Social capital, civil society and the democratic welfare state in Norway

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL CAPITAL, ETHICS AND DEVELOPMENT DAY

Inter-American Development Bank

Washington, DC

February 24, 2006

Social capital, civil society and the democratic welfare state in Norway:

Is there a link and does it have any relevance for Latin America?

Report prepared for the Social Capital, Ethics and Development Initiative of the Inter-

American Development Bank (IDB).

February, 2005

Benedicte Bull

Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM),

University of Oslo

Executive summary ..............................................................................................................2INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 5

2. SOCIAL CAPITAL IN NORWAY IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ..............62.1 Voluntary organizations and civic engagement ........................................................82.2 The level of trust ...................................................................................................... 132.3 Social networks ....................................................................................................... 14

3. VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS AND THE WELFARE STATE IN NORWAY . 153.1 Voluntary organizations and the emergence of a democratic welfare state ............183.2 The Norwegian welfare state and the system of “voluntary corporatism” .............233.3 The welfare state and inclusion ..............................................................................273.4. Changes in the voluntary organizations, the welfare state and social capital .........30

4. CONCLUSION: ANY LESSONS FOR LATIN AMERICA? .....................................33References .........................................................................................................................37

Document included in the Digital Library of the Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethicsand Development of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) - www.iadb.org/ethics

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Executive summary

During the years in which the Social Capital, Ethics and Development Initiative has been

operating in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the example of Norway has

been mentioned on several occasions. It has been pointed to as a country in which a

highly active civil society has contributed to a high stock of social capital and in turn a

more socially oriented development. However, little systematic examination has been

made of the relationship between civil society, social capital and the evolution of the

democratic welfare state in Norway. This report aims to contribute to such an analysis.

The aim is to understand what lessons can be drawn of relevance also for Latin America.

The report is based on secondary material: surveys and historical sociological

literature on Norway and to some extent the other Scandinavian countries. The lessons

for Latin America are based on secondary material as well as conversations with

academics at universities in Latin America. It is divided into three sections. The first

section examines surveys on various indicators of social capital and participation of civil

society in Norway. It concludes that Norway ranks high with regard to most indicators of

social capital, including existing networks between people and expressions of trust in

people and in public institutions. It also has a particularly active civil society, with a high

degree of membership in organizations and Norwegians devote more time to voluntary

work than any other nation. Research has also found that there is a clear connection

between the participation in civil society organizations, and the other expressions of

social capital. However, contrary to a common claim in the literature, research has found

that in Norway, politically oriented or semi-political organizations (including what may

be called social movements) produce social capital to a greater extent than non-political

organizations. Moreover, passive membership is related to trust and networks to the same

extent as active memberships. Therefore, many researchers have concluded that it is not

the case that memberships in associations produce trust and networks. It is rather the

other way around: people that are more trusting and have more extensive social networks

are more inclined to become members of various associations.


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The second section examines the historical roots of this development and the role

that the state has played in the emergence of an active civil society in Norway. It

concludes that there is a two-way relationship between the active Norwegian welfare

state and civil society. First, the emergence of an active Norwegian welfare state was

crucially dependent on the existence of strong mass based social movements that made

various claims on the state. In turn, the welfare state has collaborated actively with civil

society in the provision of welfare goods as well as encouraged organization of

recreational activities by civil society. From the 1950s onwards, the high degree of

activity in civil society organizations is not understandable without taking into account

the encouragement by the state. Another important aspect of the collaboration between

the state and civil society is the system of interest-mediation and bargaining between

different economic interests which has been a key to the emergence of a highly

egalitarian income distribution and segmented a much noted distaste for inequality in

Norwegian society. The state policies were quite successful in ensuring social inclusion

in Norway, but there are several challenges. These include avoiding cooptation by the

state of organizations, and vice-versa, “elite-circulation” and inclusion of new groups.

The section furthermore examines recent changes in voluntary organizations in Norway.

It points to four main trends: the decline of social movements, specialization,

marketization and profesionalization of voluntary organizations.

The third section draws lessons for other countries, including those of Latin

America. It argues that one of the most important lessons from the Scandinavian

countries is that the role of civil society must be understood within the context of the

active welfare state. Thus, encouraging civil society participation in welfare provision or

articulation of interests and demands is never enough; it must happen within the

framework of a state that takes equal responsibility with, and responds to the claims of

the citizenry. On the other hand, participation was a key to the success of the

Scandinavian welfare states. To use the concept of Stålsett (2006), the system provided

meeting points between groups in society and personalized the mutual vulnerability

rather than allowing for violent defenses against it. A main challenge in Latin America is

to nurture a collaborative relationship between the state and civil society and at the same


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time avoid the risks of co-optation and clientilism. A further point that is made that in the

analysis of Latin America, it is important to focus not only on the mainstream use of the

concept of social capital as a positive, collective resource in society, but also analyze how

social capital can be used to exclude. An important lesson from Norway is that voluntary

organizations have constituted an accessible route to social mobility. Along with a rights

based state it has reduced the tendencies of social segregation.


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INTRODUCTION

Social capital has lately received a lot of attention among researchers. Although the phenomenon debated under the heading of social capital – including the significance of

civic associations, trust between people, and social networks –is far from new in the

social science literature for a long time, the more recent writings of authors such as

Robert Putnam and James Coleman, have contributed to the dramatic increase in

attention to the concept.

This report has two main and interlinked focuses. The first is the relationship

between civic associations, trust and social capital. This was the thesis of Robert D.

Putnam: that associational activity and trust were two expressions of the same

phenomena, namely social capital (Putnam 1993). Reviewing the evidence from Norway,

some of Putnam’s arguments are confirmed: all surveys of Norway find a comparatively

a high degree of memberships in civic associations, and also high levels of trust and

confidence. However, available evidence questions the causal link between activity in

civic associations and general trust. Moreover, contrary to Putnam’s argument a high

degree of trust is correlated primarily with membership in socially oriented or political

organizations and not with membership in civic associations generally.

The second focus is the relationship between social capital and the development

of a social democratic welfare state. There are several hypotheses in the literature about

this relationship. It is commonly argued that the type of social democracy that

characterizes the Scandinavian countries is only possible in consensual, homogenous and

affluent societies with an extraordinary commitment to equality. However, evidence from

the Scandinavian countries has shown that they were neither affluent, egalitarian nor

homogenous when the main policies of the social democratic welfare state were

established. Indeed, Scandinavian social democracies came to power in societies no more

affluent or less economically divided than many poor countries of today (Moene and

Wallerstein 2003). The question is then: what were the factors that brought about the

change? And what role has civic associations played? The evidence reviewed here point

to a positive two-way relationship between the social democratic welfare state and the


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variety of civic associations. In the first place social movements were a key factor in the

creation of the welfare states. In turn, the system of interaction between the states and the

civic associations – including both labour unions, other professional organizations, and

social and leisure oriented organizations – has been of key importance for the fostering of

trust, networks and the peculiar distaste for inequality that, at least up to recently, has

characterized Scandinavian countries.

Thus, the Scandinavian experience runs counter to the argument the welfare state

may be detrimental to social capital. It has been argued that welfare states may take away

the responsibility from the individual and makes superfluous the social networks between

people that elsewhere serve as social safety-nets. In turn it will contribute to weakening

them and thereby weaken social capital (Fukuyama 1995, 1999). The Scandinavian

example is more in tune with the argument that there is a two-way positive relationship

between the state and civil society: a well functioning democracy is as much a

precondition for high social capital as high social capital is a precondition for a well

functioning democracy. Institutions that show stability and openness towards the

demands of citizens are the most important conditions (Hall 2002).

