Polarization in a consensual multi-party democracy – attitudes toward immigration in Norway

ABSTRACT

This paper studies polarization of attitudes toward immigration in Norway from 2001 to 2019. The paper studies polarization along five dimensions: dispersion, bimodality, consolidation, constraint, and sorting. Empirical analyses were based on two Norwegian longitudinal, cross-sectional surveys. The findings suggested that, first, overall attitudes toward immigration did not become more polarized in terms of dispersion and bimodality. There was, however, a tendency toward increased polarization of attitudes toward Islam and a decreased polarization of attitudes toward refugees. Second, there was an increasing generational gap in attitudes toward immigration, especially with respect to Islam. Third, attitudes toward immigration were more closely linked to attitudes toward other political issues and to party preference. Although these changes should not be overestimated, finding increased tendencies of consolidation, constraint, and sorting in a consensus-based democracy like Norway indicates the wider existence of polarizing trends similar to those in the UK and US.

Data availability statement

The data sets used in this article are deposited at the Norwegian Centre for Research Data and are available upon application (www.nsd.no).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In the UK 2019 general election, post-election polling suggested that age seems to be a more important dividing line than social class; see https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election.

2 https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/artikler-og-publikasjoner/oppdaterte-tall-om-innvandrere--42215

3 The combination of Likert and 11-point scales via z-score transformation was used in one analysis (Figure 6). In order to check whether the combination of different scales could have affected the results, we compared the results in Figure 6 with separate regression analyses including (1) recalculated indices with the three 11-point-items removed and (2) the three 11-point items as independent variables. In analysis (1), R² increased from .19 in 2001 to .34 in 2019. In analysis (2), it increased from .12 in 2001 to .28 in 2019. Thus, the tendency toward increased constraint reported is robust to the differences in scales in the items used.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Institutt for samfunnsforskning [grant number NORPOL project].