely scientific standards of judgement are concerned, for although these may be undergoing some debate, this still leaves a fair number of rules which are generally accepted (thoroughness, criticism, creativity, etc.). The real difficulties start the moment we want to evaluate research contributions in terms of the social criticism they may or may not contain. When the social sciences leave behind, as we increasingly do, the somewhat naive self-image of purely ’objective’, ’purveyor- of-facts’ disciplines, we accept some kind of a normative role, a position of (modest or immodest) contributors to directed social change (or

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 72 non-change, or opposition to change). But by what standards can such contributions be judged? What is good, progressive, radical, reasonable, well-founded, responsible, or scientifically based social criticism? A number of answers have been proposed. Criticisms should be (a) anti- (or pro-) Establishment. This is much too simplistic a notion. ’Establishments’, on closer inspection, usually contain opposing, even contradictory wings and views or policies. Furthermore, in our period of rapid and comprehensive social changes, most opposition parties will favour some kinds and amounts of changes, and equally governing parties seldom endorse the total status quo (ante mutatio). Clearly, any meaningful use of such criteria will have to specify what part(s) of the Establishment are to be opposed or defended, or (alternatively) what trait(s) are considered basic to all Establishments. (b) critical (or positipe), anti- (or pro-) Positipist committed (or indifferent, ’neutral), (cf. p.67-68). While several crucial points from the debate against positivism have become fairly generally accepted in contemporary (Norwegian) social science, neither pro- nor anti- positivism alone, in empirical or theoretical work, can guarantee the progressiveness, or conservatism, of scientific reports or social criticisms.

(c) work undertaken in the interests of Liberation, or oppressiorT, even if this is barely conscious. An early proponent of this view is the German philosopher-sociologist Jurgen Habermas (196). Though the phraseology used may indicate general acceptance of this outlook (who are against liberation?), there are problems associated with his position: liberation, for which group(s), against the oppression of whom? Some kind of a choice, a siding with Parties on Issues, will have to be added to the notion of ’pure liberationalism’, which is just as untenable and formal as for example ’pure objectivism’.

In a more recent statement, Professor Habermas has added what seems to be a neo-Kantian angle to his Critical Dialectic, namely that social criticisms which are scientifically founded should search out, discuss, and establish generalizable (verallgemeinerungsfåhige) interests (197), (i.e. ones which potentially are common if not universal), but are nevertheless oppressed. The instances he sketches of such interests may seem appealing, but hardly incontrovertible. We may accept his advice to side with broad rather than narrow groups, classes or interests, but the choice of sides can hardly be made by reference

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 73

to such a grandiose criterion alone.

(d) in favour of certain class interests (in opposition to the interests of other classes). While it is more explicit, this position is no better at serving alone as a standard for judgement. In the first place, ’pure’ instances of research reports clearly siding with working, smallholding, white collar, capitalist, or other classes - or even more broadly, with lower vs. upper classes - are seldom found. Secondly there are problems about whether we can trust statements of intention on the part of the researcher(s), or whether demonstrable results which further the particular interests of a given class should be demanded. Lastly, of course, there are differences over how class interests should be defined: the philanthropic, the paternalistic, the social-liberal, and the revolutionary positions may each and all have some tenable arguments on their side.

I will now venture to propose a standard for use in the context of Norwegian social science: those portions of research work concerned explicitly or implicitly with social criticism should recognize, and favour or oppose, the amount or direction of one or more of the main trends of contemporary social change (cf pp. 68- 71), or particular component or consequences thereof Research work that does not do this should offer convincing reasons why; distinct trends of change, or non-change, are sufficiently important, basic and worthy to warrant research attention. Though personally inclined to side with lower class interests, as defined (by no means unequivocally) by the Socialists, I do not claim any inherent supremacy for that position in research: to take a stand, and defend it (scientifically), is laudable; to refrain from siding is not, if it cannot be convincingly supported by good reasons. There remains the problem of Carl Schmitt (p.68). Most of us today, would severely censure the likes of him for taking the wrong stand. Important and basic as this is, it is nevertheless inconclusive, in itself unless we can provide additional arguments (including research findings) to indicate exactly where, and in what respects, such thinkers err - and in what other respects tenable points might even be detected in their views.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 74

PERIODIZATION

As the periods singled out will by and large be meaningful in the European context, they need but little comment.

a. The first post-war (1945-49) years were characterized by high, but gradually waning, hopes for massive social changes. In Norway, Labour was in power, drawing some support (though decreasingly) from Communist MPs (the latter party had a record representation between 1945-49). The war was over, Liberty was regained and was to be used for the Popular Good. Other than those imposed by poverty and war damage, there were few visible restrictions on national liberty, leftish-Labour style.

b. Following the Czechoslovak Crisis in 1948, the institution of NATO, the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949, and the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, a new climate in which new (and old) lines of conflict intensified, gradually imposed new limitations on national policies. The liberty, particularly to adopt leftist policies, was, in practice, severely restricted for a period. In the UK the Conservatives gained power and held it for well over a decade. In Norway Labour, converted from a number of the Lettish tenets it held in the preceding period, remained in power until 1965. The conflicts, intense at the outset, were gradually subdued or ’frozen’ in a pattern, in which the Socialist Left had been largely out-manoeuvred.

c. Opinions will differ as to when the ’cold war’ melted away to less significant, if not non-existent levels. My choice places this roughly between 1966-68. The Chinese cultural revolution, the opposition to US escalation in Vietnam, the student-and-workers’ uprising in France, the spring and fall of Prague - all these as well as other events created new opportunities, modest, but perceptible threats to the cold war pattern. A rejuvenation among differing shades of Leftists certainly meant that they regained some degree of initiative, despite new repressive measures. A new era of high hopes and slight instability was initiated.

d. In history, paradoxically, nothing is more uncertain than the present. As social scientists, however, we can not, (as Lord Verulam proposed in his Instauratio) ’be silent about ourselves’: though

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 75 uncertain as to its duration, we certainly have the feeling that following events like the prolonged Western economic recession, and the final victory in Vietnam, stability in a new form is slowly being sculptured. Hopes again may be waning slightly, as the Left is split, or looses some initiative, in many countries, though certainly not in all. In Norway at least, this is my impression, and it is not an individualistic one. The main difference distinguishing the present from period b. above, is probably that the split between Labour left and centre has not come to present a chasm. There are certainly problems in applying these periods in the general political climate to the particular hunting-grounds of the social sciences. Though connected in many ways, ’climate’ and ’science’ are undoubtedly differing types of units and different levels of analysis. What holds on one level might not be tenable on another. Still, in keeping with hypotheses (1)-(2) (p.62), we do maintain that some broad and basic correlations can be found; that somehow changes in general climate influence, if not determine, the direction of social research. Exactly how such influences work we will leave open. We do however feel that the social science reports reviewed can be seen as results which have somehow been shaped by the general train of events.