2. SOCIAL CAPITAL IN NORWAY IN A COMPARATIVE

PERSPECTIVE

Social capital is a highly contested concept, and it has been criticized as often as it has

been utilized. I will return to some of the critique below, but for now only discuss some

mainstream definitions and their components. The recent enormous interest in the

concept of social capital owes a lot to Robert Putnam’s writings on the relationship

between social capital and a well-functioning democracy. Putnam approaches social

capital as a collective resource which is endogenous to the individual; it is something that persons or groups can possess and it may be defined as the expression of networks

between people, trust and civil engagement. In other words, social capital is a collective

good that emerges from various forms of networks and associations and creates necessary

trust between people to make democracies function. According to him: “the greater the

density of associational membership in a society, the more trusting its citizens. Trust and


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engagement are two facets of the same underlying factor – social capital” (Putnam 1995,

p. 73).

In Putnam’s view civic associations may serve both functions by both increasing

the networks between people and serving as “educational institutions” that also would

forge broader social links. In his own terms, then, civic organizations may both be

conducive to the creation of “bonding social capital” meaning the ties that bind people

within a social group together, and “bridging social capital” meaning ties binding

between different social groups together (Putnam 2000, p. 22-23). In civic associations,

barriers against the inclusion of new members are often low and it is common that

individuals are members of more than one organization. This makes them capable of

creating “loose connections” that bridges well established loyalty patterns, and therefore

they may produce “bridging” social capital.

In the earlier works on the significance of civic associations for the functioning of

democracy, Putnam focused partly on their roles in advocacy and the expression of

interests of local groups towards the state (Putnam 1993). However, later he has been

more concerned about the internal functioning of the organizations, and emphasized the

importance of groups such as choirs and bowling clubs rather than more political

organizations such as unions and social movements (Puntam 2000).

Putnam was mostly concerned about the impact of social capital on western

democracies. However, a series of other authors have focused on the role of social capital

in development. Among them are James Coleman. He conceived of social capital as a

collective phenomenon, but one that each and every member of society could make use

of and would benefit from, thus social capital is here conceived of as exogenous rather

than endogenous to the individual. He argues that:

Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of

different entities having two characteristics in common: They all consist of someaspect of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who arewithin the structure (Coleman 1990, p. 302).

Social capital is in other words a resource which allows the individuals to cooperate and

which in turn may contribute to improved outputs, for the individual and for the


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collective. Coleman himself was mainly concerned with understanding why children

from different groups and communities showed so different capabilities in making use of

educational opportunities (Coleman 1990). However, his ideas have also been applied to

understand why development projects succeed in some communities and not others.

Most quantitative surveys that attempt to measure social capital focuses on the

three components discussed by Putnam and Coleman: civic associations, networks and

trust.1 This is also the case in Norway. In the following we will turn to the measurement

of these dimensions.

2.1 Voluntary organizations and civic engagement 2

Norway is a highly organized society; in the sense that according to recent surveys, 73%

of the adult population is a member of a voluntary association. More than 50% of the

adult population is an active member of a voluntary organization (see figure 1).

On average, every Norwegian is a member (active or passive) of two voluntary

organizations. It is most common to be a member of a cultural or recreational

organization (including sports organizations) (36%). This is followed by professional

organizations and development and housing organization s (see figure 1).

1 There are a series of obstacles to measuring social capital quantitatively. The one which is most frequentlydiscussed in the literature is that social capital is defined as a collective phenomenon or resource, but it isalmost always measured at the individual level (through for example surveys measuring trust). For a reviewof different problems, see NFR (2005).2 There are many different words for organizations in civil society. In much of the literature on socialcapital, ‘civic association’ is the preferred term. In literature on Latin America it is common to distinguish between ‘popular organizations’ by which one normally means organizations of the lower classes, and‘civil society’ is used about middle class groups. I use the term ‘voluntary organization’ as this is the mostcommon term used in the literature on Norway and the rest of Scandinavia.


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Figure 1.

Composition of membership in voluntary

organizations, %

36

21

12 12

6

4

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

C u l t u r e

a n d

r e c r e a t i o n

P r o f e s i o n a l a s o c i a t i o n s

e v e l o p m e n t a n d

h o u s i n g

H e a l t h

C u i v i c a n d a d v o c a c y

R e l i g i o n

Serie

Source: Sivesind et al. (2002)

There is also a high percentage of the population which is engaged in voluntary

work. Of the adult population 54% do some kind of voluntary work, and the volunteers

spend on average 9 hours per month doing voluntary work. In total then, the voluntary

work conducted in Norway equals the work of 26 full time workers per 1000 inhabitants

(Barstad 2004). In comparative perspective, the Norwegian population is far more

inclined to do voluntary work than other European countries and is well above all the

countries in the Americas (See table 1).3 There are variations between socio-economic

groups with regards to the type of work that one does, but the rate of voluntarism doesnot change much across socio-economic groups.

3 Volunteering represents 64% of all the work done in voluntary organizations (Sivesind et al 2002). Thus,

the corollary is that in terms of percentage of the total population that is employed in non-profitorganization, Norway comes out much lower than the other European countries.


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Table 1: Percentage of the population that does voluntary work

Europe The Americas

Norway 54% United Status 22%

United Kingdom 30% Argentina 8%

Sweden 28% Brazil 6%

The Netherlands 16% Colombia 5%

France 14% Peru 5%

Poland 12% Mexico 0.1%

Note: The other European countries have a lower rate than the countries showed. There are no data on theother American countries.Source: Salomón et.al (2003).

As most people do voluntary work in the organization that they are a member of, the

major part of the voluntary work is done in cultural and recreational organizations.

Whereas health and education dominates as voluntary activities in many other countries

(including the US and Brazil as showed below), this is not the case in Norway.

Table 2: Voluntary work per sector, percentage of total voluntary work

Norway USA Brazil

Culture 41.2 9.0 15.1

Education 11.2 18.5 35.1

Health 6.0 34.2 17.5

Social services 14.0 22.1 19.2

The environment 0,6 1.0 0.2

Development 4.3 4.0 3.0

Civil/Political 6.3 4.9 0.7

Professionals 13.0 3.9 8.6

Others 3.4 2.4 0.7

Source: Salomón et. al (2003).

There are many explanations for the distribution of voluntary work in Norway. The low

activity in health and educational sectors may partly be explained by the domination of

the state in these sectors. Although there does exist some private schools and health


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clinics, the state has the main responsibility for providing universal health and education

services. Therefore, there is little space for voluntary activity in these sectors.

Another common explanation for the high level of voluntary work in Norway is

the tradition of dugnad in Norwegian society. This tradition goes back to the Middle-

Ages as a collective community insurance system, based upon work rather than money.

Today, the modern version consists of collective, voluntary, unpaid efforts among

members of an organization or a community, with the aim of solving a problem, saving

money (that would be spent on purchasing the same services) or provide income or (by

for example producing goods or services for sale). For smaller local associations, such

collective activities represent their most important income source. As I will return to, the

so called “dugnad-spirit” is losing ground these days, but it is still quite significant;

almost every condominium or apartment building has its annual dugnad where all the

residents participate in maintenance, and parents of children that are members of sport

clubs spend a significant share of their time on various forms of dugnad in the children’s

club.

