Participation and Social Capital Formation: Norway in a Comparative Perspective1

Voluntary associations are often ascribed a fundamental role in the formation of social capital. However, scholars disagree on the extent to which face‐to‐face contact, i.e. active participation, is necessary to create this resource. The impact of participation in associations on social capital is examined using three dimensions: intensity (active vs. passive participation), scope (many vs. few affiliations) and type (non‐political vs. political purpose). While those affiliated display higher levels of social capital than outsiders, the difference between active and passive members is absent or negligible. The only cumulative effect of participation occurs when the member belongs to several associations simultaneously, preferably ones with different purposes.     

Public Allocation by Private Organizations: The Case of Finland*

Research on government-group relations has primarily concentrated on policy stages related to agenda-building, consultation and negotiation. However, interest organizations also play an increasingly important role in the final stage of allocation as they have in several instances been entrusted with the execution of state authority. This is especially true in the field of so-called indirect public administration. The paper reviews various forms of public allocation by private organizations in Finland and presents some empirical data indicating the growth of this form of allocation.     

A Definition of Democracy

In a recent paper John D. May has nominated Responsive Rule for a definition of democracy. Responsive Rule prescribes necessary correspondence between governmental acts and the wishes with respect to those acts of the persons who are affected. In this paper the definition is criticized for being unclear on a vital conceptual issue and for not fully expressing the essence of democracy. On the one hand it is maintained that democracy's subject population remains undefined as the meaning of the word affected' is unclear, and three distinctions are brought forward to illustrate the problem of separating affected persons from persons not affected. On the other hand May's identification of democracy with equality in the weight of wishes is called in question, and it is maintained that wishes should meet a qualifying criterion. Three procedures for identifying qualified wishes are discussed, and it is suggested that information must be included in a conception of democracy in order to separate rational wishes from irrational wishes.     

The 2015 Norwegian Local Elections: Support for Governing Radical Right Progress Party Plummets and Great Gains for Greens in ‘Second-Order’ Elections

Two years into the first term of the right wing Conservative/Progress Party coalition government, the 2015 Norwegian local elections displayed many features of a ‘second-order’ election: the governing parties lost considerable support, minor parties did well and voter turnout was low. For the second local elections in a row, political circumstances prevented the far right Progress Party from mobilizing on the anti-immigration issue, adding to the burdens of governing nationally for the first time. The Green Party leveraged its 2013 entry into the national parliament into record support, consolidating the progress made in the 2011 local elections. Although the elections were shaped by national politics, municipal and county variation shows that local political factors did matter.     

Unregistered residents and registered crime: an estimate for asylum seekers and irregular migrants in Norway

The purpose of our study has been to better estimate the number and types of crimes committed by asylum seekers and irregular migrants. While data on immigration status for non-residents are lacking in Norwegian crime statistics, we use indirect identifiers (lack of a national ID number, citizenship, residency) to arrive at an estimate for persons with a pending asylum claim and the related group of irregular migrants (i.e. non-EU citizens). A very small amount of the total crimes registered with a known offender are committed by this group. However, these groups are most likely overrepresented as offenders compared to the registered resident population, also when taking age and gender into consideration. Our method is recommended in a field otherwise dominated by political arguments and as an alternative to registering asylum status in crime registers.     

Higher Education as an Arena for Political Socialisation: Myth or Reality?

Political values and voting behaviour differ significantly between employees in the public and the private sectors, to the extent that some have called this one of the most important political cleavages in modern societies. But what causes these differences? The article outlines two hypotheses, one being the possibility that political values are shaped during higher education. To try and shed some light on this hypothesis, the political values of two groups of students at Agder University College in southern Norway were studied over a period of time. One group of students studied disciplines – nursing, social work, and teaching – that would almost without exception give them jobs in the public sector. The other group studied economics, a subject that for most of them would lead to a job in the private sector. Their political values were then measured at two points in time: when beginning study and after three years of studying. The main conclusion is that political values differ when the students begin to study, and that most political values change only marginally during the three‐year period. The few changes that occur during the period hint at a minor tendency for students to become more politically alike, indicating that higher education has a slight homogenising effect on political values. For one type of political values, however, rather dramatic changes take place. Both student groups acquire significantly more non‐authoritarian values during studies, indicating that higher education may be an important cause of such values.     

An Economic Analysis of a Swedish Environmental Liability Case

A High Court case illustrates Swedish legal reasoning. The case extends the use of strict liability, although the main liability rule is negligence. The aim of the paper is to show the usefulness of the economic analysis in a practical case. The case concerns liability for damages caused by a leaky, hot-water pipe. The defendant maintained that it should not be held liable because it had not acted negligently, and the district court and the court of appeals supported the defence. Nevertheless, the High Court decided on strict liability. The High Court used a line of argumentation that, partly and implicitly, may have been economically correct. However, the precedence was most limited and unclear. Given an explicit goal of economic efficiency, the precedence would, in this simple and straightforward case, be that strict liability should prevail where the cause is unilateral and the injurer is able to cover and/or insure the loss.     

Three Forms of Interpersonal Trust: Evidence from Swedish Municipalities

Social trust is usually treated as a dichotomy between particularized and generalized trust. In this article it is argued that a third distinct form, community trust, is neither particularized nor generalized and bounded in space rather than persons. Factor analysis of survey data from 33 Swedish municipalities (N = 6,453) distinguishes between particularized, generalized and community trust. Furthermore, regression analyses show that the three trust forms have partly distinct antecedents and linked to different types of behaviours. While generalized trust best predicts leaps of faith in relation to strangers, community trust is the only trust form significantly predicting taking part in local problem solving. Finally, multilevel analysis shows that community trust is the trust form most vulnerable to changes with respect to ethnic diversity and socioeconomic equality.