The Trend Towards Political Consensus: The Case of Norway.

This paper takes its point of departure in the current concern within political science and political sociology with a phenomenon, or rather a duster of related phenomena, which has been very noticeable in many post-World-War II western political systems taking the reference of Norway. This is the trend towards decreasing political conflict and increasing political consensus. This trend has been given various names. The essence of the author's criticism, so far as Norway is concerned, is that too much emphasis has been placed on the purely social and economic aspects of the historical development and too little on the character of the political institutions. In the Norwegian case the study of social movements has mainly the relevance to the problems of Norway because of the weakness of ascriptive values in the Norwegian civil servant upper class, and later in the business upper class, their ability to withstand the pressures from below and their tendency to co-opt the new elements have been rather marked traits of their political strategy, and their relatively un-military orientation due to the absence of military traditions and of a strong army has reinforced this tendency to appease rather than to fight back. A more political orientation is needed in order to account for their future fate, as in the case of the Norwegian trend towards political consensus.