However, there are also alternative explanations. The Argentinean anthropologist

Eduardo Archetti lived and worked in Norway for more than 30 years and researched as

well as participated in Norwegian civil society. He argued that people to a very little

extent donate time to society. Rather, the major part of voluntary work consists of parents

donating time to their children by doing voluntary work for many of their children’s

cultural and sporting activities. Thus, the high level of voluntarism in Norway cannot be

explained as a trait of civil society; rather it is a trait of the Norwegian family structure

and relations between family members (Archetti 2003).

In either case, an important corollary to the high level of voluntary work is the

low level of voluntary donations. As a percentage of GDP, this is at par with Peru and far

below the United States, other European countries, and even Argentina and Colombia.

This is to a significant extent related also to the dugnad tradition which also means that it

is not considered “honorable” or “good conduct” to pay instead of participating in the

communal work. However, it is also a result of the fact that the state indeed pays for most

activities (including in health, education, etc.) that in other countries are financed through

charitable donations.


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Table 3: Philanthropic donations as percentace of GDP

Europe Latin America

Spain 0.87% United States 1.01%

United Kingdom 0.62% Argentina 0.38%

Ireland 0.55% Brazil 0.17%

Sweden 0.40% Colombia 0.32%

The Netherlands 0.37% Peru 0.26%

Norway 0.26% Mexico 0.04%

Fuente: Salomón et.al (2004).

Another measure of civic activity is the level of political activity. According recent

numbers from the European Social Survey, Norwegians range on top in Europe with

regards to political activity. Asked what kind of political activities they participated in

last year, 39% answered that they signed a petition, 25% said they were members of a

political organization, 24% said they had boycotted a product for a reason related to

ethics or politics, 23% said they had contact ed a politician, and the same number had

used a button with a political message. 11% had participated in a demonstration and 9%

were members of an action group of some sort. Judging from these data alone, one could be led to believe that Norway is a highly tense and politicized society, by comparison

with others. However, as I will comment on below, this is not really the case.

Figure 3:


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Percentage of population that has participated in different

political activities the last year

39

25 2423 23

119

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

S i g n a t u r e c a m p a i g n

O r g a n i z a t i o n

B o i c o t o f p r o d u c t s

C o n t a c t e d p o l i t i c i a n

U s e d

b u t t o n

D e m o n s t r a t i o n

A c t i o n g r o u p

Source: European Social Survey (2005)

2.2 The level of trust

A further measure of social capital is the level of trust. In general, research shows that

Norwegians show a high level of trust (Dekker et al. 1997). The encompassing World

Values Survey (WVS) measured trust through the following question: “Do you think that

most people are to be trusted, or do you think that one cannot bee too careful in dealing

with people?” As shown in Table 4, in all the Scandinavian countries a high proportion of

the people say that they generally trust people, but Norway is the only country in which

the general trust in the population has not declined, but indeed increased slightly from the

early to the mid 1990s. In general, there is a tendency for trust to decline in all theEuropean countries. There is also a general trend that the level of trust is higher in the

north and lower in the southern part of Europe. If compared to the countries in the

Americas, Canada and the United States scored relatively high on the first survey cited

here, but trust in the US declined dramatically – at least according to this survey – to the

mid 1990s. The Latin American countries that participated show disparate patterns.


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Although they all have a relatively low level of trust, there are significant differences

between Mexico on the one hand and Brazil at the other hand of the scale, where only

2.8% of the population thought that people were to be trusted by the mid 1990s.

Table 4: Selected European and American countries scores on the World Value Survey’s

measure of trust *

Europe Early 1990s Mid 1990s The Americas Early 1990s Mid 199s

Britain 43.7 29.6 Argentina 23.2 17.6

Denmark 57.7 Brazil 6.5 2.8

Finland 62.7 48.1 Canada 53.2

France 28.2 Chile 22.7 21.9

Germany 37.9 41.8 Colombia 10.8

Netherlands 53.5 Dominican R. 26.4

Norway 65.1 65.3 El Salvador 14.6Spain 34.2 29.7 Mexico 35.1 28.1

Sweden 66.1 59.7 Peru 5.0

USA 51.1 35.9

Venezuela 13.7

* Percentage of the interviewees agreeing to the statement that “most people are to betrusted”.Source: Norris (2001)

2.3 Social networksThe final component of social capital as defined by Putnam is social networks. It is very

difficult to conduct comparative research on this, but interesting research on the

relationship between networks between people and the other components of social capital

has been done in Norway. These show that there is a clear connection between

participation in civic organizations and the extension of social networks, and both trust in

people in general and trust in the political system (Wollebæk, Selle and Lorentzen 2000).

Thus, the Norwegian case seems to confirm the prediction made by Putnam that a

high level of organizational activity would go together with a high level of trust and

social networks. However, the Norwegian case does indeed challenge some main

hypotheses proposed by Putnam and other authors. First, as noted above, Putnam

emphasized primarily non-political organizations as engines of trust. However, as shown,

in Norway there is a high level of activity in political organizations. Indeed, if only


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looking at the numbers, one could imagine that this was a highly politicized society.

However, some research has been done which looks at the inter-linkages between the

different indicators of social capital. One main conclusion from this is that contrary to

what Putnam predicted, members of organizations in general do not show a higher level

of trust or social networks than other people. However, members of political

organizations, and other forms of organizations that conduct advocacy or other actions to

forge social change also have more dense social networks, and show more trust and

confidence than the population in general (Wollebæk and Selle 2002). This has been

interpreted to mean that it is not the case that organizational membership produces trust

and networks; it is rather the other way around. That people that show civic engagement

are also more trusting and have more extensive social networks, and they are more

inclined to become members of an organization that is aimed towards some form of

social change.

Second, especially in his later writings, Putnam argued that the most valuable

about civil organizations was the face-to-face meetings that would produce networks and

trust. However, various pieces of research from Norway shows that those that are

members of several organizations show a higher level of trust and networks irrespective

of whether they are active or passive members (Wollebæk, Selle and Lorentzen 2000,

Hansen and Tjerbo 2003). This point to the same conclusion as Pippa Norris has reached

based on global data: That Putnam was right in pointing to the interrelationship between

dense networks of civic organizations and the underlying conditions facilitating

interpersonal trust, but there is little evidence that the former may lead to the latter

(Noriss 2000). It could just as easily be the other way around.

The puzzle then remains: what has let to a high level of civic associational

activity, a high level of trust in Norway, and what is the relation between this and the

social democratic welfare state?

3. VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS AND THE WELFARE

STATE IN NORWAY


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It is obvious that the high level of activity in civic associations only explains a small part

of the Scandinavian welfare development, characterized by an extensive welfare state, a

low level of inequality and high scores of indicators of human development. In the first

part of this section I will outline how civic associations, mostly in the form of broad

based social movements, contributed to the establishment of the Norwegian welfare state

from the last half of the 19th century. I here follow the bottom-up approach of Putnam,

viewing civil society as determining for the nature of the state.

However, equally important is how the Norwegian stat has contributed – in turn to

the organization of civil society. Based on historical evidence from the United States,

Theda Skocpol has criticized Putnam for placing too much emphasis on local

organizations as the key to a vivid democracy, overlooking the fact that many of the local

organizations in the United States were actually branches of the larger nation-wide

organizations and that they organized at different levels in order to direct their claims to

the different levels of the political institutions (Skocpol 1996). In other words, also local

organizations have been shaped by the states as they were formed in order to direct their

claims toward it. The macro-structural approach represented by Skocpol makes the point

that there is a two-way relationship between democracy and social capital: a well

functioning democracy is as much a precondition for high social capital as high social

capital is a precondition for a well functioning democracy, and the most important

conditions are institutions that show stability and openness towards the demands of

citizens are mostly the most important conditions.

