Cultural Backlash: Resistance to Liberal-Democratic Values in Norway

This paper examines how resistance to liberal-democratic values are articulated and normalized in contemporary Norway—a country widely regarded as one of the world’s most robust democracies. While Norway is not experiencing institutional democratic erosion, public debates reveal increasing opposition to core liberal principles such as gender equality, minority rights, academic expertise, and international cooperation. Drawing on interviews with actors on the far right as well as discourse from alternative media, parliamentary parties, and extremist groups, the paper analyzes how illiberal ideas circulate across ideological and institutional boundaries. Rather than treating these expressions as isolated outbursts or fringe extremism, the analysis shows how they form part of a broader cultural shift in which liberal values are reframed as ideological, elitist, or culturally corrosive The paper contributes empirically by identifying four central domains through which cultural backlash manifests in Norway: (1) opposition to gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights, including anti-gender narratives that depict feminism, queer visibility, and sexuality education as threats to “traditional” morality; (2) anti-immigration discourses emphasizing crime, cultural decline, and conspiratorial visions of demographic “replacement”; (3) delegitimization of knowledge institutions, where universities and mainstream media are framed as ideological apparatuses suppressing “truth”; and (4) anti-globalist narratives portraying international agreements, NGOs, and multilateral institutions as elite projects undermining national sovereignty. Across these areas, actors ranging from Christian conservatives and right-wing populists to extremist organizations draw on overlapping storylines about loss of control, declining national identity, and elite betrayal. The Norwegian case draws on and modifies established theories of cultural backlash. The analysis shows that moral and gender-related backlash has intensified in Norway in recent years. The paper highlights the role of transnational ideational flows, including U.S.-inspired “anti-woke” rhetoric, global anti-gender campaigns, and conspiracy narratives that travel across digital platforms and shape Norwegian debates. By tracing how illiberal discourses migrate between fringe and mainstream arenas—including points of convergence and friction between moderate actors and extremists—the paper shows how democratic boundaries of legitimacy shift even in high-performing democracies. The Norwegian case shows that the primary challenge is not an imminent authoritarian turn, but the gradual normalization of exclusionary narratives that redefine the symbolic limits of liberal democracy.