This article is about the erosion of the Norwegian democratic infrastructure, with particular emphasis on the causes and effects of the transformation of the voluntary sector and the decline of social movements. We are seeing a turning away from large-scale ideological mass movements and an increase in smaller and nimbler associations that are better at catering for individual needs and wishes, but poorer in plugging members into the central decision-making institutions. This is putting increasing pressure on the Norwegian social contract, which has been characterized by high levels of institutional centralization balanced by high levels of citizen control. We relate these important changes in the democratic infrastructure to the impact of globalization, highlighting structural similarities between globalization and the new organizational forms of political or civic participation. Our argument is that globalization is a process that has particular structural characteristics, and that these characteristics are giving shape to the new forms of civic participation that are now emerging in Norway (and probably also in the rest of Scandinavia).
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