In a previous work, I have critically analysed the major empirical study of
participation in Norway, and have offered my own alternative image of what
I believe the situation to be.1 While the debate over this work takes shape,

Resumé

The purpose of the paper is to develop an integrated normative-empirical approach for an
analysis of decision-making involvement in Norway. The analysis will be based on a national
sample survey carried out in early 1981 (N = 1,650). After briefly defending the choice of
'the social-democratic state' as a context-specifying term, the discussion turns to
problernatizations of two central concepts: the political and participation. The result of this
exercise is an 'operational typology of decision-making involvement' which stipulates eight
different modes of involvement in terms of survey-operational measures. It is argued that the
typology covers the entire spectrum of decision-making involvement in Norway; that it is
unique in doing so; and that the conceptual differences involved have important normativeempirical
consequences. These latter are then developed in relation to three dominant
perspectives in participation research; the expressivist, the instrumentalist, and the
developmentalist points of view. Each of these perspectives is illustrated by a specific research
strategy, and concluding remarks are made on the necessary integration of all three for a
fuller comprehension of decision-making involvement in the social-democratic state.

---

* The present article is a revised version of a paper presented to the American Political Science Association's Annual Meeting in New York, September 3-6, 1981. The author would like to thank the chairman of the panel, Scott Flanagan, as well as the members of the Resource Group for Democratic Studies at the University of Oslo for their helpful comments. In addition, we should change the sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph on page 1 to read as follows: Against the background of the earlier debate, we initiated in 1980 a new project designed to provide a thorough testing of many of the central issues raised earlier.²

I want to press on with the problem in directions which may hopefully provide
more definitive answers to the very difficult questions involved.

Against the background of the earlier debate, we initiated in 1980 a new project designed to provide a thorough testing of many of the central issues raised earlier.² The empirical core of the project is a national sample survey which aims at as thorough a coverage of participatory activities as has ever been undertaken.³ In addition to the more traditional activities connected with party-related politics, we are also trying to cover interest-group activity, protest activity, workplace democracy, and acts of personal contacting. The breadth of these activity possibilities alone, and the fact that they are all institutionalized in the name of democracy, indicate what I believe to be the special relevance of the study: its highly institutionalized social-democratic setting. For nearly half a century, Norway has been governed by social-democratic principles and policies, and it is the conviction of our project that this political dominance has created a participatory situation which is both demanding of a new conceptual framework and indicative of new theoretical possibilities. The purpose of the present exercise is, therefore, to develop a normative-empirical perspective on the state of Norwegian citizenship; a perspective which should also prove useful for a more general discussion of the prospects and possibilities of participation in 'overloaded' (and overlabelled) liberal-pluralist democracies.

The Social-Democratic State

Beginning with the question of labelling, let me briefly account for the choice of the term 'social-democratic state' as a context-specifying term. What is it about Norwegian social democracy that makes a rethinking of the participatory problem necessary, interesting, and desirable?

First, it should be stated that there is no dearth of alternative possible terms. The social sciences are currently rife with neologisms for western industrial democracies. By one count, there are at least thirty subterms competing for the essence of what might best be referred to as the 'postindustrial syndrome.'⁴ Several of these neologisms clearly reflect important aspects of Norway's developmental position. Terms such as the 'postwelfare state,' the 'postcapitalist state,' the 'postliberal state,' the 'corporate state,' and the basic idea of 'postindustrial' itself, all say something interesting and particular about the Norwegian system. After due consideration, however, it became clear that none of these terms say quite enough about the specific problem of political participation.

Furthermore, it also became clear (aided by the work of Krishan Kumar)
that the conceptual usefulness of the übiquitous 'post' prefix is itself open to
question. If something is indeed 'post' something, there would seem to be

good reasons for explicitly stating what that new something is, instead of trying to denote it in terms of what it was. This is especially true if (as Kumar argues for postindustrialism) the 'post' phenomenon is actually not post at all, but merely the 'pre' situation developed to a higher, and logically predictable, stage of development.s In short, it seemed that if a signifying phrase were to be of informative use for the study, it would be wise to seek guidance in the parameters of the established system, rather than to be enticed by the possibilities of a questionable imminence.

The search for neologisms was abandoned, therefore, in favor of a predominant feature of the existing reality: entrenched social-democratic governance. For those not familiar with Norwegian conditions, 'entrenched' here points to the fact that the Norwegian social democrats have dominated the Norwegian parliamentary system for approximately 40 of the past 46 years (and there are those who will dispute the other six years, even though the Labor Party was clearly not running the government).⁶ It would be strange indeed if this history of political control had not affected participatory conditions in a more 'progressive' direction, but in fact it has. By way of introduction, we can mention three major aspects of social-democracy-inpractice with direct importance for the study and comprehension of political participation: socialism, democratization, and instrumental pluralism. Each of these features is, of course, present in other highly industrialized and differentiated systems, but not, I would maintain, with the same combined effect which they exert in the Norwegian social-democratic state.⁷

The socialist aspect of Norwegian social democracy can be identified in
terms of three features with direct relevance for participatory conditions.

First, there are the institutions and traditions of the labor movement itself; institutions and traditions which have served to mobilize large numbers of working-class citizens into the ranks of political activists. In terms of its organizational scope, historical inheritance, and collegial spirit, the Norwegian Labor Party is more like a church than an electoral machine, and its activising effect on the faithful corresponds thereto. Whatever its other manifestations, the socialism of Martin Tranmæl and Einar Gerhardsen exists as a movement' in the most essential sense of the term.⁸

Second, there is the programmatic commitment to socio-economic equality and the active redistribution policies resulting therefrom. Although never going far enough for some, and much too far for others, the levelling efforts of social-democratic planners, legislators, and administrators have made an objective impact nonetheless. Norway has never been a strongly divided class society, but it has surely become less class-divided over the past halfcentury ⁹ To be sure, other western welfare-states have also pushed for the equalization of life-chances, but not, I would maintain, with the persistence and ultimate effectiveness which characterizes entrenched social democracy.lo

The long-term effect on political participation has been to make the resources
necessary for this life-chance more widely accessible to all.11

Third, there is the most basic of all connotations of socialism: the political control of the means of production. Again, there will be strong differences of domestic opinion as to how far this has actually progressed in Norway, but I personally have no doubt that a panel of impartial observers would gravitate more toward the 'socialist' end of the scale than toward the freemarket' end. There will be those, of course, who reject the scale altogether, claiming that Norway represents but an advanced stage of 'state capitalism', and that socialism is an either-or proposition. To them, it can only be said that an advanced stage of state-capitalism is more state than capitalism; that the difference between a country like Norway and countries like England, France, West Germany, and the United States is of obvious importance on this point; and that the notion of a nonmarket socialism is a dead issue.

