Norway Polls

[Gustaf]

"Trond Birkedal’s high consumption of young boys for the past two years,”

I really hope that is some sort of poor translation.

[Gustaf]

Could someone explain to me why the Norwegian Labor Party has been in power continuously since the 1920's?

They haven't? They were continuously in power upto 1964, if memory serves, when they lost their absolute majority. Since then they have been gradually weakened. Kåre Willoch led a number of centre-right governments in the 80s, I believe. After the Jaglandt ultimatum they lost a lot of ground and has become more and more marginalized in recent years.

Originally, they were strong in much the same way as Social Democrats in general in Scandinavia. 

[Gustaf]

Could someone explain to me why the Norwegian Labor Party has been in power continuously since the 1920's?

They haven't? They were continuously in power upto 1964, if memory serves, when they lost their absolute majority. Since then they have been gradually weakened. Kåre Willoch led a number of centre-right governments in the 80s, I believe. After the Jaglandt ultimatum they lost a lot of ground and has become more and more marginalized in recent years.

Originally, they were strong in much the same way as Social Democrats in general in Scandinavia. 

Ah my mistake, I was just looking through some old election results, and they've been the largest party in parliament since the 1920's.

Right. Since Norway is a multi-party system that doesn't necessarily equate being in power.

[Gustaf]

"Marginalized" means something else, Gustaf.

But indeed, while still always the largest party, usually by comfortable margins and (in so far as there is such a thing, in Norway or anywhere) the natural party of government*, they are far from having been in power continuously, and tend to marginally lose votes at every election.

There have been non-Labour-led governments in 1963 (failed after one month), 1965-71, 72-3, 83-6, 89-90, 97-2000 and 2001-5.

*Why that is so? Why, because the bourgeoisie is splintered into several parties. As everywhere in Scandinavia, though details differ from country to country.

I think they're marginalized. While they still have a lot of votes they're out of the loop of what's going on politically. Admittedly, not as much as here in Sweden though.

Social Democratic parties in Scandinavia were largely built around always being in power and dominating political discourse. Now that they don't anymore they tend to flail around quite a bit. Here in Sweden it seems to be the Greens who are picking up the banner for the general left.

[Gustaf]

Well, the Norwegian Labour is in power since 2005 and has been confirmed in power in 2009, so it's probably not that marginalized.

Well...fine, I was engaged in excessive hyperbole.

They did win only due to quirks of the system, as I recall though (they actually lost the popular vote, but Norway has a very weird electoral system). It's also because they broadened their alliance to include the Center Party which used to be part of the right-wing coalition in Norway.

Social Democracy seems very lost to me, but I guess it's less true in Norway right now than it is in Sweden.

[Gustaf]

They did win only due to quirks of the system, as I recall though (they actually lost the popular vote, but Norway has a very weird electoral system).

No.

Oh, you meant the coalition of Social Democrats, Socialists and Centre versus one of all four opposition parties (formation of which would have been quite difficult). Yes actually, but the "quirk" consists of the Liberals dropping below the threshold for national representation (though saving two constituency seats).

As I recall, it's also the fact that Norway allots representation based on area as well as population or something along those lines? I should caution that I might be thinking of the first of their election victories and not the most recent one.

And while it's true that the opposition might not have been able to form a coalition government there would likely have been a non-Social Democrat government with tacit support from Fremskrittspartiet.

[Gustaf]

I checked it now. In 2005 the centre-right got 48.9% of the votes and 82 seats. The Red-Greens received 48% of the vote and 87 seats.

For instance, the Social Democrats received 61 seats for 32.7% of the votes while the two big right-wing parties also got 61 seats with a combined 36.2% of the vote.

So, it was (I believe) the fact that (as I also checked) Norwegian constituencies receive representation based on geographical size as well as on population.

[Gustaf]

EDIT: and in 2009 they actually were beaten by an even larger margin but then Venstre narrowly missed out, as you said.

[Gustaf]

Norway's system regarding constituencies's seat numbers is a work of genius, really. If your goal is presenting a clear constituency link and somewhat overrepresenting remote rural locales (done in a lot of countries, remember, more usually using some random cutoff) without distorting party strengths too badly, not much can be done to improve it.
Constituencies are allotted a number of seats based on their population and area (basically, a square kilometer is treated as a person). But the number of seats filled based on constituency results is one fewer than the total number of seats in the constituency; the remaining seats are distributed nationally as equalization seats (with a threshold), then reattributed to the parties' constituency lists based on priority. The last few individual MPs will be elected somewhat at random. As a result, thinly-populated areas are overrepresented without also overrepresenting their parties of choice.
Evidently, as in every system (that is not Hare; IIRC Norway uses Ste Lague) that distributes seats by constituencies rather than nationally, large parties are somewhat overrepresented; and there really is only one large party in Norway. Hoyre and Fremskritt are about large enough to not be underrepresented, that's it. And there aren't quite enough equalization mandates around to fix that; you could improve the system in that respect. But the effect is not huge; only very marginally larger than in Sweden. Incidentally, the more parties narrowly cross the threshold, the worse the effect is going to be as they'll all be depending on equalization seats.

But yeah, when elections are routinely close, every little bit of systemic distortion is a problem. And that does seem to be the case in Norway at the moment.

Now, back to topic. Fremskritt and the children.

Oh, I see that they have that goal in mind. But I don't think it'd be possible for one side to get a 5-seat majority with such a clear minority of the votes in Sweden*.

*Mathematically possible of course, but still quite unlikely in reality. 

[Gustaf]

You certainly know scandinavian politics better than me, so I won't contradict you. But aren't you a bit quick in saying social democracy is lost in scandinavia ? Sure, the SAP has seen its worst score since almost one century and will be out of power for a record number of years. Sure, the Norwegian Labour isn't as strong as it used to be, and even with the Centre's support it has only a razor-thin majority. Still, both parties stand a fair chance to remain governing parties (even if not as hegemonic as before). Some polls give the red-green coalition ahead, in both countries (even if some other don't). At some point between 2006 and 2010, the SAP has polled as high as 45% ! For what it's worth, Danish social-democrats should also most likely come back to power this year.

Things seem far brighter to me for the scandinavian left than for the British, Italian or even French ones (let's not even talk about the SPD ).

I know a lot of Social Democrats and they're ideologically lost. That doesn't necessarily prevent them from winning elections in the short run, of course, so I don't mean in terms of electoral success.

For example, when the centre-right in Sweden won the 1976 election they were ideologically lost so their success did them no good.

[Gustaf]

Yes, I should clarify (although I did mention it!) that I'm talking about the Social Democrats rather than the general left.

Although the radical left is in tatters in Sweden as well.

[Gustaf]

Yes, I should clarify (although I did mention it!) that I'm talking about the Social Democrats rather than the general left.

Although the radical left is in tatters in Sweden as well.

The radical left is hardly doing better in Norway, and it's in for some very bad years in Finland.

Oh, I think they are doing better in Norway. In Sweden they haven't done well in a single poll since God knows when.

They're probably going to get rid of Lars "I'm a Communist open Castro-supporter" Ohly as party leader any day now. If they replace him with Jonas Sjöstedt they might be able to climb in polls again.