SCIENTISTS AND REPORTS: FOUNDERS, FOLLOWERS, OPPONENTS, MARXISTS

THE FIRST FEW YEARS: FORERUNNERS AND FOUNDERS 1945-49

The first Norwegian university chair in sociology was founded in 1948, in Oslo. It soon became transformed into a full professorship, with an Office, and later an Institute of Sociology attached to it ( 1951 ) (203). There were immediate forerunners of course. The Law Faculty appointed a Research Fellow (universitetsstipendiat) in sociology in the late 1930s. And Thagaard (p.66), though Prices Director, not a University member, was responsible for giving sociology lectures to Law students from 1937 to 1942, when he had to spend a period in jail for activities censured by the German Occupation Régime. Publications from this early period of building up from scratch are not numerous. One of those worth mentioning, though seldom

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 76 read today, was written by our Senior Professor, Sverre Holm (204). Writing in a structuralist tradition Holm’s work later was cited approvingly by Claude Ldvi-Strauss (208, p.325). Revealing an immense amount of reading, the work takes sociological typologies as its data and starting point. It thus could be considered a pioneer in what came to be known as meta-sociology a decade later. Holm advocates structural models e.g. from linguistics and plant morphology, Goethe- style. While uninterested in social criticism proper, his work does contain pointed attacks on the Weberian conception of causally adequate explanations:

There is hardly any prediction problem to speak of at all in the ideal typology, as compared with that which meets us in a social science dealing with con- temporary social phenomena. Historical sociology like that of Max Weber enables us to &dquo;understand&dquo; phenomena in the past. But there will hardly ever be any crucial confirmation whether Calvanism gave rise to Capitalism, or vice versa. (204, p.1 11)

Holm’s later work as Head of an Institute found an increasing number of followers. His personal research interests, on the other hand, gained but a small number of followers. Today the structuralist linguist conception of sociology has had a kind of renaissance but hardly one which substantially increases the numbers of its adherents. In the Norwegian context, the tradition has remained a fairly isolated one. Another separate, isolated, but currently revived research field is indicated by a report by a team of architects, psychologists etc. on working class housing in Oslo (182). The actual interviewing and other field work was done during the war years. The work originated in a Tenants’ Association seeking solutions to housing problems and struggling for better housing conditions. The architects and other team members mostly taught themselves questionnaire techniques, with fair results as is evident in their report. Judged as a work of science, however, the report suffers from absence of a theoretical framework - excepting some standard architectural notions about the ’functional’, or rather activity areas, in home and family life. Empirically, however, the work is well founded, eminently practical, and designed to provide detailed tenants’ preference patterns for the practising architect. The social criticism content - following the univariate scandal model - is very pronounced, both on housing supply and standards, and on tenants’ adaptions to this. Links with the main trends of social change (urbanization, skewedness of income distribution) are evident. The report and project work also contributed

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 77 significantly to social change: one much publicized finding substantiated that working class tenants were willing to pay for retaining or acquiring a better, more ’modem’ housing standard. This fact probably played a role when State Housing Planning and Finance institutions started working, in those immediate post-war years. Turning now to the central research fields of the period: Holm’s contemporary overview (203, p.6) singles out two really extensive projects - one on the psychological and sociological implications of economic planning, the other on occupational choices of farm youth. The first was initiated with the collaboration of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, who spent a term in Oslo in the fall of 1948. He was attracted, it appears, by the very prospects for research offered by the unprecedented upsurge of public planning in Norway in the immediate post-war years. Lazarsfeld himself never published anything relating to this project. Another American sociologist-political scientist, Allen Barton, did publish a little-known report a few years later (179). Certainly of more importance in the Norwegian context is the first major work of (the then research fellow, later professor) Vilhelm Aubert, doyen of Norwegian sociologists (169). In its English translation the work is entitled Price Controls and Rationing: A Pilot Project in the Sociology of Law. Aubert’s research problem derived from the frequency with which small and not so small businessmen violated public price regulations at that time - some 15% of all known crimes even three years after the war. This big increase in white-collar crime was given interesting explanations: the new provisional Prices Regulation Act of 1945, while passed in Parliament, hardly had much real support at the grass-root level amongst the Right, to which most of the businessmen adhered. Embedded in this milieu, they found a number of mechanisms for ’explaining away’ their guilt, their having to pay fines, or even serve sentences in jail, without suffering loss of self-image or public image as pillars-of-society. The passing and enforcement of laws, then, is not sufficient to ensure compliance to rules and regulations. From this, two paths for further research seem to stand out (a) What, (if anything), can ensure compliance to a rule?; or (b) for what sets of social rules (laws, plans) is it most important to ensure a degree of compliance’? One would guess that (b) would be the most likely choice for a project on the social consequences of planning and Aubert’s next project seemed to confirm this. A law then recently passed on the conditions of work for housemaids was selected for study. While less hotly contested than the Prices Act, this was still

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 78 a central part of the Labour reform programme, a part and an extension of the Factory Acts tradition. The main findings of the survey showed that next to nobody knew much of this particular law’s provisions, housemaids and employers alike. Consequently, direct results of law enforcement were hard to find. Instead it was held more likely that contemporary improvements in the position of housemaids were due to their dwindling numbers giving them a better bargaining position on the market (171). However, from Aubert’s third major work (170), a perceptible change of focus from (b) to (a) is noticeable. We will return to give a few details of this in the next section. Suffice it to say here that, of course, both paths lead to central problems for sociological research and path (a) is certainly not of peripheric concern. Still, the very generality of this research topic is less than typical of its time. The diverse Labour measures for the regulation of private enterprise (e.g. Prices and Antitrust regulations, Marketing Board Acts for farming and fishing products, Banking and Credit acts, the institution of State banks, and new conceptions of national budgeting) are unique and of quite central importance to the post-war era. They are part and parcel of the Expanding Public Sector, another main tendency of contemporary Social Change. Deviance, penal law, white collar (and other) crime, the effects of different types of punishment, even if important, can hardly claim an equally typical position in the same period. Thus the planning project ended, and little work was done on related subjects for more than a decade. Research problems concerning the consequences if legally based planning could not be enforced, the reasons for this (e.g. incompetence of the enforcing agent, grass-roots or top-level opposition), and the implications as to whether this meant planning efforts had to be restricted or postponed accordingly, were certainly discussed, but not subject to empirical test for some time. As for the farm youth project, one of the early works of the social (now cognitive) psychologist, Ragnar Rommetveit, seems to have resulted from it (231). Comparatively well known for its catchphrase ’fictitious social norm’, his study is more notable for its form of presen- tation : a zealous compliance with logical positivist conceptions ofscience Here the teachings of philosopher Arne Naess are in evidence. In later works by Rommetveit (and others) logical positivism by and large is aban- doned. As for (231), though largely uninterested in social criticism, it does point to some unpleasant aspects of local society and its informal (ideological) power structure. Though both were completed in the next period, I feel that the Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 79 two following projects really belong to the immediate post-war era, i.e. those studying possible causes and consequences of the war itself: Harald Ofstad’s (and associates’) Nationalism project, and Nils Christie’s survey of the Norwegian prison guards of the German concentration camps (mostly containing Serbo-Croat prisoners) in Norway. Ofstad’s problem seems to derive from the notion that war, aggressiveness, and Nazism must somehow be rooted in dispositions of the individual. The published parts (226, 227) centre on the concept of ’innocent aggression’, i.e. how certain individuals project their aggressive traits onto other people and institutions, making them, perhaps, more prone to endorse proto-fascist ideas and movements. Individual factors were consciously singled out for study, whereas group influences were controlled for. Thus, it was in no way a study of fascism as a social or political movement. Today, we may find a certain lack of reflection at the analytical level in Ofstad’s design. Though related to the well-known work of Adorno and others, Ofstad’s research was designed independently of it, and in fact contains some points of criticism of Adorno. Christie’s study (186) on the other hand has remained, even today, a stimulating contribution to the sociology of deviance, and was well ahead of its time. His main finding is related to the fact that the Norwegian prison guards fell readily in two groups: those engaging in gross cruelties, including killings, and those largely abstaining from cruelties to prisoners. The significant point is that very few basic differences can be found between the two groups and their members. Christie went on to use factors relating to differential perception to explain the different levels of cruelty (or even friendliness, at the other extreme). His conclusion was that under unfavourable circumstances, we are all potential deviants: a surprisingly modern view, and one demanding a considerable coolness of mind on the part of its author, working on such a highly emotional subject only a few years after the events took place. In summing up, to label the 194549 period as slightly ’innocent’ may seem grossly incongruent, but then our main trends of social change had yet to define themselves clearly. The re-restablishment of political institutions was a remarkably rapid process, largely completed during 1945. The economy, however, was more sluggish. Even in 1948, and again in 1951, Oslo’s tenants, for example, staged mass demonstrations to protest that the construction of new houses had not yet surpassed pre-war levels. Now this ’innocence’ and the indefiniteness of main trends would

