Abstract
After its escape from Denmark during the Napoleonic wars, Norway entered a more loose-knit union with the King of Sweden in 1814. The nineteenth century brought a stream of nationalistic sentiments and Norway resigned from Sweden in 1905, establishing the Norwegian nation state. Ever since Norwegians have felt a strong sense of nationhood, which is yearly demonstrated in massive popular celebrations on its independence day, 17th of May. Fascist and Nazi movements never found much popular support leading up to the Second World War, but when occupied by Nazi forces, Vidkun Quisling of the Norwegian National-Socialist Party became the puppet government leader. Until the 1970s, Norway had the most liberal laws on immigration in the area. The Norwegian Progress Party was formed in 1973, initially in protest against high taxes before turning more firmly against immigrants. The party was thus amongst those initiating the first wave of populist politics in Europe, discussed in the proposed research. Under leadership of Carl I. Hagen, it evolved into a European-style right-wing populist party, even turning hostile to the Sami ethnic minority, for example, the resolution to dissolve the Sami parliament. When Hagen’s successor, Siv Jensen, took the helm in 2006 the party moved on the third wave of populist politics more to the mainstream and evolved to become perhaps the mildest version of populist right-wing parties in Europe, eventually landing all the way into government in 2013, as junior partner in a collation led by the conservatives. The most horrific example of Nordic extreme ultranationalism in contemporary times was native Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attacks in Oslo and on the Labour Party’s youth movement’s summer camp in the Utøya island in July 2011, killing 77 of those whom he accused of being responsible for ruining his country’s Nordic heritage by their social democratic multicultural beliefs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bawer, B. (2012). The new quislings: How the international left used the oslo massacre to silence debate about Islam. Broadside e-books.
Bjørklund, T. (1988). ‘The 1987 Norwegian local elections: A protest election with a swing to the right’. Scandinavian Political Studies, 3. Retrieved from https://tidsskrift.dk
Booth, M. (2014). The almost nearly perfect people: The truth about the Nordic Miracle. London: Jonathan Cabe.
Europautredningen. (2012). Utenfor og innenfor: Norges avtaler med EU (Norges offentlige utredninger No. 2012: 2). Oslo.
Fremstrittspartiet. (2007). Stortingsgruppens innvandrings- og integreringsutvalg. Rapport—Juni. Oslo.
Fremskrittspartiet. (2013). Prinsipprogram. Oslo.
Fremskrittspartiets handlingsprogram 2009–2013. (2009). Retrieved April 18, 2016, from http://www.e-pages.dk/frp/98/
Griffiths, T. (2004). Scandinavia at war with trolls—A history from the Napolenic era to the third millennium. London: Hurst and company.
Hagelund, A. (2003). ‘A matter of decency? The progress party in Norwegian immigration politics’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29(1), 47–65.
Hamsun, K. (1945, July 5). ‘Adolf Hitler’. Retrieved April 11, 2016, from http://www.aftenposten.no
Hellstrom, A. (2016). Trust us: Reproducing the nation and the Scandinavian nationalist populist parties. New York: Berghahn Books.
Henriksen, P. (1999). Aschehoug og Gyldendals store norske leksikon. Kunnskapsforlaget.
Isherwood, J. (2002, November 30). ‘Norway to pay for lost years of war children’. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Iversen, J. M. (1998). Fra anders lange til carl I. Hagen: 25 ar med Fremskrittspartiet. Millennium.
Jupskås, A. R. (2013). ‘The progress party: A farily integrated part of the Norwegian party system’. In Expoising the demagogues: Right-wing and national populist parties in Europe. Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.
Jupskås, A. R. (2015). The persistence of populism. The Norwegian progress party 1973–2009. Oslo: Universtiy of Oslo. Retrieved from https://www.duo.uio.no
Jupskås, A. R., Ivarsflaten, E., Karlsnes, B., & Aalberg, T. (2016). ‘Norway: Populism from anti tax movement to government party’. Unpublished Working Paper.
Kitschelt, H., & McGann, A. J. (1997). The radical right in Western Europe: A comparative analysis. University of Michigan Press.
Lindström, U. (1985). Fascisim in Scanidnavia 1920–1940. Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Martinsen, P. H. (2010). Rød skygge over D13: Kommunistene og Milorg i Stor-Oslo 1940–45. Happy Jam Factory.
Moen, E. S. (2006). Profet i egen land: Historien om Carl I. Hagen. Gyldendal.
Mudde, C. (2007). Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Neumann, I. B. (2002). ‘This little piggy stayed at home: Why Norway is not a member of the EU’. European integration and national identity: The challenge of the Nordic states, 88–129.
Olsen, K. (1998). Krigens barn: De norske krigsbarna og deres mødre. Forum Aschehoug.
Pettersen, S. V., & Østby, L. (2014). ‘Immigrants in Norway, Sweden and Denmark’. Retrieved from https://www.ssb.no.
Rydgren, J. (2007). ‘The sociology of the radical right’. Annu. Rev. Sociol., 33, 241–262.
Seierstad, A. (2015). One of us: The story of Anders Breivik and the massacre in Norway (S. Death, Trans.). (1 ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Simonnes, K. (2011). ‘I stjálne klær?: En analyse av endringer i Høyres, Arbeiderpartiets og Fremskrittspartiets innvandrings-og integreringspolitikk fra 1985 til 2009’. Retrieved from https://www.duo.uio.no
Skarvoy, L. J., & Svendsen, S. H. (2011, 09). ‘Dansk partileder refser Siv Jensen: Hun mangler ryggrad’. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from http://www.vg.no.
Skinner, M. S. (2011). ‘From ambiguity to Euroscepticism? A case study of the Norwegian progress party’s position on the European Union’. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu.
Widfeldt, A. (2015). Extreme right parties in Scandinavia. New York: Routledge.
Žagar, M. (2009). Knut Hamsun: The dark side of literary brilliance (new directions in Scandinavian studies). University of Washington Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bergmann, E. (2017). Norway: From the Poor Periphery to Top of the World. In: Nordic Nationalism and Right-Wing Populist Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56703-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56703-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56702-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56703-1
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)