The Documentary Analysis

The chapter now turns to the documentary analysis of the second phase of heightened Norwegian Euroscepticism, the early 1990s, when Eurosceptic argumentation both intensified and diversified. However, before presenting the data used and the results of the 1990s analysis, the 1973-1988 period is commented on to fully justify its exclusion from the study.

6.2.1 A Note on the 1973-1988 Period of Latent Euroscepticism

The investigation into Aftenposten’s debate pages from the 1980s confirms the period’s status as a period of latent Euroscepticism. Knowing from the literature that the debating intensity would be limited in this period, 1980 and 1981 was targeted because of Tamnes’ (1997) reports of certain actors on the “yes” side trying to raise the debate between 1979 and 1981. Having looked through 7,294 readers’ letters plus any other commentaries and news reports which featured on the newspaper’s debate and politics pages in both the morning and evening editions of Aftenposten in 1980 and 1981, it was only possible to find 42 items related to the EC or European policy, and only five of these items could be considered to contain Eurosceptic argumentation. Considering that the debating activity on the EC was expected to be even more modest between 1982 and 1985, 1986 was chosen as the third year for the 1980s investigation. Although the issue of Europe was more topical at this time, due to the SEA and the Danish referendum on the treaty, a striking absence of discussion of the EC in Aftenposten’s debate and politics pages could be observed. Out of the 2,775 letters to the editor and other various news items that were surveyed from 1986, only 69 items were EC-related and 10 items contained anti-EC argumentation.

This indicates that as long as the Labour government maintained that the EC issue was not on the political agenda and none of the parties advocated a new debate on membership, the debating activity remained modest. As a result, 1989 marks the

beginning of the third phase of Norwegian Euroscepticism, as it was only then that all the Norwegian parties were compelled to officially take a stand on membership due to the Conservative Party’s announcement of their support for EC membership in August 1988.

6.2.2 The 1989-94 Documentary Analysis: Data and Methods

For the newspaper study from the period, the sample was drawn from Aftenposten’s morning and evening editions from the three years leading up to the referendum:

from 1 January 1992 to 31 December 1994. Targeting the three-year period before the referendum ensured that a large number of newspaper items were included in the study. All of the newspapers’ letters to the editor were looked through, 16,424 in total, as well as feature articles, news stories and other commentaries. 1,261 items were collected and exposed to closer examination. Subsequently, 341 items which contained Eurosceptic argumentation were extracted for the study: 282 readers’

letters, 23 feature articles/commentaries, 19 interviews and 17 news stories. The data was coded according to the same coding model as in Chapter Four and Five, differentiating between arguments related to political Values, political Culture, Rural society, Utilitarianism and National Identity (VCRUNI)

For the analysis of the Eurosceptic argumentation used by the political parties, the manifestos from the 1989 and 1993 general elections were used. This does not include the Labour Party and Conservative Party’s manifestos, as they did not contain any anti-EC arguments. However, four documents which were central to the

“no” faction in the Labour Party (AUF and SME) were analysed to make up for this gap in the study. These were the SME’s 1994 conference statement; the LO’s 1994 EU resolution; the AUF debate booklet, Det visjonære nei (Kallset and Heinum 1991); and SME’s Sosialdemokratisk Alternativ (SALT) (Ottervik et al. 1992). The study also employs all of the anti-EC speeches from Johansen and Kjeldsen’s (2005) book collection of political speeches from this period. These were 10 speeches by the CP’s leader Anne Enger Lahnstein and one by the SLP’s leader Erik Solheim. In addition, a CP book publication and secondary literature such as Furre’s (1994) book Nei til

EU, Solhjell’s (2008) book about the CDP and Kallset’s (2009) book about the Eurosceptic Labour faction are used to complement the primary sources. The PP, LP and CDP were underrepresented due to the lack of available speeches and, in the case of the latter two, their limited coverage of the EC/EU issue in their 1989 and 1993 manifestos. The PP’s coverage, albeit limited in 1989, is more extensive in 1993.

Nevertheless, this is, to a certain extent, a reflection of the visibility of the different parties in the debate and therefore does not have any grave implications for the research. Besides, the aim of this part of the analysis is primarily to confirm that the themes and topics of the newspaper arguments correspond with those used by the political parties, and the material examined is adequate for this purpose. The next section presents the findings of the documentary analysis from the 1990s debate.