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 80 in a way make for the inapplicability of our evaluative criteria, presented earlier. However, given a slight adaptation, they do still make sense: research should recognise and consciously evaluate such main changes as are evident at the time. Our comments on Aubert (169, 171), and to a degree Brochmann (182), make use of this modification. There is a diversity in the period, an openness of mind, and a pluralism on a broad scale. Wars of course tend to be great catalysts of social change: regardless of who wins or looses, neither will have their way in quite the same manner as before or during the hostilities. Numerous suggestions for a rational economic and social reconstruction of the post-war world were volunteered, and some were called for officially. Only the voices of those like Aall (165, p.14) were silent or ignored. The tendency to equate this right wing extremism with a counterpart on the left became widespread a few years later. Tle adoption of suggestions for change, however, soon proved disappointing, as they were increasingly obstructed by the familiar contradictions of the pre-war era. There is little doubt that as hopes were waning, a change of climate did take place. In what ways it made itself felt in social research is more open to debate. Today the participants themselves are apt to stress that nothing approaching compulsion was experienced then. Research grants from abroad or through the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (established 1949) were perhaps distributed more liberally and personal research interests it seems could be pursued much as before. The ephemeral interest taken in planning research was also motivated by personal considerations and when informal opposition had proved strong enough to render planning regulations ineffectual, no-one could entertain great hopes or invest much research work in preparing fresh projects for planning- by-legislation. The patient education of opponents was a more likely course, and was incidentally the one chosen for the Labour banking policy: no credit law was passed until 1965 but instead a system of voluntary co-operation, accompanied by annual lectures to Norway’s private bankers on the blessings of the Keynesian Active State. No doubt certain shades of leftism coloured social science circles, but Aubert may be considered rather unique as an active Labour left winger. However, support for more diffuse issues, notably pacifism and later nuclear disarmament, had a wider basis (224, 225), but characteristically not amongst social researchers working on security, defence or foreign policy topics (247).

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 81

MAINSTREAM PLURALISM: THE INSTITUTIONALIZERS 1950-66

The Four Great Projects

Social research work during the fifties and early sixties increasingly became project team work. Four of these undertakings are singled out for their importance.

The Professions Project By the middle fifties, with the Nationalism project visibly drawing to a close, a second major team was established, with Aubert (now a professor in the sociology of law) at its head. The topic covered was ’The professions in Norwegian social structure: 1800-1950’. A team of some six members collected, sifted, and processed large amounts of historical data. Anticipating today’s ’cliometric sociology’ (Rokkan), this topic is a central one in the modern history of Norway. Lacking a nobility, a landed oligarchy, and big business, a leading political role was assumed by the professionals in the civil service, or emerging private business. The first volumes of Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning abound with articles reporting the findings about legal, military, medical, ecclesiastical, and (secondary school) teaching professions. Most reports appeared under the names of individual authors. A certain diversity of judgements about the findings is evident. The main report (172) points to the fact that Norway’s professionals remain a chosen few, with upper and upper-middle class affiliations, throughout the period, although this decreased slightly over time. The (primary school) teacher’s role was found to be among those mediating the slight increases in inter-generational social class mobility. But differences of opinion arose over the class basis for, and the differing proposed measures that might decrease, this comparative lack of mobility. Aubert ’s own work (173), relying on the achievement-ascription dichotomy and ideas of a just society of equal opportunities, recognizes both direct and indirect effects of class on career. In addition he criticizes the rigid use of school marks, for example, as devices liable to reinforce class or stratification differentials, another remarkably modern view, for contemporary Norway. Other team members put more stress on the indirect effects of class, i.e. emphasizing less the lack of resources to pay for an education than characteristics of family culture and the like to explain the low proportion of farmers’ and workers’ sons and daughters in the professions (209). Simultaneously these authors

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 82 give more prominence to signs of increasing mobility. One report even concludes that causes for the rising tide of leftism and class consciousness around 1917 were to be found,

... not only in a rigid stratification structure and basic social inequalities, but also in other, almost diametrically opposed, social traits: the dominance of a marked egalitarian tradition, the absence of an elite of nobles, and strong expectations that increasing social equality, a trend taken for granted, should continue even more rapidly (235, p.l 12). While tenable as an observation this hardly falls within the ’progressive’ tradition as a conclusion.

The Isolation Project Gradually replacing the Professions team at the Institute for social research in the early sixties was another which selected the isolated rural community as its object of study. There is a calculated break of continuity from the preceding project in the shift of focus from traditional city power centres to the comparative powerlessness of the periphery. Social work or social policy motives also played a role in project definition: Periphery spells problems. This time, interviewing and prolonged field work were the basic sources of data (though historical sources were used as well). Northern Norway, (our Highlands and Islands), provided scores of promising sites for field work. From late 1964 onwards reports began to appear in the Tidsskrift for samfutitisforskiiing. A final, comprehensive report still remains in draft mimeo version (177). Nevertheless, the first, limited reports are important for they signal change towards more pronouncedly critical social research. A prominent example of this, Aubert and Karlsen’s Migrations from marginal regions (175), neatly fits our criteria. The two authors map current migrations and their basis in factors like family cycles. They also express the resentment of local community inhabitants and their protest against leaving their homes. This trend in reporting, which becomes more pronounced in later works, points firmly to a development which can be traced through the following periods. The ’balance of pluralism’, characteristic of the fifties, was about to topple to the left once more. In later years, the remaining research workers on the isolation project came to concentrate increasingly - once more led by Aubert - on a peripheric national minority, the Lapps. Publications include (202, 229).

