From Corporatism to Lobbyism? Parliaments, Executives and Organized Interests in Denmark and Norway

The integration of organized interests into public and administrative policymaking is core to the political structure of the Scandinavian countries. Numerous studies place the Scandinavian countries at the upper end on scales measuring the degree of integration of organized interests into public policy-making.1 In the Scandinavian countries legislation has often been prepared in boards and commissions or in other forms of close co-operation with organizations that represent the target groups of public policies. The implementation of public policies in many cases also involves organized interests as an integrated part of the implementation processes. However, significant changes in the position of organized interests in the policy-making process seem to have taken place during the last decades. It is not yet clear, however, what exactly the changes are, how they should be explained, or what their consequences are.