The Norwegian case can be used to illustrate Skocpol’s points with regards to the

historical development of local civil society organizations. However, as will be shown

below, the case can be taken even further in the Norwegian case as the government

throughout the period after World War II was particularly active in shaping civil society.

It is precisely the close two-way relationship between the state and civil society which is

among the keys to understanding the case of Norway. Over the past years, conservatives

such as Francis Fukuyama has expressed concerns that welfare states may destroy social

capital if they get involved in issue areas which civil society or the private sector should

rather take care of (Fukuyama 1999). As will be discussed further towards the end of this

section, the evidence presented here will refute such a claim: the Norwegian state has


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clearly entered into spheres that conservatives think should have been left to the private

sector or civil society. However, there is little evidence that this has contribute to any

deterioration of social capital.

Yet, the Norwegian welfare state is characterized not only by involving an

extensive set of welfare benefits and be responsive to citizen’s claims. An important

feature of the context of the Norwegian welfare sate is a society with a much more

egalitarian distribution of income than in most other parts of the world. What is the

relationship between this and social capital? One quite obvious critique of the

Putnam/Coleman view of social capital is that aspects of power and inequality are

virtually absent. Although the Putnam-concept of social capital has provoked research on

the “distribution” of social capital (Lauglo 2000, Hall 2002), in general social capital is

viewed as something that potentially benefits everybody.

However, before Putnam, and independent of him, Pierre Bourdieu coined the

term social capital to denote resource that can be acquired by individuals and families and

that would determine their position in a social field (Bourdieu 1986). Bourdieu actually

used social capital in a quite different sense than Putnam, but to use Putnam’s words, he

focused on “bonding” social capital than “bridging” social capital. One of his main

purposes was to understand what creates and sustains inequality in a society. In his view,

social capital was the result of a more or less institutionalized social network of mutual

acquaintance and esteem. The maintenance of such networks requires investments, both

individual and collective, and in turn, it produces a resource that can both serve to include

people in a group and to exclude.

Based on such a view of social capital one could argue that a more egalitarian

society is one in which there is a limit as to what capital – including both financial and

social – can buy. In other words, an egalitarian society is one in which there are equal

opportunities which are independent of the social capital (or other forms of capital) that a

person has acquired. The interesting question in the Norwegian case based on this is to

what extent the welfare state has also brought about the devaluation of the currency of

social capital (to continue the financial metaphor), in terms of the importance of the right

acquaintances, networks, and neighborhood, or, to use Putnam’s words, whether it has

succeeded in encouraging both bonding and bridging.


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However, the relationship between social capital and inequality is not limited to

this. The relationship between income inequality, civic organizations and social capital is

a quite understudied field. The lesson that can be drawn from the case of Norway is that

the collaboration between the state and civic associations was a key factor in establishing

policies leading to decreased income inequality. This, in turn has led to the strengthening

of egalitarianism as a social norm, the homogenization of the population, and possibly to

the high general levels of trust.

3.1 Voluntary organizations and the emergence of a democratic welfare

state

In the 19th century, Norway was a country predominantly inhabited by fishermen and

small farmers. Although recent investigations show that the Norwegians were not as poor

as the national mythology will have it, there are many descriptions by travelers and

ethnologists visiting Norway during the 19th century about the glaring poverty and lack of

civilization found in this outpost of Europe.

Although there are several structural variables of importance in the explanation of

the subsequent road to prosperity, there is a general agreement that voluntary associations

played a crucial role as agents of change. Among these the so-called popular mass

movements such as the labor movement, the farmers movement, the temperance

movement, and the pietistic layman movement, played a very special and important role

in state-civil society relations beginning in the 1860s. To understand this, it is important

to recognize that in Scandinavia, a popular mass movement was (and still is), to some

extent, different from what in many other countries is understood as a voluntary

organization. Bo Rothstein has summarized five features from the case of Sweden that to

a large extent also goes for Norway (Rothstein 2004).

First, although the popular movements had strong local branches to secure mass

participation, the movement as such was a united national entity, thereby linking

individuals and local branches to the nation as a whole. This is largely in tune with what

Skocpol writes about the United States, and it reminds us that the emergence of these

institutions cannot be understood in isolation from the emergence of a state at which to

direct the demands of the new organizations.


18





Second, historically, the popular mass movements saw themselves as protest

movements against the dominating elite. The elite differed across the Scandinavian

countries. In Sweden it consisted of the bureaucratic, clerical, aristocratic, and capitalist

elite. In Norway, which lacked an aristocracy but had been the object of Danish rule for

400 year (until 1814) and then in a political Union with Sweden which lasted until 1905

when Norway got its independence, it consisted also of the Danish and Swedish elites

engaged in the administration of Norway. Many of the voluntary organizations were

established in the second half of the 19 th century as a part of the independence process

(Sivesind et al 2002). Thus, one may say that a part of the purpose of the social

movements was to give content to the national project. There were conflicting interests

between the representatives of different socio-economic groups, religious leanings and

between city and countryside that got their expressions in the social movements.

Particularly four types of movements stand out: the labor movement, a cultural

movement struggling to get the rural culture – including language – included in the

expression of the national culture, the pietistic layman movement and the temperance

movement. The idea of a movement implied that society should be changed and that the

vehicle was mass organization from below.

Third, a popular mass movement consisted of not one but a whole network of

organizations. This was particularly true for the labor movement and the cultural/farmers

movement, but also for the religious ones. In Norway, it could be difficult indeed to

distinguish between political parties, trade unions and voluntary associations, particularly

in the case of the labor movement. The labor movement in Norway was not limited to

political or interests based activities; from the 1920s it emerged as a mass-movement: it

gave the members a social network and a series of leisure activities, including sports,

music, and different forms of courses. It also created alternative career opportunities

through establishing its own newspapers and large organizational apparatuses (Furre

2000, p. 43).

Fourth, as organizations of protest as well as self-help, the popular mass

movements stood in sharp contrast to the charity organizations dominated by the middle

and upper classes. The organizations were dominated by people of modest origin, and

served as mechanisms for mobilizing relatively poor groups (Lorentzen 2004). Moreover,


19





it was the mass movements that were dominating, (in numerical terms), not the charity

organizations. This may shed light on the question posed above of why philanthropic

donations are so small compared to other countries, whereas voluntary work – which was

much more dominating in the social movements – is still of significant importance.

Fifth, both in Sweden and Norway, the voluntary associations have come to be

viewed as important “schools of democracy”. Most organizations where organized

hierarchies which local organizations electing representatives to the central governing

bodies. At all levels, decisions were made democratically, and, according to Rothstein

here “members learnt how to handle a chairman’s gavel and to accommodate themselves

to majority resolutions” (Rothstein 2004, p. 299).

At the same time, the organizations contributed to filling the gap between the

nation-state and the citizens by creating new collective identities (Rothstein 2004,

Lorentzen 2004). This occurred in a period in which a social and political vacuum had

been created by the breakdown of the old estate order in Sweden, and in Norway a

political space had opened up after the independence from Denmark (the union with

Sweden was much looser and consisted after 1884 only of a joint foreign policy). Thus,

the conclusion reached by Rothstein that “if there could be an “owner” of social capital in

Sweden, it has been the popular movements (Rothstein 2004, p. 299), is probably also

valid for Norway.