6.2.3 Findings of the 1989-1994 Newspaper Analysis

The 1990s newspaper study reaffirms the central part political values and culture play in relation to Norwegian Euroscepticism. As Figure 6.1 below illustrates, over two thirds of the total number of category codes allocated to the different news items were either political values or political culture. The prominence of these types of arguments was higher than in the studies of the two previous debates, and this shift has happened primarily at the expense of economic and rural society arguments, which made up a larger share of the 1960s and 1970s discourse. Notwithstanding, this is not to say that there is a lack of continuity in the argumentation pattern from the 1960s and 1970s. Quite the contrary, the study shows that almost all the arguments that were formed in 1960s and early 1970s had the same relevance two decades later.

Although in the early 1990s the arguments remained more or less the same, but they were declared with more confidence and conviction than in previous debates. There are many possible factors contributing to this. First is the ability to learn from the successes and failures of the previous debates; in the early 1990s, still relevant, tried and tested arguments from 1972 could be polished, and previously exposed weaknesses in arguments advanced by the opposing side could be exploited. In the

same way that the Labour “leadership’s strategies and actions were pervaded by the 1972 experience” (Saglie 2000a: 110), the various actors on the “no” side took advantage of the first and second hand experiences from the previous debate. The

“no” faction of the Labour Party, for example, used the remaining copies of Hellevik’s (1979) book about the 1970s’ “no” faction AIK as a “cookbook” for organizing SME.¹⁷⁰ There were of course also many people involved in the “no”

camp (as in the “yes” camp) who had “overwintered” from 1972 and had first hand experience of the first referendum battle. In addition, the previous debate had contributed to make knowledge of the most typical arguments for and against membership more widespread; as a result, arguments could much more easily be developed and elaborated on than in the 1960s and 1970s, when public awareness of the issue had to be built up from scratch.

Figure 6.1 Number of news items coded to each of the categories (1992-94)¹⁷¹

Political Values Political Culture Rural Society Economic Interest National Identity

Source: Author’s newspaper study

Second, the “yes” side’s economic arguments could now (in 1994), even more comfortably than in 1972, be dismissed as scaremongering, due to the Norwegian economy’s resilience to the economic recessions in the 1970s and the 1990s.

170 Author’s interview with Wegard Harsvik, Oslo, 8 January 2010, see also Kallset (2009).

171 In the economic interest category, the arguments merely playing down the significance of economic issues and the “yes” side’s economic arguments are not included.

Moreover, as Norway was soon to be part of the Single Market through the EEA, the

“yes” side’s argument of market access was considerably weakened. Third, and perhaps most significantly, in the 1990s, changes in the EC added fuel to the Eurosceptic fire. In 1972, the “no” side’s warnings about the union-like character of the EC and its future development had been based on mere speculations, and back then the “yes” campaigners branded these claims as exaggerations and scaremongering. In 1994, however, the union was a fact. In SME‘s Wegard Harsvik’s words,¹⁷² “that which was scare propaganda from “no” people in ’72 was reality in

’94”. Additionally, the Single Market and the four freedoms, which encouraged free competition and increased consumption, empowered the postmaterialist arguments related to equality, solidarity and environmentalism. The agents behind this consolidation of Norwegian Euroscepticism were in other words endogenous, through the process of learning and experience, and exogenous, in terms of the economy, the EEA, the union and the Single Market.

6.2.3.1 Political Culture: “Why be big when happy being small?”

Over half of the items analysed display political culture opposition. Opposition to bureaucratic or elite rule, reluctance to surrender Norwegian folkestyre to the EU’s democratic deficit, attachment to Norway’s independence, parallels to Norway’s history of union and dominance by other, stronger states – all these notions are as prominent in the 1989-1994 period as in the previous periods. However, on the level of argument frequency, there are two elements of the findings that are worth mentioning. First, despite the EC’s change to the European Union and the increased supranationalism post-Maastricht, the sovereignty and union arguments are less pronounced than in 1972 (as a proportion of all references made to the geo-historical category in the respective debates). And second, the folkestyre argument is more pronounced. In other words, the drop in the proportion of sovereignty arguments is made up by a corresponding rise in the display of pro-folkestyre (and anti-bureaucracy) sentiments. Notwithstanding, the democracy and sovereignty arguments are intertwined by the principle of people sovereignty

172 Interview with the author, Oslo, 8 January 2010.

(folkesuverenitetsprinsippet), so the political culture argumentation can certainly be said to be characterized by continuity between 1962 and 1994.

