ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a very broad overview of the complex international environment to show how changes adopted by Norway were not uncommon. It describes the nature of the Norwegian economic context at the time. It is the nature of Norway's interwar economic crises that help to explain the rise of new political and institutional coalitions at the end of the period. The chapter then traces these political developments. Like contagion among trading partners, the rise of protectionist trade policies led to protectionist payments' policies and the collapse of the international financial system. From the workers' perspective, the interwar period can be characterized in terms of one long crisis. Before the war, between 1905 and 1920, unemployment among union members never rose higher than five per cent. In the early interwar period, the Conservative Party came to eclipse the Liberals as the largest party: three times they formed a government between 1920 and 1928.