Be all this as it may, my contention is that Norwegian social democracy has exhibited an exceptional willingness to intervene in the planning, execution, and consequences of production, and that this has had a direct effect on working-class perceptions of governmental activity.¹² By taking its socialist mission at least halfway seriously, the Labor Party has strengthened the legitimacy of government among just those segments of the population which, in other national contexts, constitute the vanguard of a creeping democratic apathy.

A second reason for emphasizing social democracy as the most significant contextual factor, is the strong influence which democratization reforms have exerted on the participatory structure itself. As recent events in Eastern Europe have dramatically illustrated, the key difference between socialism and social democracy is the latter's fundamental commitment to the expansion of democratic control throughout society.l3 There have been differences in Norway as to what 'democratic control' means, and there have been differences as to the beneficial consequences of particular democratization schemes, but the momentum of the basic principle has not been thwarted. From area to area and level to level, democratization programs and legal reforms have gradually produced a spectrum of participatory possibilities which challenges both personal capabilities and participationist ideals. Neglecting for the moment the 'real-power' nature of these possibilities, it can be safely said that no other type of polity in history has offered so broad a range of legitimate action alternatives as the polity of entrenched social democracy. Whatever 'arena' one chooses — whether the political party, the interest group, the voluntary association, the ad-hoc organization, the workplace, the bureaucracy, the mass media, or the street — the channels for securing personal self-interest are available to those with the resources necessary to employ them.

If these first two reasons sound more like panegyrics than parameters, lei me quickly point out that they are both. In addition to reflecting socialdemocracy's own positive self-image, they also reflect the most significant findings of our earlier empirical analysis; i.e. that there is an exceptionally high degree of political involvement in Norway, and an exceptionally low degree of participatory inequality.¹⁴ Although these findings warrant further verification, and although they may be attributable to factors other than entrenched social democracy, there is more than enough reason to directly relate them to the essential political features discussed above. Just as Daniel Bell would mark the transition to postindustrialism in terms of occupational and educational development, so would I suggest that the 'social-democratic state' becomes manifest in terms of political involvement and political equality.

That these achievements are not only positive, however, can be illustrated by the third reason for recommending the concept: the qualitative nature of the participatory structure developed. To emphasize social democracy as an institutional setting for political participation, is also to emphasize the instrumentalist — one might even say materialist — aspect of social-democratic politics. The social-democratic polity has been primarily committed to developing and employing the state as an instrument for satisfying, in as egalitarian a manner as possible, a maximum of personal and group interests. It now seems apparent, however, that the type of interests involved are those popularly located at the lower end of Maslow's well-known need hierarchy; i.e. interests of a physiological, security, or materialist nature.¹⁵ In striving to guarantee equal life chances for wage laborers, social democracy has, of necessity, become a predominantly materialist movement as to ends, and a predominantly rational-instrumentalist movement as to means. In the course of satisfying the basic life needs, the movement, and the state it has created, have failed to adjust for the transition from need satisfaction to want satisfaction. As a result, the aspirations implicit in Maslow's 'higher' needs — for belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization — have been either directly rejected (as 'individualistic') or indirectly undermined through the adversary politics of competing wants.

I would contend, therefore, that the social-democratic state has thus imparted an instrumentalist bias to its participatory politics; a bias which — by its very success — confronts us with the challenge as to what the postwelfare' or 'postmaterialist' society is to be about. The progress of the socialdemocratic state lies in its ability to equalize chances of securing personal and group interests, while its problem lies in determining what those interests ultimately should be (beyond minimum welfare and security), and in relating segmented interests to a broader community purpose.

Political Participation

Having briefly indicated the ideas and values underlying the choice of social democracy as a context-specifying term, let me now take up the project's central idea: political participation. Which aspects of this much discussed concept are to be emphasized — how is it to be defined — if we are to fully grasp the normative-empirical significance of participation in Norway?

The first question we have to concentrate on has to do with the implications of labelling an activity as 'political. Why is this a central question in political science? What does it mean to say that some activities are political, while others are not?

There are, 1 believe, two major approaches to the problem. The one tries to define 'the political' as a means toward delimiting disciplinary boundaries and concerns, while the other probes the notion in an attempt to derive normative implications from the analysis of conceptual usage. In relation to political participation, the former approach has been employed primarily by empiricists interested in narrowing the scope of the problem for purposes of operationalization, while the latter has been employed in either the earlier wave of antibehavioral criticism or the later resurgence of normative-analytic theory. As a preface to a discussion of participatory structures in Norway, let me briefly illustrate both approaches with what I believe to be complementary (and potentially synthetic) examples. The purpose of the exercise is to present material which points toward an improved integration of the conceptual, operational, and normative aspects of participatory research.

Of the numerous 'programmatic' definitions of the political, those by David Easton and Robert Dahl are by far the most popular among empirical analysts. Either directly or indirectly, the basic ideas of these two theorists play a major role in structuring the behaviorist understanding of political participation. What I hope to show is that this structuring is often in poor correspondence with the original positions, and that important conceptual nuances are lost in the process. To illustrate this, let me briefly present examples from three of the major works in the field: Verba and Nie's Participation in America (Easton orientation); Milbrath and Goel's Political Participation (Dahl orientation); and Barnes and Kaase's Political Action (Easton orientation).

In defining the conceptual limits of their study (and of their huge sevennation
project), Verba and Nie offer the following answer to 'What is participation?':

Political participation refers to those activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take. The definition is rough, but it is adequate for delimiting our sphere of interest. It indicates that we are basically interested in political participation; that is, in acts that aim at influencing governmental decisions. Actually, we are interested more abstractly

in attempts to influence the authoritative allocations of values for a society, which may or may not take place through governmental decisions. But like most political scientist* who start out with such an abstract concern, we shall concentrate on governmenta) decisions as a close approximation of this more general process (1972, 2).

What I wish to point out here is that Verba and Nie — in performing the standard reduction of the political to the governmental — allude to Easton's conceptual position without, however, going into detail on the position at all. The problem with this is that their allusion suggests (and thereby strengthens a growing misconception) that Easton's notion of the political ('the authoritative allocation of values for a society') is broader and more general than their own, when it is in fact equally as narrow as theirs, but for more consequential reasons.

Easton's position is that the political can be identified as a system of interactions which differs from all other kinds of system because it is predominantly oriented towards the authoritative allocation of values for a society' (1965, 50). In his elaboration of the concept, Easton acknowledges that authoritative value allocations take place in all types of group, but he argues that the political aspects of these groups should be considered as only analogous to political systems, not as isomorphic with them. To mark the difference, he introduces the term 'parapolitical system', and offers two major reasons for why such systems should not be considered as fully political.

