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The Norwegian Communist Party in the Immediate Postwar Period *
Author(s) -
Selle Per
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1982.tb00260.x
Subject(s) - communism , norwegian , period (music) , politics , democracy , political science , communist state , political economy , economic system , sociology , economics , law , philosophy , linguistics , physics , acoustics
The main purpose of this article is to argue the importance of combining several approaches in studies of communist parties: socio‐economic structures, competitive relations to other left wing parties, organizational implantation, and the role of political tradition. The present ecological analysis will particularly emphasize the organizational approach and the importance of political tradition. In keeping with Allardt's and Lipset's theories, socio‐economic structure seemed to a great extent to be a necessary condition for communist strength in this period. Both significant employment in industry and/or forestry and a strong social democratic party turned out to be necessary conditions for communist strength, but only when we analysed the ‘historical’ and organizational dimensions in more detail were we able to determine more accurately the areas of strong electoral support of the Norwegian Communist Party.