An important question that has been discussed in the literature is why this

plethora of social movements, many of which had very radical programs, did not lead to a

further polarization of Norwegian society. For example, why didn’t the labor movement

evolve into a revolutionary force as it did in many of the neighboring countries? One

important explanation for that is that Norwegian labor movement was characterized by

not only encompassing urban industrial labor. Norway was not a very urbanized country,

and peasants and fishermen from the outskirts of Norway also joined the labor

movement, and they were far removed from the radical agitation of the urban

industrialists that were inspired by the events in Russia and other European countries

(Furre 2000). Furthermore, there were close links between several of the social

movements that contributed to dampening the polarization. For example the temperance

movement was closely related to both the labor movement and to religious groups, and


20





the most prominent figure in the Norwegian labor movement, Martin Tranmæl, was also

the cofounder of a teetotaler group (Furre 2000, p. 101).

All these groups placed important demands on the states in the Scandinavian

countries. In the mid 1930s social democratic parties came to power in both Norway and

Sweden. They faced highly divided societies, unemployment of around 20 percent and

income levels that compare with those of Guateamala, El Salvador and Peru today (see

table 5).

Moreover, in the 1920s and 1930s, Norway and Sweden had experienced the

highest level of industrial conflicts in the world, and nowhere were employers as ready to

respond to workers claims with lockouts as in Norway and Sweden (Moene and

Wallerstein 2003). In the 1930s the state in turn started to respond to the demands by the

social movements and various agreements were made which have come to be of crucial

importance for the development of the democratic welfare states in the post World War II

period. The most important one was a basic agreement signed between the labor

organizations, employers organizations and the government establishing the right of labor

to organize, rules for collective bargaining at the industry level, and a general framework

for the relations between employers and employees that all later agreements have been

based on. Such an agreement was signed in Norway in 1935 and in Sweden in 1938. The

Norwegian so called “main agreement” has been called the “constitution of work life”

and has been a main guarantee for workers right and against arbitrary interventions

against workers strikes, and buffer against long and costly conflicts. As argued by the

historian and theologian Berge Furre, by the end of the 1930s “One of the most dividing

movements – the labor movement – became the integrating force in the industrial society

which gradually moved towards focusing on making labor and capital, city and country

side to pull together in order to overcome the social crisis, with a stronger state as the

driving, controlling, and leveling institution” (Furre 2000, p. 118). As will be shown in

the following section, the system established in the 1930s would in turn be of key

importance in the evolution of the Scandinavian countries as egalitarian societies.

Table 5: Real GDP per capita, US $ in 1996 Constant Prices (Laspeyres)


21





Countryountry Year Real GDP per capitaGDP

per capita

Honduras 2000 2054

Bolivia 2000 2721Ecuador 2000 3467

Guatemala 2000 3913

Norway 1935 4081

El Salvador 2000 4434

Sweden 1933 4535

Peru 2000 4582

Paraguay 2000 4682

Colombia 2000 5380

Costa Rica 2000 5863

Panama 2000 6066

Venezuela 2000 6420Brazil 2000 7185

Mexico 2000 8766

Uruguay 2000 9612

Chile 2000 9919

Argentina 2000 10994

Sweden 2000 23662

Norway 2000 27044

Sources: Heston et al (2002), Moene and Wallerstein (2003).

Moreover, already in the 1930s, a system for collaboration between the state and

voluntary organizations was strengthened. The voluntary organizations participated in

various committees established to manage different issue areas. In 1939, 99 such

committees had been established.

A further important heritage of the 1930s was the emergence of important

principles for the welfare state, first and foremost, the principle of universality. This was

still not implemented in all the laws, but the main idea was present: that aid from society

in cases of crises was a right, not charity (Furre, 2000, p. 135).

Thus, the main basis for the welfare state was laid down before the war through a

series of compromises between different forces in the society, compromises in which the

state played a crucial role. In the after war period the labor party – by then evolving into a

social democratic party – came to power and there was a long uninterrupted period of


22





social democratic governments. In this period, the focus was on increasing production;

creating more to distribute, and this increased the sense of harmony between different

interests in society. However, equally important was the inclusion of the social

movements in the development process.

3.2 The Norwegian welfare state and the system of “voluntary

corporatism”

After the war, the collaboration between the state and the voluntary organizations

continued in many different ways. Indeed, the system became so institutionalized that one

Norwegian historian and political scientist has called the system “voluntary corporatism”

(Wyller, in Furre 2000, p. 127).

This voluntary corporatism had many expressions. One of these was an

institutionalized system of interest representation, including a tripartite collaboration

between the state, the labor movement and the employers’ organization in managing the

work relations. This functioned both as a system for formal negotiations, and informal

adjustments by all parties. In the after war period there was an understanding between the

government and the labor movement that the latter would get an important role in the

formulation of economic policy in return for moderating its demands and ensuring

peaceful work-relations. There were also several occasions in the early years of social

democracy when the labor party modified its proposals in order not to provoke ruptures

with the delicate balance of interests involved in the “corporate elements” or the

institutionalized collaboration between the state and the various interest organizations

(Furre, 2000, p. 187).

This system of interest representation has been termed “corporative pluralism” by

the Norwegian political scientist Stein Rokkan (Rokkan 1969) and it has been pointed to

as one of the key elements in explaining why the social democratic order lasted so long.

At the base was a belief in the state as the good force, an expression of the community,

and with the task of ensuring social justice. It should be the state for the whole people; be

above special class- and special interest and promote the overall societal interest. The

state should govern the market forces and collaborate with the capitalists in private


23





business. Through negotiations and collaboration between the state and the organized

interests in committees and different other bodies, harmony of interest should emerge

(Furre 2000).

A specific and highly important aspect of the system of corporative pluralism was

the policy of centralized solidaristic bargaining. In the 1950s, bargaining at the industry

level was replaced with direct negotiations over pay by the national associations of

unions and employers. As white collars and professional union confederations joined the

centralized negotiations, the coverage of the system expanded to include most of the

working population in the private sector. The system was also extended to the public

sector and it was supported by the unions as well as the employers who much preferred to

bargain with the sensible leaders of the union confederation than the more militant shop-

floor union bodies (Moene and Wallerstein 2003).

The centralized system of bargaining had three important consequences. The first

was the virtual elimination of industrial conflict. From having been the countries with the

highest level of strikes and lockouts, the Scandinavian countries changed to being the

countries with the lowest levels of such conflicts. The second consequence was to allow

conditions in the export sector to determine the growth of wages throughout the

economy. In practice the system of centralized bargaining tied wage growth throughout

the economy through the growth of wages in the export sector since the unions in the

export sector, the metal workers in particular, were the largest and most influential unions

within the national confederations. The unions of the export sectors had in the 1930s been

forced to accept large wage reductions, due to the collapse of export markets, but as no

such direct pressure was put on other sectors, the wages continued to grow in for example

construction, which created even further problems for the export sectors that were

dependent on their services. With centralized bargaining these sources of wage

inequalities were removed. The third consequence was a gradual wage compression that

over time generated the most egalitarian distribution of wages and salaries in the

industrialized world. Although wage equality was an explicit goal of the unions from the

1950s on, it was the centralistic bargaining system, that had initially been argued for by


24





efficiency arguments, in itself that had the strongest effect on creating equality (Moene

and Wallerstein 2003).4

The existence of relatively peaceful work relations and interest mediation does

not mean that there were no conflicts. Many civil society organizations engaged deeply in

several cultural struggles, most importantly the struggle over the Norwegian written

language; whether the Norwegian written language should be based on Danish or on a

collection of the Norwegian dialects was an important struggle that mobilized people in

spite of the in fact rater minor differences between the two. There were also many issues

that divided the religious and labor movements. After the war, the religious movements

came to consider the labor government’s policy as too materialist, and not until 1975 did

the labor party adopt a program which recognized the importance of Christianity for the

cultural heritage and pointed to basic similarities between democratic socialism and

Christian morality. However, three factors contributed to ease the relations between the

church and the social democratic states. First, the church had been financially and

administratively dependent on the state for hundreds of years. The church was no

independent force but closely integrated with the sate. Second, this state church was

Lutheran and the Lutheran theology allows a more positive view of the state as a servant

of God in its own right, in all fields of human development (education, health, etc.).