First, there is the criterion of scope of responsibility. In Easton's view, parapolitical systems (i.e. the authoritative value-allocating interactions in 'groups, ranging from the family and lineages through fraternal clubs to religious, educational, and economic organizations') are, at best, only 'aspects of subsystems of a society'. They are 'subsystems of subsystems', and are only concerned with problems of authoritative allocations within the group. In contrast, the societal political system has a range of responsibilities which encompasses all subsystems, and which includes the function of ultimate arbiter.

Second, the societal political system possesses the powers commensurate with its responsibilities. Unlike parapolitical systems, the political system has the special capability 'to mobilize the resources and energies of the members of the system and bring them to bear upon broad or specified objectives' (1965, 50-56). Easton's argument here mirrors that of Max Weber, who identifies the political with 'the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force', and who views the state as the instrument of this force in the modern era (Gerth & Mills 1946, 77-78).

In short, Easton provides a rationale for Verba and Nie's project definition which is conceptually stronger that they themselves indicate. Two consequences which can be related to this are, on the one hand, conceptualoperational inconsistencies (two of the four modes of participation — communal

activity' and 'particularized contacting' — are measured by indexes containing parapolitical referents, and the sample of 'community leaders' — who play such an important role in the conclusions on 'responsiveness' — contains several parapolitical 'authorities'); and, on the other, a lack of conceptual-normative integration (there is no attempt to relate the delimitation of the political to the vaguely formulated norms for participatory equality).

Verba and Nie's usage of Easton's position is, however, less problematical than Milbrath and Goel's usage of Dahl's position. Whereas Verba and Nie's delimitation at least goes in the same direction as Easton's, Milbrath and Goel's goes in a direction opposite to that of Dahl. Their basic position is as follows:

Although it is undoubtedly valid to say that politics enters into the governance of private groups, such a broad definition dulls rather than sharpens our analysis. When 'politics' becomes übiquitous or universal, it begins to lose its meaning. We need a definition that will distinguish political from nonpolitical behavior.

This distinction can most readily be made in the context of defining a political system. We shall adopt Dahl's definition: 'A political system is any persistent pattern of human relationships that involves, to a significant extent, power, rule, or authority' (1963, 6). In every life, we think of a political system as including not only formal government but also the pattern of human relationships that affect the decisions of that government. Thus, a political system includes certain organizations like political parties and pressure groups and also behaviors directed toward governmental decisions such as discussions about governmental policies and voting. Political behavior, then, is behavior which effects or is intended to affect the decisional outcomes of government (1977, 1-2).

A clearer case of misplaced reference could hardly be found. Dahl's definition of the political is widely cited as the broadest available since he specifically argues for the 'übiquity of politics' and against those arguments which would delimit the notion to 'the Government' (1963, 4-13). Milbrath and Goel's narrowing of the scope of the political must thus stand to their own account. In addition to the obvious consequences this must have for their selection and interpretation of the literature, it also exerts a direct effect on the normative generalizations offered in their concluding section on 'political participation and constitutional democracy.' As the discussion below will show, Milbrath and Goel's restatement of the competitive-elitist model of the 60's has little in common with the model being developed by Robert Dahl in the 70's and 80's: a model which clearly presupposes political übiquity.

Finally, there is Barnes and Kaase's recent Political Action, which is a monumental study of 'mass political participation in five Western countries' (1979). Barnes and Kaase (and their numerous colleagues) have taken advantage of their place in history to try to avoid the type of descriptivenormative difficulties mentioned above. Pointing out that 'the academic field is flooded with segmented and frequently contradictory fragments of

theories of democracy — some prescriptive and some descriptive — that look at political participation from correspondingly different angles', they disavow any explicit normative task, and clearly proclaim that they are 'analysts who assess empirical phenomena and seek systematic explanations for them' (1979, 28-29). The enormous benefits of this position in terms of original empirical insights are available for all but the most diehard antibehavioralists. Political Action is the most catholic and ideologically even-tempered study of participation ever to appear; yet it too provides illustrative material for the enormous difficulties involved in applying descriptive concepts to normative problems.

In trying to remain faithful to their descriptive-analytical project, Barnes, Kaase, and Marsh (who, in different combinations, give expression to the project's theoretical framework) devote little effort to conceptual definitions or to the problem of political boundaries. They simply declare for 'political action' (rather than 'political participation'), and operationalize the term so as to include both 'conventional participation' and 'protest activity'. In contrast to the dominant American tradition of participation research, they view 'noninstitutionalized, nonelectoral political action' as not only a valid and vital area of study, but also as one which is basically nonthreatening for liberal democratic stability.

Such operational and normative openness can obviously not be based on a narrow and value-laden concept of the political, and in the case of Political Action it is not. Barnes, Kaase, and Marsh provide a definition of politics which is very general, very instrumental, and very problematical in relation to its imputed source. Once again, it is David Easton who is pressed into service: 'As the standard definition based on Eastonian thinking goes, politics is a process that produces decisions about the production and distribution of scarce material and nonmaterial resources' (1979, 37).

That this definition is possibly standard but nonetheless misconstrued, should not require further elaboration. Not only does it neglect the domain implications of Easton's position, it formulates the concept in such a way as to identify Easton's political essence with that which Robert Dahl specifically defines as an economic essence. In the work cited above, Dahl draws only one clear boundary for the political: the boundary between politics and economics. Whereas the former involves power, rule, or authority, the latter involves 'scarce resources or the production and distribution of goods and services' (1963, 7). Barnes, Kaase, and Marsh's delimitation thus brings us full circle: Dahl's economics have become Easton's politics.

This may seem appropriate in light of the revised liberal interest in political economy, but it is hardly the stuff of conceptual-empirical preciseness. For Barnes, Kaase, and Marsh, the results are (again) logical inconsistencies and questionable conclusions. To illustrate this, we can look briefly at their

concluding observations where, in an attempt to divine the future of protest activity in postindustrial societies, they develop a fourfold 'conceptual representation of modes of political involvement' (527). The basic dimensions of this conceptualization are 'political involvement' and 'political action', with the former operationally defined in terms of subjective political interest, and the latter defined as either conventional or nonconventional political action. The authors focus on two types of action — 'expressive political action', which is said to involve political action without political involvement, and 'instrumental political action', which consists of action with involvement (i.e. political interest) — and offer the following types of observation and conclusion:

'Expressive political style as an orientation toward political action without political motivation is, as we see it, a style that is highly disruptive if put into action. That is because an expressive political style undermines the basis for rational decision-making by hindering rational interchanges between authorities and partisans (527-528, original italics).

Expressive acts devoid of political essence and, in the worst case, inextricably intertwined with instrumental political action, are bound to threaten the orderly, rational conduct of politics. If this were indeed to become a dominant political style, then Max Horkheimer's vision of postindustrial as totalitarian politics would be bound to materialize (533).

