Curb Your Rightwing-Populism: The Norwegian Progress Party in Power

Over the last decade, parties without a history of governing have entered government in several countries. Populist, outsider or radical parties on both sides of the political spectrum participates in multiparty governments for the first time. A line of research has studied why and when some new parties choose to join government (Dumont and Bäck 2006). A growing scholarship has focused on what happens to these parties that enter government: the gain and costs of office, ideological changes, intra party developments, and so on (Akkerman, de Lange & Rooduijn 2016; Deschouwer 2008; Newell and McDonnell 2011). Still, less is known about how the new parties actually function in government. Many of the populist parties hold skeptical views on the bureaucracies they are set to lead, and their style of arguing might not fit well with collegial decision-making in coalition cabinets. In this paper, we scrutinize the Norwegian Progress party, a party that entered cabinet for the first time in 2013. We draw on surveys to political appointees (state secretaries and political advisors) from the Progress party, and compare their tasks and assignments, and views on bureaucracy, to those of political appointees from other parties and other cabinets. References: Akkerman, T., de Lange, S. L., & Rooduijn, M. (Eds.). (2016). Radical right-wing populist parties in Western Europe: into the mainstream?. London: Routledge. Deschouwer, K. (2008) New parties in government (pp. 1–16). London: Routledge. Dumont, P. and Bäck H (2006). Why So Few and Why So Late? Green Parties and the Question of Governmental Participation. European Journal of Political Research 45: 35–67 McDonnell, D., & Newell, J. L. (2011). Outsider parties in government in Western Europe. Party politics, 17(4), 443-452.