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 83

Election Research Projects In terms both of duration and number of team participants, the research on electoral behaviour sets national records. Extensive studies began well before the national Storting (parliament) elections in 1957, combining national questionnaire data with intensive community studies. One of the initiators, Stein Rokkan, writing many years later in homage to the second key figure, Henry Valen, speaks of the decisive importance of a couple of months in Autumn 1957: social science careers were being chosen, recognized, and starting to become routinized. The project, or rather programme, its still with us - collecting and processing data, and publishing reports in connection with subsequent elections in 1965, 1969, 1973 - and no doubt it will continue in years to come. Both in Norway and abroad some reports have become near classics in their field. Others, whose design and data are somewhat threatened by obsolescence, still remain impressive works in many ways. The election programme reports are widely admired for the sophistication of the techniques and methods used. Pooling results from many disciplines - sociology, political science, history, and others - many reports are no less admirable for their theoretical contributions. Those of Stein Rokkan, an international as well as a Norwegian political sociologist, stand out for the immensity of their learning and the creativity applied in the construction of models (191, 210, 240). At the core of Rokkan’s research interests are what we may term the dialectics of nation-building. His models for this process have won him an international distinction quite unusual for a Norwegian social scientist. The models being fairly well known, and increasingly complex, a resume will not be attempted here. In recent years Rokkan’s models have met with some criticisms of note, particularly from the historian Jens Arup Seip (232). Put very briefly, Seip holds that Rokkan’s models are unduly schematic, and that one major theoretical tradition, the marxist, is lacking (232, p.122). Rokkan’s rejoinder to this is, equally briefly, that sound schematization is a necessity and less of a danger than that involved in giving undue attention to historical details; and, while a non-marxist, he conceives of his models as in a sense generalizations of marxist ideas (232, p.152), which leave it, in his own words, for data, not pedigrees, to decide the issue. While agreeing with Seip’s second criticism, I believe that application of the present criteria used here may add to his first objection. Rokkan, in the dedication of a major work,

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 84 places himself in a defender-of-the-periphery tradition (210). His models do point to the persistent influence of national peripheries. When compared for instance with Aubert and Karlsen’s work (175), there is a certain lack of firmness in Rokkan’s defences, writing in an age where (primary sector) peripheries seem to be heading towards near extinction, or at least very profound transformations. Despite dedications, Rokkan and his co-workers may be closer to the Weberian ’objective’ ideal type of science than most Norwegian sociologists today. By present standards, this is ’not laudable’. Furthermore, Holm’s point of criticism against Weber (p.76) may apply to Rokkan’s work as well. Vastly learned and encompassing as a synthesis of past data, there is a comparative lack of daring in the prediction of future trends. His models are concerned with what I would call the miracle of the present - by what intricate balance of struggling, diverse forces the present came to be exactly as it is. The electoral behaviour models may serve very well for short-run predictions of election outcomes, and indeed part of their popularity with political parties must derive from this. But proposals for basic democratic reform, e.g. in electoral systems - a commonplace for Mohn (p.66) and other 19th century social-liberal researchers, and much needed even today given the unprecedented structural changes - is completely lacking both in Rokkan’s work, and in much, but not all (214), other election programme reports. Today the electoral behaviour programme is led by Professor Valen. A recent statement is found in (240). Amongst others, a change of focus from the effects of variables characterizing the electorate to the effects of campaign issues on party preferences, is notable, following the waning of the stable electorate of the fifties (237, 238, 239). Work circling around the European Common Market Referendum of 1972 is also in progress. I

Deviance Projects Unlike the other three, this later one is not unitary - not one project or team working under one leadership, but a number of single- or multi-person undertakings on a common group of topics. The reason for grouping them together here under one heading is their central importance as influences on Norwegian social research. First in time and importance is another study by Aubert (170), one among a handful of theoretical contributions. Containing no new first-hand collection of data, the work synthesizes theoretical and empirical contributions, by the author himself, and many others. Following a lead from the Prices Control, and Housemaid studies,

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 85 the problem of compliance with rules has now taken another turn, viz. ’Are threats of legal penalties effective agents of compliance or obedience to the law?’ Aubert argues convincingly for an answer in the negative. While bordering on penal law (General Prevention), his work is in essence an empirically based functional analysis, concerned with some latent or dysfunctional aspects of legal penalties, whose deterrent effects on the general public are shown to be rather insignificant in a number of cases. The research problem in this reformulated version may be considered less general and less directly connected with main trends of change. Important contributions to social criticism within this new range of problems are nevertheless included in, or based on, the work, with Aubert arguing for humanitarian penal reform in this and a number of other works. Both (170) and Aubert’s next deviance study were hotly contested by traditional-minded legal professionals. The second, entitled Punish- ment and Stratification (174), appearing nearly ten years later in 1963, is an empirical study applying methods of content analysis to court cases. The main finding was that persons low on social status were more frequently accorded more severe penalties than was the case with higher ranking persons. Challenging ideals of equality before the law, the report drew a small storm of criticism. While the main finding may remain tenable, one acute criticism is left unanswered by the report: it did not control for severity of legal violation, coding cases only in relation to the penal law paragraphs involved, and not in terms of the severity of transgressions within paragraphs. Other sociology of deviance contributions of note include later works by Christie, on Norwegian Juvenile Delinquents and on penal workhouses for tramps (187, 188). The first is concerned with the remarkable rise, in Norway as in many other countries, of juvenile delinquency, a minor trend of social change in my post facto judgement. Christie, however, links this trend to industrialization and similar major changes. In design and findings (187) may be considered as an attempt to provide a more general test for his thesis that ’we are all potential deviants’ (p.79). Selecting the entire male cohort of 1933 for study, Christie utilises military conscription data for characteristics of the ’normal’ population. He goes on to compare the 19,000 ’normals’ in the cohort with the (roughly) 1,000 ’deviants’ found in criminal law registers. On most indicators insignificant differences were found, with only one major exception: the registered offenders tend to be urban school drop-outs or failures. The very solid empirical foundation of Christie’s findings tends to ward off attacks

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 86 or criticism. Further, while potentially representing as basic a social criticism as, for example, Aubert’s, Christie’s conclusions at the time were perhaps a (calculated) degree less pointed and less outspoken. The study of tramps (188) traces the genealogy of the penal workhouse - conceived by its initiators as a cure, not a penal sanction - but shows how it came to be used as a measure against tramps and a similar though heterogeneous group of vagrants (bums, drunkards, gypsies, etc.). The workhouses, originally intended to ’cure’ the gypsy-type vagrant beggar, came to be used against a much wider and less homogeneous group, consisting mainly of urban tramps or habitual drunks. Together with later studies by Christie and others (e.g. 181), clear indications were given of the conspicuous lack of success of the work-house as a cure: while removing tramps from the city streets, the places of ’cure’ proved on a closer look to be centres of contagion. Thus in the longer run these studies contributed effectively to penal reform, namely the closing of the work-houses in 1970.

Emerging Specialisms (Bindestrich-soziologien).

Four influential works are selected for study. All were begun in the fifties or early sixties and published by the middle sixties.