As I see it, there are at least three types of problems with these conclusions.

First, 'political involvement' is measured in terms of expressed interest in 'polities', with the latter referring to an everyday usage of the term. As this is a usage which is much more narrow than the study's program definition, we can assume that had the project inquired about interest in terms of its own understanding of politics, the data — and their interpretation — would have come out much differently.

Second, despite the economic and instrumental nature of its 'Eastonian' interpretation of the political, the project has not collected any data on two of the most instrumental modes of action: interest-group activity and activity in industrial democracy. The latter might be excluded due to varying availability in the nations studied, but the former is well institutionalized in all five units. The exclusion is significant since the study's operational definitions of 'expressive' and 'instrumental' action are directly at odds with a major finding in the area: that organizational involvement is not strongly related to 'political' interest.¹⁶

Third, even if the two points just mentioned are not considered, the conclusions are overstated and, to a degree, misrepresentative of basic terms. To say that 'an expressive political style undermines the basis for rational decision-making by hindering rational interchanges between authorities and partisans' is to neglect the possibility (and frequent actuality) of

ad-hoc groups pressing their cases in highly rational and case-relevant ways. The basic notion of 'oppositional expertise', which has been developed by groups which Barnes, Kaase, and Marsh would label as 'expressive activists,' belies the prediction.l7

More generally, the identification of expressive action with irrationality is highly unfortunate. As we will see below, for many democratic theorists, the expressive, dialogical, symbolic aspect of action is a vital and necessary aspect of both the political and the democratic. The connotations raised by associating 'expressive' political action and 'totalitarian politics' at the conclusion of Political Action are unwarranted and in marked contrast to the perceptive and confident liberalism expressed at the outset.

These three examples from three of the field's most important studies illustrate the problems which arise when programmatic definitions are used to structure behavioral perspectives and empirical analyses. To summarize the major points: (1) There is considerable confusion and disagreement on what the program definitions actually denote. (2) The definitions are not systematically related to operational definitions and measures. (3) Interpretations of results are often poorly integrated with both conceptual definitions and normative standards.

Another approach to the problem of the political is a more purely theoretical one: the attempt to derive normative implications from conceptual analysis. The purpose of this approach is largely to 'explicate', i.e. to 'unfold' meanings and implications which concepts acquire through changing historical usage. The basic notion is that important concepts have an essential meaning which transcends particular actualizations, and that this meaning denotes conceptually 'correct' applications for contemporary action settings. Following Hanna Pitkin (1972, 213-214), we can say that the practice is didactic: an attempt to enlighten contemporary forms of a concept on the basis of a proposed conceptual substance. Three theorists who represent this approach in relation to the problem of the political are Sheldon Wolin, Hannah Arendt, and Pitkin herself.

In his penetrating historical analysis of the theoretical conflict over 'political
space' (1960), Wolin has put forth the idea that the essence of the political
lies in the function of creating a common societal order:

The 'commonness' of the political order has been reflected both in the range of topics selected by political theorists as proper to their subject and in the way that these topics have been treated in political theory. It is seen in the basic belief to theorists that political rule is concerned with those general interests shared by all the members of the community; that political authority is distinguished from other forms of authority in that it speaks in the name of a society considered in its common quality; that membership in a political society is a token of a life of common involvements; and that the order that political authority presides over is one that should extend throughout the length and breadth of society as a whole (1960, 10).

By its very nature, the task of creating a common order implies that a situation of intersecting considerations' somehow be structured according to authoritative ordering principles. The conflicts inherent in these 'intersecting considerations', and the attempts to reconcile them, are identified by Wolin as 'politics' with the following characteristics:

... (a) a form of activity centering around the quest for competitive advantage between groups, individuals, or societies; (b) a form of activity conditioned by the fact that it occurs within a situation of change and relative scarcity; (c) a form of activity in which the pursuit of advantage produces consequences of such a magnitude that they affect in a significant way the whole of a society or a substantial portion of it (10-11).

Politics and the essence of the political thus stand in a complementary relation to each other, with the latter defined as an essential ordering function for the entire society, and the former as those acts of conflict and resolution which manifest this function by challenging, disrupting, and reestablishing the common order. Political philosophy, in this view, becomes the 'attempt to render politics compatible with the requirements of order', and Wolin's task is to show how major theorists have solved the problem in different historical situations.

True to his own program, Wolin concludes his study with a controversial essay on the 'sublimation of polities', in which he argues that the essential aspect of the political as common endeavor has been suppressed and gradually transferred to the sphere of segmented organizational interests. Wolin's argument here is neither as precise nor consistent as we might wish — and his choice of the term 'sublimation' is particularly unfortunate — but the major thrust of his position comes across nonetheless:¹⁸

We seem to be in an era where the individual increasingly seeks his political satisfactions outside the traditional area of politics. This points to the possibility that what is significant in our time is the diffusion of the political. If this should be the case, the problem is not one of apathy, or of the decline of the political, but the absorption of the political into non-political institutions and activities. This, in turn, implies that there still exists in the West an impressive capacity for political participation and interest which is not, however, being diverted towards the traditional forms of political life (353).

Turning to the work of Hannah Arendt, we find a perspective similar to Wolin's, but one which is considerably more difficult to grasp. Arendt's wellknown distinction between labor, work, and action has been the subject of highly different interpretations, from Arendt-as-participatory-democrat (Pateman 1975) to Arendt-as-potential-totalitarian (Jay 1978). Fortunately, there has recently appeared a concisely argued defence of Arendt against her more serious critics, and it is sufficient for the present purpose to rely on this formulation.

Replying to criticisms by Thompson (1969), Habermas (1977), and Jay

(1978), James T. Knauer (1980) elucidates Arendt's position on the nature of political action. The issue at stake is whether Arendt's notion of the political — which is coterminous with her notion of 'action' — is not only noninstrumental (which is Arendt's declared position), but also nonpurposive. The basis of the criticism is an interpretation of Arendt's differentiation between 'work' and 'action' as a mutually exclusive differentiation between instrumental, strategic concerns, on the one hånd, and expressive, transcendental concerns, on the other.

Knauer's position is that Arendt's critics have misread her on this point: that the distinction between work and action does not imply an either/or distinction between instrumental and expressive modes of action. The essence of political action for Arendt was 'politics as the expression of individual identity and political principle, politics as the creation of an intersubjectively shared life-world, politics as the creation of a uniquely human mode of beingtogether, political community as praxis.' Knauer maintains, however, that Arendt was also fully aware of the instrumentalist aspect of politics: 'politics as purposive action with motives and goals, politics motivated by socioeconomic interests, politics as the struggle for power' (Knauer 1980, 732-733). What Knauer seems to be saying is that for Arendt: (1) the first type of action is the most important and vital because it is constitutive of the essentially human, while (2) the second type is more the property of man as worker rather than of man as language-user and creator, but that (3) the second type can resemble the first type when it is undertaken in relation to political principles.