Norway’s independence is just as important to the 1990s discourse as before. As in the previous debates, sovereignty/independence is widely treated as a value in itself, either on its own or connected to the experience of the war or the history of union.

Andersen (24/11/93) reasons in the following way: “As individuals, the majority of us would rather give up prospective benefits from cooperation than lose our independence as individuals. Shouldn’t one react the same way as a people?” Øi (03/11/94) explains that “the reason [that the majority of the older generation are no voters] is of course that we, who experienced the war, know better than anyone to appreciate a free fatherland”. Furthermore, Moen (12/12/94), who also experienced the war, writes:

“I [...] will never forget the feeling of freedom I and everybody else had when the war finally was over after five hard years. Norway was again free!

We have been in a union both with Denmark and Sweden before. To me, putting Norway’s constitution aside for a rather dubious and quarrelsome union would be sacrilege.”

Many of the 1990s Aftenposten letters/commentaries illustrate that Norway’s history of union is central to Norwegian Euroscepticism. On the day of the referendum, a letter pays homage to the people who voted “no” in 1972:

“They gave our independence and self-government a chance, as the ‘no people’ did in 1814, 1905 and 1940. The ‘no people’ have wanted to preserve our country against union, foreign rule and remote rule.”

(Hustad 28/11/94)

However, there are other history elements which enter the debate too, ones that touch on issues of geography. One letter writer looks back on times of economic hardship, times when the peripheries battled with cumbersome bureaucracy to keep settlement and trade up (Bjarneson Prytz 25/11/94). Persen (07/11/94), the leader of NtEU’s Sami Political Committee,¹⁷³ also draws on Norway’s history of battle against stronger forces in her letter to the editor, talking about knowing “what our ancestors did” and “what we ought to be proud of and build on”. She writes: “We shall carry our forefathers’ sorrows and powerlessness and fight because we believe and know that it makes a difference!” (original italics). The key here is the concept of sovereignty, or independence, freedom or self government – the right of Norway, the people of Norway to make their own decisions, having spent so many years, decades, centuries through history not being able to do just this. The following quote captures the very essence of the geo-historical concept, bringing history, independence, democracy satisfaction, freedom and the battle for all of these things together:

“Norway has a short, but proud history as a background to our independence.

To most people, we have achieved something so valuable with [this independence] that it takes priority over everything. We are, quite simply, happy with our government, symbolized by statements like ‘all power in this hall’.¹⁷⁴ We have seen how Norway has thrived as a free nation. We don’t alter the hard-won (tilkjempet) and established just like that.”

(Okkenhaug 30/03/94, emphasis added)

That Norwegians are “happy with their government”, i.e. the way democracy works in Norway, and see the EU’s democratic deficit as a large barrier to membership is something that is very clear from the analysis of Aftenposten’s debate pages. Criticism of the EU’s decision making processes and the defence of the Norwegian form of

173 Nei til EUs samepolitiske utvalg

174 Johan Sverdrup, the Liberal who is considered the “father of parliamentarianism” in Norway, is ascribed the expression “all power in this hall” in his fight for parliamentarianism in 1872 (Stortinget 2009). The expression became a descriptor of the foundation of the country’s representative democracy.

democracy are even more widespread in the 1989-1994 period than in the previous two periods. The democracy sentiment builds on conceptions of people empowerment, bureaucracy antipathy, accountability, transparency and, to some extent, geographical distance. The EU is cast as the antithesis to the Norwegian folkestyre: the EU is “an unelected organization” (Johansen 01/09/94) which exacerbates the tendency from participatory democracy to “spectator democracy”

(Furre¹⁷⁵ 11/06/94) and dictates decisions to its citizens, decisions which are the results of closed/secret meetings in Brussels. Strøm (15/10/94) from the Report Office of Agriculture¹⁷⁶ criticizes the EU for prioritizing efficiency in decision making over democratic legitimacy, whereas another letter writer (Solvang 16/11/94) views its

“democratic fundament” as “the least thought through [element] of the whole of the union’s edifice”. He goes on to ask what the reasons for this “tack” are:

“Does one choose this method to be able to steer effectively towards an ever closer union, without bothersome, democratically established arrangements? What guarantee does one in that case have to ensure that the EU is not a danger to democracy?”