Sociology of work Most notable is Professor Sverre Lysgaard’s The Workers Informal Collective System (211 ). Based in part on field observa- tions in a Norwegian paper factory, Lysgaard’s work generalizes widely from this. The main bulk of his report is a funcitonal analysis of the conflicting systems he found in industry, in particular an economic- technical system, claiming immoderate contributions from participants, and a humane system, defending limited contributions. The third, resulting system - the workers’ informal collective system - is conceived of as a buffer, the workers’ defence mediating between the immoderate and limited demands confronting each other in the actual situation of factory work. Lysgaard’s study in a sense is concerned with the bases of class consciousness. Though later studies (194, 228) indicate that the strength of his workers’ collective system may vary widely, e.g. from one branch of industry to another, (211) it remains an influential contribution to the sociology of work, or even sociology of conflict. It does, of course, recognize some of our main trends of social change: the stand taken is perhaps less unequivocal. While tending generally to favour the worker’s point of view, the report,

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 87 like Rokkan’s, does not propose harsh and pointed criticisms. Indeed, the hypothesis has been advanced, but not confirmed, that in delineating factors making for a stronger workers’ collective system Lysgaard’s work may have led to counter-measures from employers to weaken collective systems. However, the alternative hypothesis that the collective system notion has contributed to recent advances in industrial democracy would appear just as tenable.

Prison (or inmate) Sociology Thomas Mathiesen’s report on a medium security prison was published in 1965 (215). His study, in contrast to Lysgaard’s, centres on the concept of inmate censoriousness, i.e. criticisms of prison regimen for being ’unprisonly’ or not in conformity with the regulations, rather than opposing the prison system as such. Censoriousness is thus seen as a functional alternative to the peer group solidarity found in many prison studies, as well as in other context. Mathiesen holds that this censorious attitude is more likely the less favourable the inmates’ bargaining position is perceived to be, the less honorable a peer group association might appear to be, and the less active are the inmate or criminal subcultural traditions outside prisons. This study does not relate prison or inmate data to major trends of general social change, which are hardly recognized. Though in later works he is a vocal and even violent spokesman for prison reform, here Mathiesen does not offer conspicuous criticisms.

Early Medical Sociology The work of Yngvar L~chen, published simultaneously with the previous study, is notable (213). He applied participant observation methods to a psychiatric hospital, his study being related both in design and results to the work of Erving Goffman. Less easily summarized than the preceeding project, L~chen’s work in essence is another functional analysis, which contrasts the manifest and the latent, or ’ideals’ and ’realities’, in psychiatric treatment. Within the psychiatric hospital context, LOchen offers numerous points of basic criticism, tending to side with the interests of patients when these are perceived to be in conflict with those of top hospital staff. Links with general trends of social change, however, are hardly traced, or at least are not readily detectable.

Sociology of Administration or Organizations Another mid-sixties publication (205), by sociologist/political scientist Knut Dahl Jacobsen, should be mentioned. Based on historical data from the late nineteenth century, his study leans heavily on work by Phillip Selznick,

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 88

Herbert Simon and James G. March for its theoretical basis. Dahl Jacobsen’s treatise traces in detail a case of rise and fall of elitism in the public administration of Norwegian agriculture 1875-99. His main interest is in hypothesizing general conditions making for the rise of elitism, or for effective grass-roots opposition to it. His most easily summarized findings hold that the definition of the situation being of a crisis-type, and the presence of a profession which identifies with its clients, will favour grass-roots influence over administration. In his own terms it will, in the long run, engender ’client orientation’ among civil servants, as opposed to the professional, elitist, technical, or expert-type of orientation. Generally,then, Dahl Jacobsen is concerned with the pros- pects for democratic control over bureaucracy, whether public or private. As for its critical content, (205) traces consequences of major structural changes some 70-90 years ago (cf. Table 2, p.69). Dahl Jacobsen, however, has adopted a Gibbon-like tactic: to treat of the past in order to learn lessons for the present. Not in the sense that he opposes ’the fall of elitism’, past or present; on the contrary, a firm but not harshly phrased stand in favour of grass-roots clients and opposed to elitist technocrats, is taken. Moreover the intricate reasoning of Dahl Jacobsen was later adapted by others, giving his basic views a more pointed and popular form (e.g. 183).

Early Voices of Opposition

One of the unique traditions of Norwegian social science derives from the close ties to philosophy. Philosopher Arne Naess’s contribution as an initiator has been mentioned briefly. Today the contributions of others, philosophical opponents of Naess, hold more influential positions. Indeed, what may be termed a separate school in the border- lands of social science and philosophy has been erected. The amiable Father Figure of this school is without doubt the philosopher Hans Skjervheim. For a master’s thesis, his Objectivism and the Study of Man created a quite unusual stir in 1959 (233). Recent judgements have rated his work on a par with Peter Winch’s 771e Idea of a Social Science, a contemporary but independent contribution to similar problems. In the late fifties and early sixties however, Skjervheim was more often judged idiosyncratic and incomprehensible, if not outright irrational, a heretic from the ways of ’objective’ social science. For a philosopher, his work has met with considerable success over the decades - today some acquaintance

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 89 with Skjervheim’s work is required even of the youngest students beginning social science. Within his field, there is still a single-mindedness approaching Socratic dimensions, to Skjervheim’s work. He insists on just one main thesis: that there are fundamental differences between the natural and the social sicences. His basic reasons for this are: (a) social data and social action, being intentional in character, are not ’objects in the world’ and cannot be studied as such; (b) social science findings are part of their own field of study, potential data for their own science, quite unlike the findings of for example, the physicist or botanist. From this, Skjervheim does not of course argue that social science must per se be futile or impossible, but only that varieties of critical science necessarily have to replace the ’objective’ versions. Today perhaps even more influential than Skjervheim’s own contribution is the work of one of his early followers, Dag Østerberg. Whilst the former consistently argues on the general philosophical level, the latter chose a sociological education, and offers concrete critiques of actual theories and reports in contemporary social science (242). Both oppose logical positivism effectively, reaching similar conclusions in early works - in Dag 0sterberg’s own words, ’the role of the social scientist is ... to provide incitements for action, for political and cultural change’ (242, p.164 original italics). In later works, Østerberg is much influenced by materialistic sociology, in Sartrean and then Marxist versions (243, 245). Personally I would select one of the pre-Marxist works as his most outstanding, namely Forms of Understanding (244), published in 1966. A unique contribution to social science, and general, theory of knowledge, 0sterberg’s exposition of concepts like ’internal (or inherent) negation’ and ’internal (or inherent) transcendence’ proved seminal. Though independent of Habermas’s work it could be said to foreshadow some aspects of his present position (cf 197). In later years differences of opinion arose between (/>sterberg and Skjervheim. The latter remained a non-socialist and a non-Sartrean, whilst the former became a marxist, one recent work being A Preface to Marx’ Capital (246), another illustration of the fact that anti-positivist positions may be consistent with both socialist and non-socialist views. In summing up this section on mainstream pluralism, one should first note the prevalence of differences of approach to and opinions about social science, and that pluralism of a sort did prevail. The ’objective’ stance, perhaps at its most outspoken and persistent in

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 90 the work of Rokkan and his team, is approximated to in works or sections of studies by Lysgaard, Aubert, Dahl Jacobsen and Mathiesen among others. It is, however, not the only trend in evidence and perhaps not even the dominant one. Perspectives stressing a more or less critical approach are probably as prominent if not more so. The scope of pluralism between 1950-66 seems, however, to represent a change from the preceding period, the scope of the fifties being rather more narrow, and perhaps more skewed towards the Right. The basis for such a conclusion is not so much the lack of social science spokesmen for the outer Left, e.g. Communist Party adherents, (for they were also rare on the Labour right, the Centre, and the Conservative Right), but more the trend, denied by some participants for sociology to choose less encompassing, less basic, less hotly contested social questions for study. For a summary of Norwegian sociological research up to say 1966, Aubert’s introductory Elements of Sociology (176) is still unsurpassed.