Although Knauer's discussion of the term 'principle' is somewhat obscure, he indicates that a principle is a basic human value deriving from man's ability to create and project abstract moral judgements. To pursue goals as matters (or perhaps manifestations) of principle, and to do so through open nonmanipulative communication, is not instrumental action, but rather purposive action of an essentially political nature. We might also say that it is responsible action in that it is guided by values which seek to accomodate the needs of the entire association. Political action is thus characterized by a specific means — creative, empathetic dialogue — and a transcendent end — the enhancement of human principles and community well-being.

Yet a third normative perspective is available in Hanna Fenechel Pitkin's treatment of the political in her wide-ranging Wittgenstein and Justice (1972). With direct reference to both Wolin and Arendt, Pitkin also stresses the need for creating unity from diversity as a political essence. Perhaps, she speculates, what characterizes political life is 'precisely the problem of continually creating unity, a public, in a context of diversity, rival claims, unequal power, and conflicting interests' (215, original italics). More pithily, she endorses Wolin's view of the political problem as one of 'simultaneously trying to act and remain a community.'

Of special interest, however, is her own understanding of how the task is to be accomplished on an individual basis, and of why only participation in a public association is capable of producing the necessary effect. Reverting to the imagery and the philosopher of the polis, she asks:

... what is it that polis life contributes to the full flowering of man's humanity that could not be contributed by any lesser association — the household, the family, friendship — nor by other forms of large-scale organization? I believe that the answer to this question is to be found in the kind of simultaneous awareness of innumerable perspectives on a shared public enterprise ..., and in the experience of participating in reconciling these perspectives for common action. The family can teach men morality — respect for other persons, the mutuality of personal concern. But only a polis — an association of freemen and equals, of citizens — can teach men about impersonal, large-scale, public sharing. The family can develop in men the capacity to think beyond selfishness, in terms of the needs of another; but only the polis can teach them to relate their own needs and interests to a shared, ongoing public good of which they are only a part. What is learned that way Aristotle called 'justice,' and he did, indeed, consider it an essential element in any fully developed, truly human man (1972, 217).

Pitkin thus synthesizes the historical explication of Wolin with the philosophical-anthropological explication of Arendt, and focuses the two on the importance of a personal sense of justice. True political action will be just action when it is motivated by holistic accommodation, and such motivation will be instilled only in a forum devoted to society-wide concerns. The normative definition of the political setting thus prescribes the motivational mode for its own self-perpetuation.

We see, therefore, that all three of these authors relate their normative positions to the ideals and aspirations of the Greek polis, and that they attempt in their different ways to infuse these ideals and aspirations into contemporary political discourse. By making us aware of discrepancies between contemporary and historical-philosophical usages of the concept in question, they challenge our acquiescence in semantic-normative drift, and remind us of our collective responsibility as authors of social and political reality. The political is a society-wide ordering function (Wolin) which simultaneously demands and manifests man's peculiarly human mode of creative action (Arendt) which is actualized on the individual level and given moral substance through a sense of personal justice (Pitkin).

These examples of two different approaches to the problem of the political present us with a rather unexpected development. Whereas the programmaticbehaviorist approach has gradually expanded the empirical basis of the concept (without working it through analytically), the linguistic-normative approach has argued strongly for a narrower focus (without drawing conclusions for political practice). In trying to apply the lessons from this development to the social-democratic state, I have decided to combine the conceptual narrowness of the normativists with the empirical broadness of the behaviorist.

As a first step in this direction, we must be willing to redefine the basic dimensions of the problem so as to include as broad an empirical range as possible, without predetermining the normative-analytic possibilities. With the intention, therefore, of defining both 'political' and 'participation' as particular aspects of a more general institutional and behavioral phenomenon, let me begin by respecifying the object of our study as involvement in decisionmaking processes. Both of the key terms here are general enough, and normatively neutral enough to both describe what we are actually investigating and to cover the diverse conceptual and normative problems touched on above. The choice of decision-making as the central institutional process also has a fortunate domestic connotation, since the most often-used term for participatory involvement in Norwegian is medbestemmelse (i.e. med = with + bestemmelse = decision, determination).

Having redefined the basic object of the study, the next step is to differentiate between the action-input and procedural dimensions which the two key terms respectively signify. Taking decision-making first, we can — in line with the institutionalized conditions of the social-democratic state — differentiate between three types of 'forum' or 'arena' (depending on normative proclivities): the political, production, and special-interest allocation. Each of these decision-making areas (which will be elaborated upon below) is moreor-less institutionalized in accord with democratic principles, such that each is characterized by relatively clear roles, procedures, and membership criteria.

As for the action-input part of the problem, this can be stipulated in terms of two major types of involvement: participation in decision-making processes, and protest against such processes and their results. Participation in this context implies entitled involvement in the process in question; an entitlement which is usually stipulated, either formally or informally, in terms of membership criteria. Participation means to both take part in (partisanship) and to share (communion); a double connotation which indicates the joining of personal interest with collective activity.

Protest, on the other hand, can be said to imply an oppositional act which is extrainstitutional by nature; that is, an act carried out against institutional procedures and results. In general, protest activity will arise among those interests which are affected by, but not participant to, an institutionalized decision-making process, or among entitled participants who temporarily place themselves outside the sphere of institutional responsibility (and thereby place their memberships in jeopardy).l9

Finally, we can introduce a third activity distinction by pointing out that decision-making involvement can be either direct or indirect, which is to say that individual participators and protestors can engage their interests by either personal presence and initiative or through acts of interest group

support. As we will see below, the difference is primarily one of degree of personal involvement, where direct participation implies at least some faceto-face contact with other participators, as well as an element of personal accountability, while indirect participation is often vicarious and can be fully anonymous and thereby nonresponsible.

A cross-classification of the conceptual distinctions just made produces
a matrix of eight types of involvement, which can be further identified in terms
of the operational measures available (Figure 1).

The first thing to point out with this typology is that 'protest action' and 'protest support' are not specified as to decision-making area. This is because of the difficulty in determining which area these noninstitutionalized modes of involvement are aimed at. The fact that they are noninstitutionalized means that they must be treated as general action modes, since it would be extremely time-consuming empirically to identify the target process for each instance of involvement. It is also frequently the case, moreover, that protest is directed at more than one decision-making area at a time, or that a protest action which originates in one area is directed toward processes and results in another area (e.g. a political strike).

