Persistence of Populism the Norwegian Progress Party, 1973-2009
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PhD thesis 2015 Persistence of Populism The Norwegian Progress Party, 1973-2009 A.R. Jupskås, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo © Anders Ravik Jupskås, 2015 Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo No. 527 ISSN 1504-3991 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Cover: Hanne Baadsgaard Utigard. Printed in Norway: AIT Oslo AS. Produced in co-operation with Akademika publishing, Oslo. The thesis is produced by Akademika publishing merely in connection with the thesis defence. Kindly direct all inquiries regarding the thesis to the copyright holder or the unit which grants the doctorate. Acknowledgements When I, as a student, was welcomed by the staff at Institutt for statsvitenskap (Department of political science, ISV) at the University of Oslo in 2003, I remember one the professors, Raino Malnes stressed – borrowing a quote from the famous English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley – that students in political science should ‘try to learn something about everything and everything about something’. Throughout my time as a student, I focused primarily on the first part of the advice. As a PhD student, however, I’ve tried to focus on the latter part by writing an in-depth analysis of the ideological and organizational development of one single party, namely Fremskrittspartiet (The Norwegian Progress Party, FrP). Whether or not I have succeeded is obviously up to the reader to decide. It wasn’t always supposed to be like this. For a long time I didn’t realize that writing (almost) everything about something was impossible without a very limited research question. Consequently, my main research question has changed quite dramatically throughout the last six years – from being fairly broad to become even broader, before it gradually became narrower until I ended up with the single case study of FrP. Initially, I collected data under the assumption that the thesis would be a comparative analysis of all new protest parties in Norway, which would have included not only FrP but also the Greens, the Democrats (a radical-right split party from the Progress Party), the Coastal Party (a value-conservative party concerned with the interests of the periphery), and Red (a reformed Marxist-Leninist party). After collecting the data, I entered the phase of scholarly megalomania. The thesis would still focus on protest parties, but the geographical scope was extended from Norway to Scandinavia, thereby adding Danish and Swedish protest parties to the empirical universe of relevant cases. Rather quickly I realized, however, that this idea was overambitious, to put it mildly. Instead of analyzing all Scandinavian protest parties, I decided to analyze the two most successful new party families in post- industrial societies exclusively, namely the Greens and right-wing populist parties. Through a research design inspired by John Stuart Mill’s method of difference, I wanted the thesis to systematically account for, on the one hand, the absence of a right-wing populist party in Sweden and the presence of such parties in Norway and Denmark, and, on the other hand, the absence of a pure Green party in Norway and Denmark and the presence of a Green party in Sweden. Although the fruitfulness of this particular design was challenged when the Sweden Democrats experienced an electoral breakthrough in 2010 and a pure green party in Norway entered the parliament in 2013, I thought it would still be interesting to find out why this kind of populist parties had become much more institutionalized in Norway and Denmark respectively, and why only Sweden had a truly successful green party. However, again it became clear that even six cases were too many. The data needed to describe the green parties with the same level of thoroughness as the right-wing populist parties (with which I was more familiar) were very difficult to collect, if they existed at all. So again I adjusted the number of empirical cases. From now on, the analysis would be restricted to right-wing populist parties only. Completely new draft versions of some of the chapters for the thesis were written, including a new introductory chapter. I carried out some pretty interesting interviews with key representatives in Sweden Democrats, Danish People’s Party and the Progress Party, and wrote one article (together with Ann-Cathrine Jungar) on the ideological similarities and transnational linkages between Nordic right-wing populist parties. But even if I had been able to gather comprehensive data from all the parties, including party statutes, annual reports, manifestos, internal magazines, and elections surveys, the kind of data I had on the Norwegian case was exceptional and by far more innovative than for the other two cases. At least to my knowledge, no one has ever analyzed a right-wing populist party using longitudinal surveys among party members and congress delegates. In the end, I therefore decided to follow the principle of a former colleague: ‘why study several cases when you can study one?’ That’s the short version of how this thesis ended up being an in-depth study of Fremskrittspartiet. *** After having spent six years on a thesis, there are many people to be thanked, starting with the core research group involved in the project entitled ‘Political Parties and Democracy: Decline or Change?’ which this PhD has been a part of. This project and its participants have thought me a lot about research design, data collection and theoretical perspectives on political parties. First and foremost, I am especially grateful for all the help, support and feedback I have received from my two supervisors, Hanne Marthe Narud and Knut Heidar. Tragically, Hanne Marthe passed away in 2012 – way too early. She was an excellent scholar, a helpful supervisor and, not least, an open-minded and socializing person. I will always remember our joint trips to the conventions of all parliamentary parties in 2009, where we gathered some of the survey material used in this thesis. It was a truly interesting, instructive and exciting political ‘road trip’. Knut stepped in as a supervisor after Hanne Marthe, and he has always offered me valid and well- reasoned opinions about the overall research design and conceptual challenges, as well as important comments regarding major and minor empirical details in the various chapter drafts. Moreover, he made sure to remind me as often as possible that I should stop postponing the actual writing and instead finalize the (goddamn) project. Thanks also to the two other participants of the research group, namely Elin Haugsgjerd Allern and Rune Karlsen. Both of them have provided valuable feedback on my scholarly work. In addition to the research group, I would like to express my gratitude for having received valuable comments from Paul Webb, Lars Svåsand and Jo Saglie on the introductory chapter at a small conference in Rosendal in 2013; from all the participants at an internal seminar at Sammenliknende politikk (Department of Comparative Politics), University of Bergen, in February 2013 on the chapter discussing the single-issue thesis; and from Duncan (McDonnell) on the concluding chapter. In fact, Duncan was the only one to have read the concluding chapter before the thesis was submitted. Without his constructive feedback and supportive response only a few days before the deadline, I am pretty sure that the final version would have been significantly worse. The final version would also have been more difficult to read without the magnificent and quick copy-editing by Susan Høivik. I am immensely grateful for her contribution to the increased readability, consistency and precision of the thesis. Thanks also to Michael McKeighen, Lars Petter Berg, and Mari Amdahl Heglum for helping me with various practicalities toward the end when I was almost out of energy. Finally, I need to thank the Norwegian Research Council for funding my PhD and Instituut Politieke Wetenschap (the Department of political science) at the University of Leiden for letting me stay there as a guest researcher for half a year. These six months were great. The staff was very friendly and of high academic quality. Moreover, Leiden is such a beautiful city. *** Writing a PhD could certainly be a lonesome journey. However, with many good colleagues it becomes significantly easier. ISV has been a truly stimulating and friendly institution beyond the specific research project on political parties. On different occasions, I have had the pleasure to discuss various issues related to my own thesis or political science more generally with several colleagues, including Kim Angell, Øivind Bratberg, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Dag Einar Thorsen, Martin A. Nome, Kristoffer Kolltveit, Atle Hennum Haugsgjerd, Ellen Stensrud, Øyvind Østerud, Raino Malnes, Larry Rose, Harald Baldersheim, Helge Hveem, Elisabeth Bakke, Dag Harald Claes, Karin Dokken, Åse Gornitzka, Ottar Hellevik, Robert Huseby, Oddbjørn Knutsen, Werner Christie Mathisen, Knut Midgaard, Trond Nordby, Bjørn Erik Rasch, Hege Skjeie, Anton Steen, Olle Törnquist, and Bernt Aardal. A few senior colleagues deserve some extra credit, however. Bernt Hagtvet, whom I have come to know as a good colleague and friend through weekly public breakfast meetings at the Faculty of Social Science, has learned me a lot on historical far-right movements and parties. Moreover, his passion for the discipline as a whole and his role a public intellectual has been an important inspiration. Tor Bjørklund, for his part, has always listened to my detailed questions about FrP. As an expert on right-wing populist parties for decades, Tor’s comments on some of my writings have been very much appreciated. Going to international conferences and getting to know dedicated scholars from other countries are perhaps one of the most interesting parts of being in academia.