RISING VOICES OF PROTEST, OLD AND NEW: 1967-73

The tumultuous late sixties signalled changes in many aspects of life. We are concerned here with Norwegian social science but once more we will have to concentrate on a few selected examples.

The ’Invisible Norway’ Publication

Almost exactly ten years ago, an issue of the then little known journal Kontrast left the press, wearing the catchy title ’Invisible Norway’. In it were featured articles by the old-timers Dahl Jacobsen and Aubert, neither of which strictly speaking represented works of empirical science. But both were based in part on scientific work, and both called for more research, and for surveys to be undertaken in new directions. The point of both was to make the invisible, the unrecognized - the miserable, poor, and powerless - visible. But this was not just another latent functional analysis; rather the papers called for a total re-evaluation of Norwegian stratification and class structure. The tranquil, ’end of ideology’, or even ’class-free society’ conceptions of the fifties were herewith things of the past. New challenges or revised versions of old ones were presented instead.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 91

Dahl Jacobsen in a short, sober, and elegant statement introduces Norwegian readers to the concept of ’political poverty’, and a potentially explosive critique of complacent notions of democracy. Pointed questions include: ’Why do the poor remain poor?’; ’Why is their existence not perceived as a problem?’; ’Is our belief that a Welfare State is already well established really the greatest obstacle to developing a Welfare State?’; ’Suffrage may be universal but in practice is free speech not severely hampered by the widespread lack of knowledge and skills required to voice a claim or a protest? ’. Aubert’s article, ’Poverty in Norway’, establishes rough estimates of the extent of actual poverty - somewhere between 6-12% of the total population - when taxable income is taken as the criterion. He goes on to sketch what is known about the location of the poor, pointing to the primary sector periphery, the old, certain female heads of households (e.g. housemaids) and the Lapps. He stresses the limits of our knowledge and calls for more research on the location and ways of life of the poor - the Welfare State drop-outs - with a view of course to finding short-and long-term measures to alleviate their condition. Both articles remain classic examples of social criticism. In a country where egalitarian values (if not practice) are traditionally so strong as to render ’poor’ and ’poverty’ literally taboo expressions, the stir that ensued was considerable. Both have contributed to the initiation of new research projects, or the re-definition of old ones, and both are expressions of and contributions to a further widening of scope for pluralistic social science in our country.

Ottar Brox

Ottar Brox’s book on Northern Norway which appeared in 1966 under the title What’s going on in Northern Norway? ( 183) hit the headlines almost at once. Its opponents first tried to condemn the work by attacking insignificant details. Later Brox’s work irresistibly found its way into our national cultural heritage. The book is remarkable in many ways, though not perhaps, as its author would agree, as a work of science, nor perhaps for readability, for fair portions will be found heavy-going, especially today when many of the facts tend to be dated. But the vigour and enthusiasm of its polemics won it a wide public.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 92

Though Brox has given ample evidence of his distinction in other more rigorous scientific works (184, 185), none has gained anything approaching the readership and attention of this first major publication. It is outstanding for the clarity of its class identification, both in expressed intentions and in actual results. While allowing for personal liberty in the actual definition of their class interest, Brox sides eagerly and unequivocally with the rural periphery, with the fishing/farming households of Northern Norway. Of course his work answers readily to our criterion of social criticism, since it attacks both migration and concentration head-on. The force of his argument lies in providing convincing examples, from the analysis of household economy data, of the basic rationality of the rural and marginal households in refusing to move. Formerly industry spelled the future and farming/fishing the past. Opponents to ’development’ were stereotyped as narrow- minded, even stupid, traditionalists. Brox’s evidence that the increased income obtained from industrial work might be more than counter- balanced by the smaller expenses and greater non-monetary incomes derived from certain forms of subsistence farming and fishing completely overthrew the stereotype. In general outline, and even in some of its details, his work may resemble that of Henri Mendras in France or of Alex Chayanov in Soviet Russia in the 1920s. Brox’s first work was however conceived independently of both.

The Action Researchers

The conception of Action Research in Norwegian social science exhibits unique traits. Though related for example to ethnomethodology, or to ’advocacy planning’, the basic idea is different. The social scientist should not despair if authorities ignore or refuse to implement his findings, but instead should try to realize some of these applications himself (in collaboration with team members, and of course research subjects themselves), and design his future research so as to facilitate such applications. In passing we should note the dual assumptions of action research: (a) the need for the ability and self-confidence to arrive at research findings that differ from official, established views; and (b) that authorities do nothing, or next to nothing, to recognize and apply such views which are contrary to their own. 1). The Criminal Reform Association (KROM for short in Norwegian). Connected very closely to the recent work of Thomas Mathiesen, KROM conforms very closely to the ’ideal type’ of Norwegian style

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 93 action research. Established in May 1968, KROM at the outset organized a small number of prison inmates together with a larger group of penal reformists, around a programme proposing the abolition of prisons in the long-run, combined with shorter-run support for humanitarian prisons and general penal reforms. KROM and its Scandinavian counterparts soon met with remarkable support, from prison inmates if not from penal authorities. Following the Autumn of 1970, a prison strike wave, inspired and to some extent even lead by KROM and similar organizations, paralleled the simultaneous strikes in mining and industry (216, p.45-94). Unions of prison inmates were formed and tried to establish negotiations with prison authorities. KROM, despite obstructive efforts from the authorities, provided some expert legal support. Numerous books and pamphlets have been edited by KROM personnel, with quite a few of them attaining scientific standards (e.g. 217, 218). The synthesis of research and action nevertheless proved rather difficult to sustain in the longer-run: reformist zeal seemed to make for the writing of Association annals rather than analyses of fact and strategy. Secondly, the ’indeterminate’ (or ’unfinished’) position of the Association, proposed as its ideal by Mathiesen in 1971 (216), (i.e. avoiding both isolation and expulsion, and co-option or incorporation by the authorities), may prove even more difficult to attain than realized at the time. With reference to (b) above, activities such as KROM’s must be vulnerable to feigned or dawning recognition by the authorities which may apply some less crucial parts of the association’s programme. Today top penal authorities have signalled moves in such directions. The inmates’ unions now seem to be inactive. We should also note that KROM’s activities, while soundly and loudly critical, are not easily linked to the main trends of social change, as proposed here, though (218, pp.122-35) tries. 2) The commuting workers project (or Nord-Odal-prosjektet, named after the municipality selected for study). Beginning in 1969 under the leadership of Yngvar L~chen, this project provides a slightly more moderate, more academic version of action research. The Ministry of Social Affairs was amongst its initiators. A team of some ten scientists and majoring students went to work for what by now can be called the classic four year project period. The stated goal of the Ministry was to survey ’real’ needs for social relief, and effects of current Welfare State programmes. The researchers on the other hand were concerned to make basic, comprehensive, and critical contributions, not makeshift, insignificant ones. They succeeded in this to a remarkable degree. Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 94

