NEWS ANALYSIS: There’s a reason why Norway’s current left-center government is unpopular, and why public opinion polls have shown a turn to the right for months on end: A new study shows that Norwegians in general have become less idealistic, more materialistic and more conservative than ever.
The study, called Norsk Monitor and conducted by analysis firm Ipsos, is the latest in a series that began in 1985. It has followed how Norwegians’ views and values have developed, and has now detected what Ipsos calls “a considerable break in the trend, with attitudes moving in a more conservative and materialistic direction.”
Norway’s emerging affluence has clearly played a role, and changed earlier ideals that strived for small financial differences among Norwegians. No one was supposed to be too wealthy or too poor, high taxes were widely accepted as a means of reducing social differences, and there have long been lots of regulations aimed at shaping the economy and protecting Norwegian goods, services and jobs.
Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported after the latest study was released last week that its results reflect how much things have changed. Those believing that high taxes are necessary in order to preserve the social democratic welfare state have fallen from 72- to 65 percent of those questioned.Those who believe it’s more important to share affluence than to create value fell to 62 percent, its lowest level since 1985.
The numbers still reflect a solid majority in favour of social democratic principles, but it’s the trends that Ipsos flags as important. Fewer Norwegians now think, for example, that salary differences are too large, and there was an increase in the numbers of Norwegians who now think there’s too much state regulation. More Norwegians welcome private health care services (up from 35- to 43 percent), instead of having to rely on the overburdened public health system. Support for labour unions has declined.
Other issues also reflected a decline in concern for the collective good. Stung by high electricity rates in recent years, only 29 percent are now willing to pay higher rates in order to reduce environmental pollution. That’s down from 42 percent in 2019. While support for wind power has fallen dramatically, there’s rising support for nuclear power. Perhaps most startling: Support for publicly subsidizing farmers and willingness to pay higher food proces has fallen from 44 percent to 38 percent.
That’s very bad news for the Center Party, which relies on its agricultural constituency, and for Norway’s Labour-Center government. It has offered record high levels of public support and protection for farmers along with raising or introducing lots of controversial taxes after forming a minority coalition after the election in 2021.
The government has plummeted in the polls almost ever since, though. Labour has been stuck with just around 20 percent of the vote or less, and Center has fallen well into the single digits. Nor can they rely on support from the Socialist Left Party (SV) for a majority in Parliament.
As DN commentator Kjetil Wiedswang wrote just last week, they all face deeper problems than scandals and leadership complaints. “Their standard response to bad polls, that ‘we haven’t been clear in communicating our policies,’ won’t help when the majority of voters no longer like their policies,” noted Wiedswang.
Ipsos’ Norsk Monitor, he further noted, is based on several hours of lengthy interviews with as many as 4,000 Norwegians. Their attitudes are logged as “modern vs traditional” and “idealistic vs materialistic.” The most conservative parties like the Christian Democrats would likely appeal to “traditional idealists” (and now attract only around 3 percent of the vote) while the Progress Party (which currently holds aroud 17 percent of the vote) would likely be “traditional materialists.”
Labour and Center land somewhere in the middle, but no longer appeal to the “modern materialists” now making up much more of the electorate. Labour’s current attempts to boost household economy may win back some voters, but it’s hard to reverse trends. Another big problem for Labour is that Norway’s working class that supported the party for decades has mostly been replaced by foreign workers from the former Eastern Europe. Many of them don’t vote in Norway, and if they do, they tend to favour right-wing parties far from Labour’s ideology.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