Hence, the church did to a very little extent enter into competition with the state in terms

of providing, for example education and health services. And finally, the state did to a

significant extent seek the church and diaconal organisations for collaboration, having

them play a complementary role.

This inclusion of diaconal organizations played a part of the inclusion of

voluntary organizations in sector policies. The state developed policies for virtually every

aspect of human life, and voluntary organizations were important vehicles for

implementing them. However, it was a two way relationship: one the one hand, the state

used organizations for implementing policies – for example related to creating good

4 The centralized system of bargaining has two main efficiency effects: On the one hand, industries with alow level of productivity are prevented from staying in business by paying low wages. On the other hand,workers in highly productive industries are prevented from capturing much of the productivity differentials by demanding higher salaries. By reducing profits in low-productivity firms, and increasing profits in high- productivity firms, labour and capital would be induced to move from low-productivity to high productivityfirms and thereby increase efficiency.


25





environments for raising children through establishment of leisure activities, or bridging

social gaps through creation of opportunities for participating in sports in poorer

neighborhoods (Lorentzen 2004, Sivesind et al. 2002). Voluntary organizations had long

played an important role in provision of different types of social services (fore example

running kindergartens and senior citizen homes) and they continued to do so under the

social democratic governments although in close coordination with the state and with

extensive support from the state (St. mld. 27 1996-97). On the other hand, the state also

developed ever more advanced systems for support for voluntary organizations. Thus, the

governmental support for voluntary organizations increased steadily in the after war

period and it has continued to increase up until today. By 2002 it had reached US$160

per Norwegian citizen per year (US$ 675 million), up by 30% only from 1997. Moreover,

in the 1970s general support for political parties based on their membership was

introduced, and by the late 1990s, this support amounted to 250 million NOK (approx.

US$ 40 million).

In this process, there occurred a significant “depoliticization” of the voluntary

organizations. One early example is the unification of sports associations. In 1924, “The

Workers Sports association” was established as a class-based alternative to the

Norwegian Sports association. The government established a “sports committee” where

both associations were members, and in 1936 an agreement was made about

“depoliticizing” sports. In 1946, after the WWII, the two organizations were unified.

Another remarkable result of the system of “voluntary corporatism” was the increase in

the number of voluntary organizations. Between 1945 and 1985 the number of national

voluntary organizations increased from 752 to 1695 (St.mld 27, 1996-97). A majority of

these were in the field of recreational activities; they were choirs, sports clubs, scouts,

orchestras and school bands, and although many had loose connections to movements

oriented towards social change, their main purpose was to organize activities for their

members.

Another and more indirect link between the development of the Norwegian form

of welfare state and voluntary organizations went through the organization of work life.

Partly due to the strong position of the Norwegian labor movement and partly due to the

compromises made with the employers, the average Norwegian work week was reduced


26





significantly in the last half of the 20 th century. In 1956 a law was introduced that set the

work week at 45 hours, and it was reduced to 37.5 hours in 1987. This meant that the

average Norwegian citizen could leave work at four in the afternoon and had significant

time to participate in voluntary organizations. At the same time, as noted above, the

wages compression contributed to that the wages of the low paid groups increased

significantly while middle class wages increased relatively less. This contributed to

diminishing income gaps, which in turn has contributed to a lower degree of

specialization in Norwegian society than elsewhere. For example would it up until very

recently be very uncommon to have any employees in the house to do cleaning or

maintenance due to the high price of such services.5

Thus, in summary, the foundation of the Norwegian welfare state was crucially

dependent on social movements. Indeed, one author argues that one can hardly

overestimate the importance of the popular movements for the type of democracy that has

characterized the Scandinavian countries since the beginning of the twentieth century

(Rothstein 2004). This is a democracy with strong emphasis on equality and the

collaboration between the state and civil society was a key factor in reaching that goal. In

turn, this state which was to a great extent founded on the basis of social movements

pursued active policies to encourage all forms of voluntary organizations, including the

more leisure oriented ones.

If we return to the concepts of “bridging” and “bonding” social capital, it seems

clear that the democratic welfare state did indeed make a significant effort to enhance

“bridging” social capital through the strengthening of voluntary organizations. However,

how did it break with old patterns of accumulation of social capital in the Bourdieu

sense?

3.3 The welfare state and inclusion

The democratic welfare state introduced several policies that were aimed at creating

equal opportunities in society, and thus reduce the privileges connected to being from the

5 The main factor that has contributed to the increase in domestic services is the integration of the Europeanlabor markets which have increased the availablitiy of cheap immigrant labor, particularly from Poland.


27





right family, having the right social networks, or – having significant social capital in

Bourdieu’s sense. This has gone hand in hand with the aim of broad public participation.

Indeed, as argued by Kuhnle and Hort (2003) this is one of the most significant

characteristics of the Scandinavian welfare state. According to them, the core of the

Scandinavian welfare state lays in broad public participation in various areas of economic

and social life, the purpose of which is to promote economic efficiency, to improve the

ability of society to master its problems, and to enrich and equalize the living conditions

of individuals and families.

One of important way to achieve equalization of living conditions was through the

application of the principle of universality: the idea that everybody should have the same

right to certain benefits – such as old age pension and child compensation irrespective of

income level in order to avoid stigmatization. This was also applied in the fields of health

and education and much effort was made to promote equal access to such services.

Although initially controversial, there soon emerged a great degree of consensus related

to the extension of welfare benefits. Contrary to what is often believed, it was the

conservative opposition that first pushed this principle.6 Thus, although the labor party

lost the majority in 1961, went out of power in 1965, and was since then periodically

been replaced by conservative coalitions in office, the consensus has become so manifest

that up until today a change of government does not mean major changes to welfare

policy. Indeed the most important piece of welfare legislation, the general social

insurance scheme (folketrygden, the Scandinavian type of superannuation), that the labor

government had planned for years was introduced by a conservative government in 1966.

The aim of the application of the principle of universality was to increase

opportunities for all. The fact that children went to the same schools across classes, and

that all forms of education were free and accessible for all should ensure better mobility

6 It should be noted that most social insurance programs were originally modest and limited and were

gradually extended in accordance with the principle of universality. All first laws were limited in terms of coverage, except the Swedish old age and disability pension law of 1913 which, with minor exceptions,was universal in scope, although with varying rules of eligibility for variegated benefits (e.g. means-testing). All early pension laws in the Nordic countries prescribed income means-tested pensions, and notuntil the post- WWII period was the right to receive a national pension independent of a means testinstituted, thus making the schemes truly universal (1946 in Sweden; 1957 in Norway and Finland, 1964 inDenmark, and 1965 in Iceland) (Kuhnle and Hort 2003).