A peripheric or marginal municipality in a forest district of the Norwegian midlands was selected for studv. Following the introduction of less labour-intensive machinery in forestry, the inhabitants were faced increasingly with the choice between moving permanently, or staying put, but securing work outside the municipality. Commuting may be on a daily or more often a weekly basis. The distances involved vary between 30-50 miles, the latter being the distance to Oslo. By 1968, 51% of Nord-Odal’s male work force (N = 1,553) were commuters of this sort. Another marked tendency found was the increased percentage of those on different forms of social relief, including disability pensions. Other parts of the project surveyed housing, municipal welfare, social work, and old-age pensions. Action attempts included the establishment of a Handicrafts’ Workshop, providing several part-time jobs, and support for the organization of a local commuters union. The work of Lichen and his collaborators conforms very closely to both parts of our criterion for social criticism. It studies and opposes tendencies towards migration and centralization, siding with the grass-root migrants or potential migrants. There are however undertones of the univariate scandal model visible in the published parts of the research (219). Multivariate methods are seldom applied, the research being more noteable for its accessibility and useful results, as well as for the researchers’ identification with the local population.

Capitalism Studies

Last among the pathmakers we will mention a work by Torstein Hjellum. Appearing in the journal Kontrast in 1971, it was entitled ’Bergen’s capitalism’. The point of departure of course is marxist. Hjellum traces the structure of private ownership and control of industry and finance in and around Bergen in great detail. Empirically his work is very solid, and none of its major results have been seriously challenged. Its pioneering character derives from the simple fact that no Norwegian had published studies devoted specifically to this topic for several decades, if at all. Given this background, he sets out to ’prove’ that capitalists as a class are still with us, despite State controls and planning - a task in which he succeeds eminently. A group of thirty leaders in industry, shipping and finance held positions that would enable them to control a major part of Bergen’s economy. Further, and perhaps more important, Hjellum points out that only five among the thirty can be

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 95 termed newcomers, and that only one of these five is a ’self-made’, or Grunder, capitalist. The remaining twenty-five (or 83%), hold positions which were directly or indirectly inherited. Though comparisons over time are not readily available, it would seem that the ’managerial revolution’ has not yet had much impact in Bergen, if it has anywhere else. While empiricially solid, this work of Hjellum’s could hardly be called theoretically subtle. He applies Marx’s theory - and given its disrepute gained during the 1950s, even that may be considered pioneering at the time - but without much creativity. The subtleties of the debate between Wright Mills-Dahl-Domhoff etc. are not taken up. Hjellum is concerned only with the actual concentration of persons, positions and shares, not with the content of decisions made, the conse- quences, or the qui bonum? of actions and policies. National and inter- national comparisons are also lacking - though later, a few have been pro- vided by other researchers (166). These criticisms in no way diminish the importance of Hjellum’s study. Not only does it answer very well to our criterion for critical sociology - it also contributed to the opening up of new fields for research - a new broadening of the scope for Norwegian social science, reaffirming and reinforcing the toppling of the tranquil balance of the fifties.

ESTABLISHING A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY: 1974 TO DATE

Given our approach, and the explosive growth of the last decade, the recent period is of course the most difficult to summarize. Many an interesting, even important, project must go without mention. Though the few projects selected for comment may be typical of a trend and scientifically among the highest ranking, others no doubt equal or even surpass them.

Mediating Opposition and Stabilization

Lysgaard’s Ardal-project was initiated in 1970, and a (possibly) final report appeared six years later. In keeping with his sociology of work specialization, Lysgaard and his team selected for close study one of Norway’s semi-rurally situated large industries, a major aluminium melting plant on our west coast. The project is notable for the way in which it was conducted. A participation in and contribution to the project was negotiated with the municipality, with union and

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 96 plant management. A team thus based was kept intact for the entire duration of the project. This was no small feat, given the number of very critical reports produced after 1973 - on plant establishment, workers’ health, housing, unions; on the conditions of youth and female workers. A summary, untranslated, is found in (212). Most prominent among the catchphrases from the Ardal project was that of the one-generation society: coined by sociologist Per Morten Schiefloe, it highlights the fact that very few of Ardal’s young, the second generation born after the plant operations started in 1946, will be satisfied to remain in industrial work. In fact, they move increasingly, but away from secondary, not primary, sector occupations. Part of this may derive from plant rationalization, reducing the number of employees from the late sixties’ record of some 2000. Another part may be attributed to the lack of economic repef cussions, i.e. the lack of new jobs created and of new industries, in the fifties’ version of the socio-liberal one-plant ’company town’. Still, a significant degree of the propensity to move remains unexplained, posing problems for inhabitants, management and research team alike.

Distant democracy projects Two independent but related pieces of research will be mentioned; taking Stale Eskeland and Just Finne’s Legal Aid ( 192) first. The authors, both with a legal education, selected an experimental group of 91 and a control group of 90 in a poor housing block in Oslo. The first group was approached directly and offered free legal assistance to define and solve any problem with legal implications that they might have. The controls were offered similar assistance but asked to define such problems themselves, and to approach the research team on their own initiative. Striking differences resulted; 161 problems were adduced in the experimental versus only 4 in the control group. Further, claims for more than 140,000 kroner (some £15,000) were secured for the experimental group (i.e. they actually received that sum in the form of pensions, welfare or housing aid, tax reductions, etc.), representing a fifth of annual contributions received. Even with a small and probably unrepresentative sample, such results point acutely to deficiencies of democratic and social welfare systems. Willy Martinussen’s study entitled Distant Democracy (214) grew out of the Rokkan-Valen electoral behaviour programme (p.83-84). His data derive from the flawless nationally representative questionnaires of that programme. While less vivid and detailed (less &dquo;casuistical&dquo;) in its description of household problems of the

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 97

’politically poor’ than (192), Martinussen more than balances this by his demonstration of the general validity of some important findings. For example, the inability to define and voice a problem, or engage in organized or other activities to find a solution, were found to be remarkably widespread, in a democratic society of Norwegian complacency. Martinussen advances a ’stairs model’, ranking the basic prohibitive steps to democratic participation.