Turning to each of the decision-making areas in turn, let me comment briefly on the nature of their institutionalization in Norway. By 'the political', our study will signify the electoral and decision-making processes which constitute Norway's integrated four-level system of proportional-representative democracy. This system is asymmetrically legally integrated, in that the three subparliamentary levels — province (fylkeskommune), municipality (kommune), and neighborhood council (bydelsutvalg) — are legally derivative from the national assembly (Stortinget). All four decision-making levels thus partake in and manifest the function of national sovereignty, and they do so in a relatively nonproblematic way. In contrast to federal systems like the United States and West Germany, the question of authority domains is nonsalient in Norway. We might say, therefore, that the unitary four-level system decentralizes and apportions the function of ordering, institutionalizing, and regulating public concerns, but that it does so under the sovereign power of the national assembly.

In terms of involvement opportunities, the Norwegian system of political democracy offers a broad spectrum of competitive-party activities within a party system with low thresholds for both the creation and representation of parties. At present, no more than 3,000 validated signatures are required to register a party, and in the last parliamentary election it was possible to secure mandates with 9,130 votes in the most populous district (Oslo) and 4,211 votes in the least populous district (Finnmark).²⁰ Should a group wish to take part in an election without having formed a party, it is possible to present a list on the basis of only 500 signatures, and voters have the further option (in local elections) of altering party lists by either changing the preferential ranking

of party nominees, or by introducing new names from other party lists. Since 1973, there has also been introduced (in Oslo and other large municipalities) a system of 'Neighborhood Councils' with representatives indirectly appointed (proportionally) in accord with the party composition of the Municipal Council.

As for participation in productive decision-making (by which we mean any organized occupational enterprise, including services and administration), there are two major institutionalized channels: a corporate channel with a hierarchic representative structure where participatory entitlement is accredited to occupational interest groups, and a workplace channel with diverse representative decision-making bodies, as well as an open ended, legalized exhortation to worker initiated job democratization. The corporate channel is institutionalized in the form of standing interest-group representation in sector-relevant agencies and committees; in the form of annual national labor negotiations (recently with strong governmental intervention); and through a highly developed remiss system, where organizations with affected interests are consulted during the preparatory phases of a decision-making process.

At the level of the individual workplace or concern, there are three different possible settings for involvement: various negotiating and cooperative bodies established by the 'Basic Agreement' (Hovedavtaleri) between employers and employee organizations; representative governing bodies established by various laws since 1973 which guarantee employees Vi of the leadership in stock companies with more than 50 employees (soon to be expanded to cover all public administration); and opportunities for pushing for greater job safety and job control through the new 'Work Environment Act' (Arbeidsmiljøloveri) and the special work-environment representative and workenvironment committee it prescribes for each concern.²¹

Finally, there is the area of special-interest allocation which is institutionalized through Norway's comprehensive system of corporate-pluralism and 'collegial administration.' Here too, the participatory unit is the organization, with each interest-group more-or-less directly integrated in the decisionmaking processes which affect group concerns. By last count, there were more than 1,200 voluntary associations in Norway (Moren et al. 1976) and the proportion of the population with at least a single organizational membership is roughly 75 percent (Lafferty 1981). Virtually all of these organizations will — in one way or another — have connections with the legislative or administrative bodies responsible for allocating their interests, and a large proportion of them will have direct co-corporate responsibility for such allocation. 22 In addition — on the individual level — there are legally guaranteed channels for personal access to those administrative officials who — to an ever increasing degree — determine important aspects of personal welfare.

In addition to the involvement opportunities available in the three major

decision-making areas, there are also the numerous and rapidly growing oppurtunities for protest involvement. Norwegian protestors are clearly no less innovative or enthusiastic than their counterparts in other highly industrialized societies, but there is reason to believe that their activities are possibly somewhat more legitimate. Due to the Labor Party's own youthful flirtings with syndicalist, direct-action politics (ca. 1913-1923), it is at least more difficult for the elder generation of social-democratic leaders to question the righteousness of contemporary protest. Furthermore — and of even more proximate importance — there is the amazing example of Norway's decisive 'NO' to membership in the European Community. The 'People's Movement Against the European Community' was not only one of the largest and most successful ad-hoc organizations ever put together, it was also a powerful — nearly mythical — impetus for direct-action, single-issue politics. Norway is clearly not free for either law-and-order leaders or activists who confuse illegal resistance with civil disobedience, but by-and-large these elements represent the outer boundaries of a widely practiced and broadly accepted spectrum of protest involvement.

The typology suggested thus provides us with a conceptual-operational framework for describing and analyzing decision-making involvement in the social-democratic state. By restoring Easton's position on the nature of the political, it gives promise of a sharper analysis of classical problems in contemporary settings, at the same time that it renders those settings empirically available in their full breadth of involvement opportunities. At a minimum, therefore, the typology should provide a necessary framework for comparative description and the generation of developmental hypotheses.

But the purpose of the exercise has been more ambitious than this. In addition to a better coordination of concepts and measures, we have also aimed at a clearer integration of normative standards. As a brief indication of how the operational typology can be employed here, let me conclude by outlining three possible normative-empirical strategies, one for each of the three major normative perspectives in participation research: the expressivist, instrumentalist, and developmentalist points of view.₂₃

Involvement as Expressive Action

Few things illustrate the difference between descriptive and normative theory better than the different meanings both approaches attribute to the notion of expressive action. When used as a descriptive hypothesis for the explanation of participatory behaviour, expressive motivation is usually treated as a consummatory act; an engagement which has little purpose other than personal 'drive reduction'. In the extreme — as with Barnes and Kaase — expressive action is treated as lacking in political motivation (and potential

rationality) altogether. This view of the expressive would seem to derive from the basically liberalist orientation of descriptive empiricism, and from the basically instrumentalist democratic persuasion this orientation subscribes to. From the liberal point of view, expressive acts are often considered as at best harmless psychological palliatives, and at worst irrational threats to the system.

As we have seen in the work of Wolin and Arendt, however, there is another tradition with much more positive connotations. For these authors, expressive political action signifies the best of all behavioral modes — indeed that mode by which truly human existence is created, ordered, and infused with morality. Expressive action may be consummatory and inherently psychologically satisfying, but it is also eminently purposeful from the point of view of man's species-specific social-cultural existence, and in relation to the existential need for consummatory transcendence.

It is by way of introducing the rich and timely insights which the latter tradition has to offer into the study of decision-making involvement, that I have purposefully narrowed the scope of political action to cover only that forum which history and democratic reform have singled out as constitutionally responsible for creating and maintaining public order. The intention here is to indicate that expressive political behavior is potentially a more vital and serious mode of action than instrumental behavior, and that — following Arendt — the latter without the former is problematical. The normative message is thus primarily exhortative. With direct address to the growing instrumentalization of the political forum in the social-democratic state, our study amounts to an appeal for a more holistic, communitarian view of political citizenship and political decision-making.

