Hi guys and welcome back!
The country I’ve chosen to talk about today is Norway! (Such a beautiful country). This is another country in europe who’s election system is a bit similar to the one of Germany, which I discussed in my last post. Hopefully this one is easy to understand. I’ve tried my best to simplify and mention the most relevant parts of it. I also explained the U.S. election process in my first blog, so if you need a refresher on that in order to be able to compare the two, make sure to check that out!
Basics
The Norwegian electoral system is based on direct election principles, as well as proportional representation. The Norwegian parliament, which is also called “The Storting”, currently has 169 Members of Parliament, with Norway being divided into 19 constituencies to represent its former counties. Each constituency elects between 4 and 20 Members of Parliament. The number of MP’s a constituency in Norway is able to elect is based on population and area. Some people might see this as unfair, as this gives a small advantage to rural areas in Norway, even though they’re not as heavily populated as others.
Voting
When voting, Norwegians are presented with a ballot paper from each party. Similar to Germany, it is very unlikely that one party will get a majority vote, to be able to govern alone, which is why in most cases parties have to form coalitions with one another. The party’s list their candidates in their preferred order on the ballots that are presented to voters. Voters are able to choose one ballot paper, depending on the party they support, and are allowed to reorder the candidates to their own preference, or reject them completely. If one party receives enough votes to take four seats, the top four candidates on the list will be elected. All but one seat is decided through the vote, as the final seat is allocated on the national level. These 19 seats are called “adjustment” seats and are open to all parties that have won at least 4% of the nationwide vote.
Government
Norwegian politics generally have been dominated by the Labour Party, who have held the most seats in the Storting since 1927. This is Norway’s democratic party. They ruled as a sole majority for many years, though that changed in 2005 when the Labour Party entered into a “red-green” coalition with the “Socialist Left Party”, as well as the “Centre Party”. Norway also has a constitution which was adopted in 1814. Prime Minister’s in today’s day and age have few statutory powers, though are able to control both the legislature and the executive branch, given that they can command the support of their parliamentary party.
Prime Minister
The current Prime Minister of Norway is Jonas Gahr Støre. The Prime Minister (Norway’s leader), is primarily answering to the Storting, as it is basically impossible for a government to stay in power against the will of the Storting. The Prime Minister is also almost always the leader of the majority party in the Storting.
Norway is a full democracy and has a political system very similar to that in many other europeans countries. For our next post I will switch it up by choosing a Latin-American country. Can you guess which one?
Thank you as always for reading. See you soon!
Before this post, I knew next to nothing about Norway’s political system, so thank you for enlightening me!! Your frequent use of images and dividing your post with headers really helped to make it visually appealing. My one suggestion is to ensure your grammar is squared away before posting — for example, Europe should be capitalized, and who’s should be whose. Otherwise, lovely post!
I have never done much research into other countries governmental systems, so this was super interesting! It is intriguing to see how other countries vote and chose their leadership and to compare it to America. I love how informational and well-researched this post is! Also, the images you chose added a lot to your post, and I especially love the one with the beautiful sky, mountain, and village.