Government Sponsored Social Science Committee Work

Lysgaard’s Ardal project was noted for variety of groups commissioning it - workers’ union, plant management and municipal authorities. Other combinations of this type have been tried, e.g. joint TUC (or LO in Norwegian) and Employers’ Association-sponsored research (195), or TUC (or TU Industry Branch)-sponsored research (223). But really, if it is laudable to span traditional class contradictions, why not then approach the State authorities directly, as the traditional mediator of such contradictions? There is a question, of course, about selecting personnel, and establishing contacts, before the state will engage in commissioning social science work. However, in the last years both problems appear solved in particular, but very important, cases:

The Social Power Committee (Maktutredningen) was appointed by the Government in the autumn of 1972, to ’survey actual relations of (social) power in Norwegian society’ (199, p.9). Prominent among its young sociologist members is Gudmund Hernes of Bergen. In one sense, even this may be regarded as having been initiated by Aubert’s ideas and projects: the isolation project (p.82) in the mid-60s was eagerly seeking complementary studies of the non-marginal, the power centres. It was felt that ’nowhere is the influence of the centre more readily felt than in the periphery’. Professor Hernes’ first round of interviews with Norway’s MPs, though independently designed, was one result of this (198). Today, one major theoretical-conceptual work, and a great number of working papers, have appeared, and even more is in progress. Professor Hernes’ chef d’oeuvre (199) is mainly concerned with models for power, and powerlessness. He leans heavily on contributions by US sociologist James S. Coleman, establishing an

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 98

exchange-interest-control type of model of his own. Penetrating and appealing as Hernes’s ideas are in many ways, I feel personally that the intricacies of his models may be subordinate to the even greater importance of certain preliminary empirical findings, through which are introduced concepts like ’market disintegration’ and changes in power-executing institutions, at the level of the counties for instance (200). One is reminded, of course, of the pioneering work of Hjellum (p.94-S). The Social Power Committee has sponsored much work on similar data - to an extent that may even have contributed to the representatives of the Employers’ Association leaving the committee. It is clearly distinguishing itself from Hjellum in at least three ways: (a) a better integration of theory with data; (b) a broader scope of study; and (c) a negation of Hjellum-brand marxism, while retaining a non-committed interest in the works of marxists generally. In a way, it may be found paradoxical that a Government sponsors studies of power: who else is to know what it is, and where it is found? On closer inspection, this is hardly a paradox after all, but a sign of a degree of open-mindedness in at least some power-centres. The execution of power will of course not await the reports of committees. The appointment of the committee simply recognizes that most of the old, formal conceptions of power are superficial and unsatisfactory (division of powers, Parliamentarianism, corporatism, state monopoly capitalism, etc.), and that new conceptions are in demand - a view shared by the present author.

The Level of Living Survey (Levekårsundersøkelsen) Appointed by the Government in the spring of 1972, this Committee had published four reports by 1977, with another six in press or in process of being written. The list of working papers, several in English, has close to a hundred different entries. Prominent team members are Hernes and Tor R6dseth (an economist), and sociologists Jon Eivind Kolberg and Stein Ringen. The task outlined called for a mapping of ’the actual conditions of living for different groups in Norway, and, as far as possible, to analyze causes for the differences found’ (201, p.137). A national survey interviewing some 3,000 respondents was carried out late in 1973. Many other sources of data are also employed. The survey’s final (or summary) report (201), itself an extensive summary of research work on many aspects of social life, cannot easily be summarized further. My personal guess would be that some general lines of argument will have a more lasting value than most of the specific empirical findings. In a way resembling the Maktutredning

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 99 publications, market mechanisms are challenged for yielding welfare differentials which are too large. Further, more comprehensive concepts of ’Level of Living’ are advanced, which add social indicators of perceived well-being to the traditional cost-of-living and preference patterns borrowed from economics. Empirically, of course, differences between groups are found, as well as causes for such differences. Those looking for crucial or prominent differences or causes will perhaps find the results less significant. Further, such causes as are found do not seem readily amenable to short-term, social reform work. This, of course, is related to the fact that the researchers to a degree have succeeded in formulating basic social criticisms, relating to the economic structure itself. One notable case in point is the most recent project publication by Jon Eivind Kolberg, Disability Pensions and Social Structure (207). Here, an elaborate and empirically well-confirmed multivariate model for the extension and differences in disability pensions over Norway’s municipalities is introduced. We note, with satisfaction, that the univariate scandal model is dispensed with, without any sacrifice to basic critical content in the research report. This no doubt reflects more sophistication on the part of the researchers, but also the increasing number of levers for action needing co-ordination on the part of the Government (or other) power centres. The Level of Living Survey is of course one prominent continuation of the tradition deriving, in Norway, from the calls to arms by Dahl Jacobsen and Aubert (pp.90-91). The coiner of the ’Distant Democracy’ concept, Martinussen, is a co-author of a Levekar report now under way, and several themes of Eskeland and Finne (192) are being generalized and studied in further detail through this Government-sponsored survey. Links with another path-breaker, Sweden’s Ldginkomstutredning (Low Income-groups Commission), are also evident. Now, before our final summing up, brief mention must be made of some recent work by two founders of sociology in Norway. Christie has published extremely well-written works on school systems, and social density (189, 190). Unlikely as these topics may seem for a criminologist, they do of course square very well with his earlier findings that ’deviants’ are found to be not very deviant, and that processes of becoming an outcast are operative in everyday social systems, with schools being a very prominent example (cf. p.85). Aubert’s most recent book summarizes its author’s work in the sociology of law, in a lucid overview (178).

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013 100

CONCLUSIONS

Our survey of nearly three decades of Norwegian social science can be summarized very briefly: ours is a tradition of consistent empiricism, of varying scope for pluralism, and likewise of a varying balance between critical and ’objective’ conceptions of social science. Empiricism is prominent in all but a handful of works. In Norway, even the marxists are part of our empiricist tradition. And our handful of theorists are usually builders of empirically based models, rather than coiners of concepts and system-builders of Marxian, Weberian or Durkheimian dimensions. Pluralism has prevailed over the period, in the sense that some scope for a social criticism in research reports was permissible throughout. This scope, however, narrowed or shifted somewhat during the fifties, when an ’objective’ conception of social research was prominent, if not dominant, for a period. The less ’objectively’ inclined researchers of the period would choose less global, less general, or less vital, less hotly contested social questions for criticism. Criticism, then, is our last persistent tradition. Its prominence or dominance, and the forms chosen, have varied considerably over our four periods, the restrictive or mainstream forms of the fifties giving way to more vigorous, acute, and literally radical, (but not always very well founded) forms of the late sixties and early seventies. For the present period we have spoken of establishing a critical sociology. What is involved is neither the mere criticizing of Establishments (from without), nor the establishment of equally complacent Critical Academic Schools. The tendency is for new, critical social ideas (theories and findings) to be introduced permanently in certain public and (less often) private agencies of the Establishment. This, in my opinion, is the single, most distinctive and important feature of present-day Norwegian sociology, posing dangers and challenges which are both considerable. But the differences between, say, Rokkan-style and Hernes-style social research-and-criticism are such as to guarantee a scope for pluralistic social science in years to come, a scope that must remain much broader than that characterizing the fifties. One final prediction: we have noted that the Thagaard (p.66) type of social-scientist cum top administrator or politician has been absent (excluding economists) for decades. The return of this type - of course with some distinctive new features - seems to be impending, and not unwelcome.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com at Universitet I Oslo on December 18, 2013