Ett folkstyre i förvittring eller fortsatt demokratisk livskraft? En studie av de norska och danska maktutredningarnas slutrapporter

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Abstract This paper is a comparative study of the final reports of the Norwegian and Danish power studies performed in 2003. While the Danish study found that democracy is thriving, the conclusion of the Norwegian power study was that democracy is in a crisis. The purpose of this paper is to find explanations to why the studies in two Nordic countries arrived at such different results. Methodologically, the paper consists of an ideological text analysis and critical analyses of the discourse. In order to study how the results of the power studies can differ so considerably, the following aspects have been surveyed; 1) external contexts (government inquiries); 2) work process (the researchers? background, role and co-operation); 3) the problem areas and themes studied; and 4) power perspectives. I found that the external contexts, problem areas and themes were not relevant factors in explaining the disparate results. The principal analysis, the ideological text analysis of the power studies? perception of power, is done by analysing the concepts; politics, state, scope of action, and change. These concepts have been interpreted by applying six power perspectives and the analysis resulted in the identification of important differences in how the studies interpret power and democracy. These differences have effected the studies? different conclusions and are, in turn, due to the combination o...