Environmentalism between state and local community: why Greenpeace has failed in Norway

摘要

Although Norway is often seen as an environmental forerunner with an extensive voluntary sector, the internationally successful environmental organisation Greenpeace has never managed to establish a viable organisation there. The explanation for this lies in a Norwegian political culture that includes two distinct culturally embedded anomalies that configure a specific type of environmentalism. The first anomaly is Norway's state-friendly society in which the political and social system invites adversaries or interest groups to participate in national politics. Greenpeace, with its strict policy of organisational independence, has not fitted in with the state-friendly society. The second anomaly is the local community perspective. Popular environmental concerns take into account and cherish the social hardship and self-sufficiency that for centuries characterised life in the country's peripheries. The protection of man in nature, and its mythologisation, has eliminated animal rights from national environmental ideology. Because Greenpeace's ideology runs counter to this local community perspective, it fails to tap into environmentalist sentiments. The two anomalies interact to inhibit the establishment of Greenpeace in Norway.