28





in society. However, such formal arrangements do not necessarily reduce the importance

of informal mechanisms such as the accumulation of social capital in the Bourdieu sense.

An important factor in reducing the effect of this was, again, voluntary organizations.

These created an important new way of ascending in society. New elites emerged in

business and politics that had their background in some form of voluntary organization.

Indeed, whereas in many other countries, your last name or address would be important

“informal criteria” for getting a job or being accepted to a prestigious school, in Norway,

anyone would make sure to mention organization activity on the curriculum. This would

not only prove that you have organizational experience and thus have learned certain

things about democratic practices and administration, but you may also be as lucky as to

have been a member of the same organization as the employer or the headmaster. This is

not to say that acquaintances are of little importance for achieving positions in Norway:

“know who” is often as important as “know how”. However, in voluntary organizations

barriers against the inclusion of new members are often low and it is common that

individuals are members of more than one organization. This makes them capable of

creating “loose connections” that bridges well established loyalty patterns. Thus,

voluntary organizations have – to some extent at least – democratized social networks.

This system of collaboration between the voluntary organizations and the state

and the frequent recruitment of people from voluntary organizations to positions in the

government, the public administration or business does bring with it certain risk. Indeed,

this could be used as a mechanism of accumulating social capital in the Bourdieu sense

and exclude groups with no background in voluntary organizations. There are different

views on the extent to which this has happened in Norway. Bo Rothstein argues that:

“What seems to be unique about Sweden, as well as about the other Scandinavian

countries, is the development of a very close collaboration between the state and the

popular mass movements without destroying the autonomy of the latter” (Rothstein 2004,

p. 296). In spite of extensive opportunities for achieving support from the state, there is

no general cooptation of the organizations by the state. However, in some cases the

problem is the opposite: that the organizations to some extent have “co-opted” the state in

the sense that they have monopolized access to the state, to the disadvantage of groups

that are not organized.


29





This is described for example related to the making and implementation of foreign

aid policy. Approximately 25% of Norwegian official development aid is channeled

through voluntary organizations, but their participation extends beyond the

implementation of funds. They are also important advocacy groups for issues related to

development, and in spite of the fact that they receive most of their funds from the

government, they are frequent critics of governmental policies. This close collaboration

has, according to historian Terje Tvedt, evolved into a system of “elite circulation” in

which the same people switch from governmental positions or positions of high ranking

bureaucrats to high positions in voluntary organizations and back again (Tvedt 2003). An

interesting example of this is the composition of the government that entered position in

Norway in October 2005 which could count on a Minister of Foreign Affairs that came

from the position as Director of the Norwegian Red Cross, and a Minister of the

Environment that came directly from the position as the head of the Church City Mission.

This system is currently faced with new challenges. The system of “voluntary

pluralism” was developed for a time in which the Norwegian population was relatively

homogenous. As I have argued above, it was not always so, and the state strategies of

egalitarianism and inclusion have greatly contributed to the homogeneity of the

Norwegian population. However, a new challenge to the system is the recent increase in

immigration. Research shows that although many immigrant groups possess a high

degree of “bonding” social capital internally in their groups, there is a lack of “bridging”,

or in other words, integration into Norwegian social networks and organizations (Lauglo

2000, NFR 2005). Furthermore, Norwegian organizational life is undergoing significant

changes, some of which are in line with global trends.

3.4. Changes in the voluntary organizations, the welfare state and social

capital

Since the 1980s, several changes have occurred in the voluntary sector in Norway.

Sivesind et al. (2002) point to four major changes: The first is a notable decline in the

social movement tradition. Since 1990, the number of organizations has been relatively

stable. However, there is a change in the composition of the organizations. The large

social movements are in decline, and the new, largely local organizations that have come


30





instead are to a much less extent parts of larger national hierarchical structures, such as

described above. Moreover, the new organizations are rarely ideological or promote

social change. Rather, they pretend to serve the interest of their members.

Related to this is a second change, namely the proliferation of new forms of

specialized organizations and advocacy groups, such as local campaign groups, advocates

for specialized groups, for example advocating the interests of people with a certain

handicap rather than people with disabilities in general, or promote the interests of people

with a specific leisure activity (for example the Norwegian bicyclists association). The

rise of these more specialized organizations have gone hand in hand with a weakening of

religious organizations and the broad based humanitarian organizations (the only broad

based humanitarian organization which is faring well is the Red Cross).

A third and also related change is what Sivesind et al. (2002) call increasing

marketization. This has several different expressions. First, members tend increasingly to

be viewed as clients or customers, rather than participants in their organizations. They

pay a fee and they expect to get some services in return. Furthermore, organizations tend

to use more market-mechanisms in their attempts to raise money. Increasingly they enter

into the “lottery-market” or the “sponsor-market” in order to raise money. This has

occurred parallel to a certain decline in the mentioned “dugnad -spirit”: although still

relatively strong, there are increasing stories of apartment buildings that have started to

fine people because they fail to participate in the annual dugnad .

Fourthly, and again related, is a changing relationship with the government and an

increasing profesionalization of the voluntary organizations. This is a result of several

factors. Most voluntary organizations in Norway are dependent on some public funding,

some provide services for the public sector and some “implement” public policy.

Therefore, they are to a great extent dependent on being well informed about changes in

policy, and to have continuous channels of influence into the public sector. This requires

day-to-day activity which has forged increased professionalization of many

organizations. In some cases, professionalization is an obvious requirement; for example

organizations that are to run specialized health institutions obviously have to be

professional. However, also in organizations that previously were dominated by

voluntaries, the full-time paid secretariats tend to get more influential. At the same time,


31





the relationships between the state and the voluntary organizations that participate in

providing public services or implement policy of some sort have changed. Where it was

formerly based on mutual trust and collaboration, it is now more characterized by formal

contracts and detailed procedures to ensure accountability and transparency.

These changes are not all particular to Norway. Some of the features are common

to a group of welfare states. Thus, there are several arguments that have been launched

about the negative effects of welfare states on civic engagement. As mentioned above,

Fukuyama and others have argued that the welfare state “crowds out” civic engagement

through taking responsibility in too many spheres. Another argument made about the

Norwegian context is that the welfare benefits, although they were brought about through

collective efforts, are directed towards individual rights. Thus, as soon as the welfare

benefits are established, citizens become individual consumers of public services. In turn,

the struggle for welfare benefits is depoliticized; it no longer occurs through political

participation, but rather through individual claims on the public service organizations

(Hansen and Tjerbo 2003). The result is increasing individualization, a phenomenon that

can be linked to the tendencies referred to above.

However, it could also be argued that the changes are not a result of the welfare

state, but rather the market orientation that have occurred in most welfare states over the

last 20 years. This withdrawal of the state from several its former functions, and

increasing reliance on market-based solutions is one element in a more general political

crisis consisting of a growing distance between “the political” and “the social”

(Schuurman 2003). This can be interpreted as a global trend, associated with

globalization of production processes, finance and governance. Thus, the changes in

voluntary associations can not be understood separately from broader social trends that

are associated in various ways to globalization.

An important aspect of this is the increasing inequality which is occurring in

Norway as well as many other countries. There have been several changes to the

organization of Norwegian work life, some of which are related to European and global

integration. Although the centralized system of bargaining still exists, several

modifications have been made. Moreover, new economic elites and exposure of affluence

have made the old system depending on requiring modesty of everyone fragile.