The normative element here is thus not one which can be 'tested' (at least not easily), but rather an attempt to redefine political reality by infusing an empirical analysis with a traditional but nonconventional normative distinction. At best, we may be able to empirically demonstrate that participation in political decision-making does produce the qualities of personal justice and principled (holistic) political consciousness advocated by the expressivists, but the combination of measurement problems associated with these types of phenomena, as well as the permeation of politics by self-interested instrumentalism, warrants a cautious inductivism. It would be exciting indeed if we could identify actors with the expected expressive characteristics (and we do have some data possibilities for doing this), but the impact of the normative message is by no means dependent on this prospect alone. The effect of the Eastonian position on the perception of political reality has been enormous, despite the lack (to my knowledge) of any clear confirmation of the rationalinstrumentalist characteristics attributed to his processes and actors.

Involvement as Instrumental Action

As pointed out above, the instrumentalist view of political involvement is a basic premise of both the behaviorist approach to politics and the contemporary liberal-pluralist approach to democratic theory. As we have also seen, however, there are few studies of participation which have managed to integrate the empirical and normative aspects of the perspective in a consistent way. To illustrate how this might be done, we can concentrate on only one possible dimension: the relationship between resources and participation. Nearly all studies of participation show positive correlations between socioeconomic position and degree of political involvement, and some comment on the implications of these findings for 'democratic equality,' but virtually no study has combined the two aspects in a systematic normative-empirical framework. Our attempt to remedy this situation will consist of an analysis of decision-making involvement in relation to Robert Dahl's position on political equality. The basic steps of such an analysis are as follows:

(1) Following Dahl's own practice, we accept the proposition that a central concern of democratic theory is the ability to influence decisions which affect one's own life situation. The fact that such influence ability is both subject to rational calculation and dependent on resource access means that we can treat the involvement-resource relationship in nonambiguous quantitative terms. By implication, the more resources one has, the better equipped one should be to instrumentally promote personal interests. Our analysis will thus focus on graduated amounts of involvement, both within the different involvement modes, and additatively and interactively across them.

(2) Dahl's commitment to the 'übiquity' of politics, together with his later work on decision-making legitimacy, justify — from the point of view of the liberal-pluralist tradition — the inclusion of all eight of the typology's activity areas in the normative analysis. Each of these areas alone can be considered, in other words, as potentially instrumentally satisfying for the procurement of personal interest.

(3) As an explicit norm-set, we can apply a slightly revised version of Dahl's standards for a system of 'non-cumulative or dispersed inequalities in political resources' (Dahl 1961, 228). These standards were specifically formulated to test for pluralist conditions in actual decision-making influence, but they can also be reasonably applied to involvement as potential influence (see Lafferty 1981). Without going into detail here, we can assert that these standards provide judgement criteria for assessing the overall amount of involvement, the distribution of involvement as to type, and the degree of equality inherent in the separate and overall resource-involvement dependencies.

(4) The instrumentalist emphasis on the amount and distribution of
involvement renders the normative-empirical analysis well suited to multivariate

statistical techniques, and offers the promise of precisely specified quantitative standards for pluralist-democratic achievement. As opposed to current practice, where the positive or negative implications of coefficient magnitudes are largely a reflection of personal normative preference, it should be possible to establish reasonable limits for assessing system equality.

Involvement as Personal Development

Turning, finally, to the developmentalist perspective, we have a view of participation which falls somewhere between the two previous approaches. As best typified by the work of Bachrach (1969, 1975) and Pateman (1970), this view stresses idealized human potentials, but does so for instrumentalist reasons. The principle goal for this variant of 'participationism' is the decentralization and equalization of power, and its principal means is the learning effect produced by participation itself.²⁴ The former implies an increase in instrumental control over self-relevant decisions, while the latter partakes of the progressive humanism inherent in the Arendtian notion of expressive action. Different degrees of overlap will be found in both the instrumentalist and expressivist directions, but the position's idealist-realist synthesis renders it distinct nonetheless.

Focusing here only on the notion of participation-as-personal-development, we can emphasize two aspects with testable normative-empirical possibilities: (1) the hypothesis that participation in decision-making processes of immediate personal relevance (particularly the workplace) is conducive to political participation in the holistic, public sense defined above, and (2) the hypothesis that participation in general increases feelings of personal control and system allegiance, as well as personal political consciousness. These hypotheses can be tested by employing the typology of decision-making involvement as a set of nominal-variable categories (since we are here concerned with the quality of participation rather than the intensity),¹⁵ and by comparing subgroups of specialized actors for the expected dependencies (hypothesis (2) above), as well as testing for cross-group effects (hypothesis

Given the widespread institutionalization of workplace democracy in Norway, we have the possibility of examining these relationships directly for the first time on the basis of a large national sample.26 We also have the possibility — in relation to the hypothesis on participation and political consciousness — of probing deeper into the new perspectives opened by the value-cognition-action research initiated by Inglehart (1971, 1977), and carried further by the group represented in the Barnes and Kaase collection (1979). In general, it seems safe to say that the developmentalist position represents a possible meeting ground for the other two perspectives which are, more often than not, purposefully overdrawn.

Summary

The purpose of the present exercise has been to develop a normative-empirical framework for a study of political participation in Norway. After first defending the choice of 'the social-democratic state' as a relevant denotation for the project's setting and intensions, it was then pointed out that there is considerable variation and confusion in the understanding of the nature of the political, and in the application of this understanding to empirical analysis and normative interpretation. It was also pointed out that there has been a gradual abandonment of the liberal-pluralist commitment to the publicprivate split, and that this corresponds with actual political developments — particularly in Norway.

In an attempt to capture the implications of the problems and developments discussed, and to draw combined advantage from their various positive features, it was decided to redefine the object of the study as involvement in decision-making processes, with involvement broken down into direct and indirect participation and direct and indirect protest, and with decision-making specified in relation to three institutionalized areas: the political, production, and special interest allocation. On the basis of these dimensions, it was possible to construct an operational typology for eight different modes of involvement, and then to discuss the normative implications of the typology in terms of three perspectives: the expressivist, instrumentalist, and developmentalisi points of view. Each of these perspectives stipulates a basic premise as to what political participation should be, such that each can be related to different strategies of conceptual, operational, and normative integration.

