1 Largely the Same Policy, But Largely Different Ideas: The Ideational Underpinnings of the Norwegian and Swedish Bans on the Purchase of Sexual Services Gregg Bucken-Knapp, PhD University of Stirling, Scotland
[email protected] Johan Karlsson Schaffer, PhD University of Oslo, Norway
[email protected] Paper prepared for the 2nd European Conference on Gender & Politics, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. January 13-15, 2011 2 Introduction: Sex Purchase Bans In Norway and Sweden As of January 2009, the purchase of sexual services is legally prohibited in Norway (and, for Norwegian citizens, abroad). Thus, after Sweden, which passed a similar bill in 1998, Norway became the second country in the world to criminalise buying, but not selling, sexual services. Why did Norway and Sweden adopt their respective sex purchase bans? Some scholars and commentators have argued that Norway followed in the footsteps of Sweden largely because of the lobbying of a broad feminist movement, which succeeded in construing prostitution as violence against women.1 However, the sex purchase ban has been on the agenda for decades in Norway, gathering a broad, makeshift coalition of feminists, Christian groups and centrist politicians, which rather raises the question why they achieved the necessary parliamentary support only in 2007. Drawing on a broad range of constructivist and ideational literature in both international relations and comparative politics, we examine both cases in detail. For Norway, we argue that the decisive shift came as a response to public outrage in mass media over the sudden arrival of Nigerian prostitutes selling sex in the Karl Johan street in downtown Oslo and other cities in 2003-2004.