32





Nevertheless, in the Norwegian case, one should be careful about jumping to

conclusions about the decline of associations and of social capital. As shown in the first

section, the Norwegian society is still highly organized and on every indicator

Norwegians expose a high degree of social capital. Moreover, although several state

functions have become “market-oriented” it is not possible to claim that the Norwegian

welfare state is in decline; it has rather been further extended over the last years (Mjøset

2004). However, when we move towards a more comparative perspective, it is important

to keep in mind that the challenges faced by, for example the Latin American countries

today, occur in a quite different context than did the major development in Norwegian

society some 100 years ago.

4. CONCLUSION: ANY LESSONS FOR LATIN AMERICA?

Over the last years, the term social capital has become an important concept in

development. Both the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

has focused on social capital as the “missing link” in development, the factor without

which real development cannot occur. Bernardo Kliksberg writes, for example, that

“social capital and culture can be excellent promoters of growth if the appropriate

conditions are present, whereas if ignored or destroyed, they can create enormous

obstacles on the road to development” (Kliksberg 2000. p. 20).

However, the concept has also been exposed to severe critique. One of the

critiques is that it is a way of “blaming the victim”: “Individuals, neighborhoods, villages,

regions, countries are underdeveloped because supposedly they do not have the “right”

kind of social capital. Low-income groups have higher rates of morbidity and mortality

because they do not participate enough in neighborhood activities; crime rates are rising

because the family is no longer the cornerstone of society and as such produces less

social capital […] In short, if you are marginalized, poor and underdeveloped it is

basically your own fault. Not only that, you have the key to progress in your own hand”

(Schuurman 2003, p. 1000).

In Latin America, such a critique ties into the larger debate between liberal and

radical perspectives about the role of civil society in development generally (García-

Guadilla 2004). From a liberal point of view civil society has been viewed as an


33





independent development actor capable of restraining the state and fulfilling important

roles in development. From a radical view, it is rather the social movements that are the

main development actors, representing the view of the people and forging social change.

Indeed, the debate is penetrating the very language with which one speaks of non-state

groups in Latin America: The organizations of the lower classes are often called popular

movements or organizations, whereas the term civil society or civic organizations are

used to designate groups within the middle classes and above.

The main lesson from Norway is that both forms of organizations play an

important role, but even more crucial is the existence of a state that can mediate between

them. At the core of the story about Norwegian democratic welfare state are broad based

social movements that placed demands on the state and participated in state-directed

welfare provision. A significant feature of these were the inclusion of local groups in

hierarchical, democratically governed national structures In turn, this state strongly

encouraged civic organization through providing coordinating services and financial

support.

Thus, Putnam is partly right in emphasizing civic associations as keys to the

formation of social capital. However, his prediction that the non-political organizations

are more important than the social movements does not fit well with the evidence from

the Norwegian case. Moreover, to understand the development in the Norwegian case it

is necessary to take a top-down as well as a bottom-up perspective: the role of the state in

shaping civil society has been equally important – if not more important – than the role of

civil society in shaping the state. The key to the maintenance and stability of the

democratic Norwegian welfare state is to be found in the close collaborative relationship

between the state and voluntary organizations in Norway.

Then: what lessons can be drawn from this for Latin America? First I would like

to emphasize that from my experience there is not less civic engagement in Latin

America than Europe at the moment, there is more. One only has to consider the plethora

of Grupos Vecinales, Estudiantiles, Sociales, Ambientales, Feministas, Laborales, de

Campesinos, many of which serve the double function of being self-help groups and

directing demands towards the state. What has rather been lacking, if compared to

Norway, is first, the inclusion of the local groups in hierarchical, democratically


34





governed national structures, and second, the development of a collaborative relationship

with the state.

However, such a collaborative relationship is replete with risks as well as

opportunities. I have mentioned some that have been in focus in the case of Norway: the

“elite circulation” and monopolization of access to the government by organizations are

some key issues. When discussing earlier versions of this report with colleagues at

universities in Latin America, other preoccupations were voiced:

1) The risk that people use voluntary organizations as “ladders” to a

political career and do not care much about the cause of the

organization;

2) The deep politicization of organizational life resulting in government’s

lack of support for and denial of access to, organizations that are

viewed as supporting the opposition;

3) The lack of transparency of public decisions which gives voluntary

organization little opportunity to affect public policy;

4) The lack of responsiveness by the states or local governments which in

turn result in exhaustion of the enthusiasm of people;

5) The differences in resources and power between different organizations

that in turn lead to differences in influence.

Can the Norwegian case give any hints as to how to overcome these obstacles? Let me

point to a few. First, Latin America currently hosts several governments that have been

installed with social movements as the main basis of support. The lesson for them derived

from the case of Norway is to struggle to combine consensus and inclusion. As noted by

Kuhnle and Hort (2003) in the early development of the welfare state in Europe, social

inclusion of emerging groups was at the top of the agenda across all the countries.

However, this was attempted achieved through a process of consensus rather than

conflict. The story of Norway cannot be understood without taking into account the main

compromises reached between the emerging social movements, the state and established

groups in the mid 20th century. Some of these compromises were costly for the

employers, for the government and for the well paid middle classes; it required


35





moderation on all parts, but it did not happen at the cost of productivity and economic

growth. These compromises laid the foundation for a society with low inequality and

high levels of trust. To use the concept of Stålsett (2006), the system provided meeting

points between groups in society and personalized the mutual vulnerability rather than

allowing for violent defenses against it. The current global economic situation poses

extraordinary challenges in the search for such compromises, and no blueprints from the

past is of much use. However, to search for new compromises is indispensable if social

struggles are to turn into sustainable development solutions.

The second lesson is the crucial importance of depoliticizing support for

voluntary organizations and access of organizations to the state. In Norway, collaboration

with voluntary organizations of all kinds is institutionalized, and irrespective of the color

of government, organizations have the equal right to support. To finance its fiercest

opponents, as the Norwegian governments habitually do, still seems quite unthinkable in

the Latin American context. Yet, institutionalized forms of support for voluntary

organizations could pay off in the long run: it could be considered a long term investment

in democracy and development.

The third lesson is to focus not only social capital in the Putnam sense, but also in

the Bourdieu sense. Latin America is world famous for its inequality. This has complex

roots and is sustained through the educational system and family structure. However, it is

clear that the maintenance of social segregation in Latin America is also dependent on the

concentration of social capital. The lack of equal opportunities due to the lack of social

capital is a long process to change, and one which quite probably will take a concerted

effort by state and civil society. What the Norwegian case has shown is that voluntary

organizations may be an alternative and more democratically accessible source of

networks and acquaintances than that provided by family, education institutions, or

neighborhoods. But this depends crucially on a state responding positively to their claims.

A main difference between the age of the social movements in Norway and

present Latin America is the changing global context. Current struggles in Latin America

occur within a context of increasing globalization of information flows and transnational

networks of organization. The transformation from hierarchical organizations and face-to

face interaction towards huge flows of information in virtual networks has caused


36





concern by many. However, as the research from Norway shows, this does not

necessarily reduce social capital. Rather it can be an immense resource for voluntary

organizations and social movements, and perhaps provide current movements with a

resource that the social movements in Norway 100 years ago were far removed from.

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Documents

Social capital, civil society and the democratic welfare state in Norway