Norway: Resources count, but votes decide? from neo-corporatist representation to neo-pluralist parliamentarism

In comparative studies Norway is ranked at – or close to – the top of the list of corporatist countries. However, this picture needs to be updated. During the last part of the twentieth century significant changes have occurred in Norwegian society and politics. An ongoing process of pluralisation and dispersion of public and private power is paralleled by a process of parliamentarisation with regard to executive–legislative relations. The Norwegian parliament has become more active, less predictable and more influential compared with the executive. Corporatist representation has partly been replaced and partly supplemented by less institutionalised forms of lobbyism. In their attempts to influence policies, organised interests need to appeal to general interests in order to build broader coalitions. Entering the twenty-first century, we may ask whether Stein Rokkan's ‘to-the-point’ formulation in the 1960s should be turned round: resources count, but do votes now decide?