The three strategies outlined are, of course, only selected examples of a large number of possible combinations, but they are examples with direct problem relevance for the Norwegian polity. Our major hypothesis is that the social-democratic state is characterized by a high degree of equality in decision-making access and involvement, but that this success has been achieved at the cost of expressive political action. It is possible that developmentalist expectations for positive benefits accruing to workplace democracy may help to remedy the situation; but this too remains to be seen. Once we have carried out separate normative-empirical analyses within each of the three normative perspectives, we will then be in a position to assess the relative status — and diverse claims — of each. As Robert Dahl has so convincingly showed, the essence of contemporary democratic theorizing lies in the problem of assessing and weighing different combinations of benefits in relation to different forms of organized activity. This is a task of vital importance for the continued progress and stability of the social-democratic state, as well as for normative-empirical research in general. It is the hope of our project that the approach suggested here will be able to serve both ends simultaneously.

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NOTES

1. See Lafferty (1981) and the exchange in Scandinavian Political Studies between Lafferty (1978, 1979) and Martinussen (1979).

2. The project is entitled 'Democracy In Norway: Participation and Basic Values,' and is jointly financed by the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF), the Ministry of Local Government and Labor, and the Institute for Political Science, University of Oslo.

3. Interviewing has been carried out by the Central Bureau of Statistics on the basis of individual names selected randomly from the National Population Register (N = 1,650).

4. See Lindberg (1976), footnote 15, page 17.

5. As stat ed by Kumar: 'Far from being departures from the main tendencies of industrialism ... these developments only too clearly fall within them. The post-industrial theory assumes that the structural features of the new society mark actual discontinuities with the patterns of the old industrial society: novel and to a large extent unexpected directions in the nature of economic activities, the quality of work, the shape of the occupational structure, the future of class conflict, and so on. The theory postulates a 'system break' in the transition to post-industrialism. Such a break is largely illusory. What are projected as novel patterns of development turn out on examination to be massive continuities within the basic system of the developing industrial society.' (1978, 232, original italics.)

6. The Norwegian Labor Party first took over the government in 1935. Since then it has narrowly lost two elections, in 1965 and 1969. It is a generally accepted politiealfaet in Norway that the periods out of power were not marked by significant changes in welfarestate policies.

7. For summary characterizations of the major elements of Norwegian (and Scandinavian) social democracy, see Castles (1978) in English and Hermansen & Örbeck-Sörheim (1976) in Norwegian. Castles also argues for the conceptual distinctness of the socialdemocratic image of society.'

8. Historical overviews are available in Lafferty (1971) and Heidar (1977, 1980).

9. See Torgersen (1962) and the comments by Torgersen (1967) and Allardt (1967) on Eckstein's Division and Cohesion In Democracy (1966).

10. Comparative measures are hard to come by, but Tingbergen's (1975) analysis of income distribution is clearly supportive here, as is The Economist's more impressionistic labelling of Norway as 'the most classless country in Europe' (November 15, 1975).

11. See Lafferty (1981). It is interesting to point out here that my findings for Norway appear to correspond with Verba, Nie & Kim's (1981) findings for both Austria and Japan. It is now apparent that the previously unquestioned assumption of a high correlation between socioeconomic resources and political participation is largely a reflection of national political context.

12. The Norwegian social-democratic strategy in relation to big business has primarily been to control without owning. Large-scale nationalization schemes have thus been avoided. Through a 'pincers' strategy of control legislation, the government has gradually dimished the scope of private decision-making, as well as the size of profits and private capital holdings. Some of the key features of this strategy are: worker representation on the boards of stock companies; political representation on the boards of banks; control of investments through a special 'investment tax'; control of the establishment of new industrial enterprises and an active intervention (including government takeover) to prevent the closing down of enterprises; heavy capital gains taxation; and heavy inheritance taxation, especially geared to the inheritance of privately owned business. In addition the government has gradually acquired a considerable share of Norwegian industry — including majority control over several of the largest firms — and exerts total control over the conditions for exploiting the oil and gas resources of the continental shelf.

13. Social-democracy's goal of combining centralized governmental control with democratiza- tion is clearly stated in the following major point from the government's current four-year program: 'The freedom to choose one's own style of life and the possibility to influence decisions which affect oneself, are of fundamental importance for personal well-being and welfare. Our society should be built up around a system of decentralized decisionmaking. The government is thus planning further developments in economic democracy and a continued decentralization of the public sector. At the same time it is the task of the central government to guide the major lines of social development. There are a number of important social problems which cannot be solved without active centralized control, partially in cooperation with other countries' (Finansdepartementet, 1977, 10).

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14. See Lafferty (1981), especially Chapters One and Two.

15. For the hierarchy itself and a highly relevant application, see Lutz & Lux, The Challenge of Humanistic Economics (1979).

16. See Nie, Powel & Prewitt (1969) and Lafferty (1978).

17. In Norway, at any rate, it has been the common practice of ad-hoc protest movements to try to develop 'oppositional expertise' and to engage the authorities in direct dialogue on the political-technical issues involved.

18. The basic notion of sublimation is to direct the energy of an impulse away from an original, more primitive aim toward one which is ethically or culturally higher. Wolin's point on the 'sublimation of the political' would seem to go in a directly opposite direction.

19. The definition of protest involvement here rests on the dictomoty 'institutionalized/ noninstitutionalized' rather than 'conventional/nonconventional,' orthodox/nonorthodox,' 'routine/extraordinary,' etc. In addition to Barnes & Kaase (1979), see the discussion in Marsh (1977), Milbrath & Goel (1977), and Mueller (1979).

20. The figures are for the final mandate allocated in the two electoral districts. See Central Bureau of Statistics (1977), Appendix 1, 93-99.

21. See Hunnius & Gustavsen (1981) for a presentation and analysis of work democracy in Norway.

22. The best descriptions of Norway's 'cooptive polity' in English are Kvavik (1976) ano Heisler & Kvavik (1974).

23. In addition to the sources mentioned in note 16 above, see the useful differentiation b> Keim (1975) between participation as 'self-realization,' 'self-protection,' and 'self-rule.' As for the term 'expressivist,' I have purposefully chosen it to avoid the broader connotations associated with the term 'expressionist.'

24. See Keim (1975) and Schonfeld (1975) for relevant critiques of the approach, and Lafferty (1975) for a specific critique of Pateman's (1970) learning hypothesis. The basic developmentalist position has now also become part of the Norwegian Labor Party's official ideology. In the new version of the Party's 'Program of Principles,' we find — under the heading 'Democracy and Personal Development' — the following: 'The socialist view of democracy is that we learn by participating. Skills are increased through the experience of cooperative action. Interest grows with activity, but also stimulates it. The preconditions for participation are developed through participation' (Arbeiderpartiet, 1981, 7).

25. The distinction is applied by both Cohen (1971) and Parry (1972).

26. The most relevant study here is Karasek's (1978) analysis of the Swedish 'Level-of-Living' data. Karasek has the advantage of longitudinal date for a large (N = ca. 1,500) national sample, but he concentrates on job characteristics rather than formal decision-making activity, and has only a limited set of indicators of political involvement.

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