In Norway, contrastingly, there is, “on the local and national level, advance information, openness, access to a broad debate and participation in all phases”

(Heffermehl 27/06/94). The EU is the antithesis to this, as it introduces unelected, elite rule and damages local democracy. Thus, with EU membership, “people’s influence over their own lives is gone, and the desire to participate in decision making will disappear. The result is a disintegration of the folkestyre” (Johansen¹⁷⁷ 01/09/94).

The “right to govern ourselves” (Nordbø 15/11/94) is evidently also central in the 1990s debate; here, the concepts of national sovereignty and folkestyre are linked. A letter printed around a month before the 1994 referendum illustrates the writer’s

175 History professor and former SLP MP and the party’s leader between 1976 and 1983.

Landbrukets utredningskontor

177 The LP’s political deputy leader.

176

aversion to the notion that politicians or officials who are not elected by the Norwegian people, in a centre away from Norway, should make decisions concerning local or national issues:

“[The issue is] that Berge [Minister of Local Government and Labour] thinks that it is OK that a foreign politician, a commissioner, makes proposals about support arrangements in a municipality in Northern Troms to a commission in Brussels. And that the final decisions are made there. What a betrayal!

If Gro Harlem Brundtland & Co had used the following in an election campaign: ‘Transfer power from Storting, government and municipalities to Brussels’, they would of course have lost. But it is this they work for, every day. This is the greatest betrayal the post-war generation experiences in Norwegian politics.”

In other words, the EU breaks with the principle of people’s sovereignty, the idea

“that all power of society has its origin in the people”, and other fundamental principles of democracy; the EU does not have a public sphere, the general public does not have equal access to information as the people who govern, and the lobby system favours powerful groups (e.g. CP MP Dale 19/10/94). Furthermore, Professor and former SLP MP, Berge Furre (11/06/94), adds another dimension to the democracy argument; he pits the free market up against participatory democracy, arguing that it is not only the EU’s decision making structures which “thins democracy and threatens the vitality” of political debate, but the entire free market ideology. He writes: “I fear that the EU with its ‘four freedoms’ and prohibition of capital control is part of the disease, and by no means the medicine”. However, opposition to economic liberalism as part of the democracy argument is not very common; the EU’s commitment to the “four freedoms” usually comes up as part of other “diseases”: environmental problems, social problems, inequality, world poverty and conflicts. The next section deals with this body of argumentation, the postmaterialist arguments.

6.2.3.2 Political Values: The EU’s Market Liberalism vs. Social Justice and Environmental Responsibility

“The EU is an undemocratic, neo-liberalist, environment and developing countries hostile male union, which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer!”

(Mediaas Wagle 27/10/94)

The second main feature of the 1990s argumentation, at least equally as important as political culture, is the postmaterialist values element. As in the 1970-72 debate, arguments related to the value of equality and internal solidarity are most common in the newspaper items analysed. The second most used postmaterialist argument is concern for the environment. This element is more pronounced in the 1994 debate than in the previous debates, presumably because green issues had become a more integrated part of the political agenda in the 1990s than had been the case in the 1960s and 70s. In addition, the concept of external solidarity occupies a relatively central place within the postmaterialist argumentation, and also anti-war, quality of life and morality related arguments are used to call the desirability of EU membership into question. Issues linked to health, i.e. drugs (and alcohol), food safety and animal welfare, also appear in the 1994 debate, unlike in 1972, when these kinds of arguments were limited to alcohol use and pharmaceuticals. Arguments that are mobilized to a lesser extent in the 1990s debate than in the 1970s are those more explicitly related to quality of life and morality, but arguably both of these elements can be traced in other postmaterialist arguments, such as environmentalism and solidarity.

Common to the vast majority of the arguments belonging to the postmaterialist category is rejection of the EU’s market liberalist economic philosophy. It is argued that the EU’s prioritization of economic growth is a barrier to progress in the above-mentioned areas and even exacerbates inequality and environmental damage. Many commentators express distaste for this obsession with economic growth and do not associate with the idea of “much wants more”; opposition to the EU is a question of