The Norwegian conservative party: Setback in an era of strength

After a period of unprecedented electoral growth, the Norwegian Conservative Party experienced a setback in the 1985 election. These shifts in Conservative electoral fortunes are explained in the context of socio‐economic changes in postwar Norway, organisational developments within the Conservative Party, its relationships to the other non‐Socialist parties, and the context of Norwegian public policies. A variety of favourable circumstances contributed to the success of the Conservative Party in the 1970s, but none of these could protect the party against recent losses while in office. The analysis particularly illustrates the weakness of explanations based on social determinism.     

Blogging in the Shadow of Parties: Exploring Ideological Differences in Online Campaigning

Blogging is an increasingly important practice in election campaigns, showing interesting variations across contexts. Recent research has shown that the adoption and use of blogs is strongly shaped by national institutional settings, that is, the different roles given to parties within political systems. However, intra-national differences in the practice of political blogging are yet to be explained. This article investigates the variation in usage of blogs in electoral campaigns in Sweden, a country characterized by strong political parties and a party-centered form of representative democracy. The central argument is that different parties utilize blogging in different ways. Just as blogging is shaped by how institutions support persons or parties, we propose that political blogging is shaped by party affiliation and ideological positions on individualism and collectivism. The empirical analysis, based on a survey among over 600 blogging politicians, confirms that ideological positions towards individualism and collectivism have a great impact on the uptake and usage of political blogs, portraying political blogging as a strongly ideologically situated practice of political communication.     

Throwing the rascals out? The electoral effects of corruption allegations and corruption scandals in Europe 1981–2011

Corrupt politicians have to a surprisingly great extent been found to go unpunished by the electorate. These findings are, however, drawn from case studies on a limited number of countries. This study, on the contrary, is based on a unique dataset from 215 parliamentary election campaigns in 32 European countries between 1981 and 2011, from which the electoral effects of corruption allegations and corruption scandals are analyzed. Information about the extent to which corruption allegations and scandals have occurred is gathered from election reports in several political science journals, and the electoral effects are measured in terms of the electoral performances—the difference in the share of votes between two elections—of all parties in government, as well as the main incumbent party, and the extent to which the governments survive the election. The control variables are GDP growth and unemployment rate the year preceding the election, the effective number of parliamentary and electoral parties, and the level of corruption. The results show that both corruption allegation and corruption scandals are significantly correlated with governmental performances on a bivariate basis; however, not with governmental change. When controlling for other factors, only corruption allegation has an independent effect on government performances. The study thus concludes—in line with previous research—that voters actually punish corrupt politicians, but to a quite limited extent.     

The BT Kemi Scandal and the Establishment of the Environmental Crime Concept

This study analyses the significance of the 1977 BT Kemi scandal in Teckomatorp, Sweden for the establishment of the concept of 'environmental crime', first in the public debate and then later in legislation. The BT Kemi scandal is analysed as a 'focusing event' that placed the relationship between environmental pollution, responsibility, legislation and penal sanctions firmly on the political agenda. Several commissions of inquiry were established as a consequence, and in 1981 the Environmental Protection Act was revised and environmental crimes were included in the penal code. This tightening of the legislation had very little effect in practice, however, and this study examines why these legislative changes had so little practical impact. Attention is focused on the historical and societal contexts in which Swedish environmental legislation during the 1960s, as an explanation of why environmental crime has been and remains such a marginalized phenomenon. Shared mentalities in the area of environmental protection, which have evolved over time within public sector agencies and the private sector, coupled with an unequal emerged distribution of power and diffuse legislation, have obstructed the establishment of environmental crime. The BT Kemi scandal was a decisive factor in the coming of age of environmental offending, but it nonetheless takes time before a new form of crime becomes 'self-evident' and accepted as such in the wider society.     

The Representative Roles of MPs: A Citizen Perspective

From the normative point of view, there is a general agreement that representatives should act in line with the interests of those being represented. The knowledge about citizens' preferences for representation is very limited, however. This study examines MP's representative roles from the perspective of the citizens. It utilises a task definition approach in the Finnish institutional setting, which substantially differs from the context of earlier investigations in terms of open‐list electoral systems with mandatory preferential voting. Based on the 2007 Finnish National Election Study (n = 1,422), voters' preferences concerning four different representational roles are analysed: as representatives pursuing the interests of their electoral district, party, individual voters or being independent actors. Next, voters' preferences are accounted for by the factors related to each type of representation: citizens' regional electoral context, party attachment and electoral supply, political engagement and political competence, respectively. The results show that citizens living in electoral districts located far away from the political centre or in constituencies where it is more difficult for small parties to win political representation are most prone to prefer regional representation. Similarly, voters who have closer ties with political parties prefer party‐centred representation while those who feel less politically efficient favour close ties with their MPs. Education in turn increases the support for a political representative to act independently from the electorate or the party.     

CHANGING THE DECISION SPACE: EUROPEAN POLICY INFLUENCES ON ENERGY POLICY AND SYSTEMS CHANGE IN SWEDEN

The EU takes a growing interest in governing the energy sector in its member states. Competing with national institutions, policies and organizational structures, it is however not clear whether the EU exerts a strong influence compared to other factors, and if there is such an influence, the mechanisms are not well understood. This paper examines strategic reorientation towards electricity investment in the Swedish energy sector, a ‘frontrunner case’ of Europeanization, and discusses how this change can be attributed to EU policy change, national policy change and organizational field developments respectively. It finds that EU energy policy influence has been notable, and that governance mechanisms that shape beliefs and expectations are strongly at play. However, despite growing EU clout on energy policy, field level and national policy change remain key drivers of the changing decision space in the examined time period.