Shifting political alliances is a constant challenge in a multiparty democracy. When you're the left and the right wing of one of two major parties, there's an incentive to work together, and do the fighting behind closed doors. When the wings are split into individual parties, there's an incentive to prove your independence from the parties you work with. Your voters are always watching you, evaluating you, making sure you're not compromising on their favourite issues. When they begin to grumble, you're forced to make some gesture to restore their faith, often one that offends your coalition/budget/temporary partners. This causes friction and instability.

Or at least that's the way it works in Norway nowadays. There seems to have been a stronger incentive to cooperate some years ago, when Norway was halfway between a two-party and a multi-party state, when there were only Labor on the left half of the court, and the smaller, so-called "bourgeouis" parties on the centre-right. There was only one possibly non-Labor alliance, so everyone who was to the right of Labor had to stick together. Now there are many potential alliances, on the right, the left, and in the centre, and each of them has its own particular structural weaknesses, each party a strong reason not to trust and work with the others.

Already, less than half-way into the 2001 parliamentary period, the parties are positioning themselves for the election in 2005. The Christian People's Party and the Conservatives, for instance, have had an open dispute over tax cuts this week, with the Conservatives saying there'll be some more of it, and the Christian People's Party denying this and calling for more welfare instead. Now, its leader Valgerd Svarstad Haugland is flirting openly with Labor. In Aftenposten today she says that the basis for the current coalition is uncertain, and that they're willing to cooperate towards their left after 2005. Labor responds favourably.

The Christian People's Party have traditionally been friends with the Conservatives, since the days when there really weren't much choice, but they actually have a lot in common with Labor. They're both status quo welfare parties without strong radical wings, and they can usually be counted on not to do anything rash about anything. Meet the new government, same as the old. The biggest difference is in their basic worldview. They are both social democratic parties in practice, but the Christian People's Party are genuine believing Christians who look on the world through religious eyes. Labor's vision of the Church, by contrast, is the People's Church, (yeah, it's actually called that), an open, tolerant meeting ground for people who vaguely believe in some God or other. Their faith, if they have any, is rarely more than skin deep. Labor wants (and arguably has built) a state church that is there for people when they need feel like it, not one that makes requirements of people, one that tells you what is right or wrong.

This is a very basic difference in outlook - religion vs socialism - and even though Labor and the Christian People's Party have reached many of the same political conclusions, the quarrels they do have (for instance on religious private schools, or on subsidized home-care vs public day-care), are increased because of these different underlying worldviews.

On the plus side for any coalition that involves the Christian People's Party, though, there's Kjell Magne Bondevik, the current prime minister and an experienced coalition builder. Unlike most PM candidates, Bondevik has the ability to be almost infuriatingly inoffensive. He's soft-spoken, and appears trustworthy and humble. His approval rating hit the floor long ago, but that doesn't matter: His strength is in the day-to-day political life of an inherently unstable coalition. He's the born welfare state caretaker, and I personally can't stand him.

In a potential coalition with Labor, however, Bondevik's leadership skills are irrelevant. Labor will never enter a coalition under another party's prime minister. The Conservatives have done just that with Bondevik, (and they're actually the largest of the three coalition parties), but they're used to making compromises, used to coalitions. Labor was The Party. They have a whole range of ambitious politicians lined up for the rapidly narrowing range of positions that are available to them. The pride of an irrevocably gone past is Labor's big weakness, whether it's in an alliance with the Christian People's Party or the Socialist Left. The fact that they're even talking about working with any of these parties is a big step from their previous (and once warranted) arrogance. To expect them to actually compromise on anything important seems to me a stretch. Not at first, anyway.

And then there are the two potential alliances on the right and left. The Progress Party and the Conservatives, vs Labor and the Socialist Left. Both alliances seems to me to have the same problem, (in addition to much of what I've mentioned above): Though they involve parties from the same ideological tradition, one of them is radical and populist (Progress Party and Socialist Left), and the other moderate and part of the political establishment (Labor and Conservatives). That, too, includes a major difference in worldview, just as important as ideology.

The Socialist Left is the party that revived the genuine socialist principles that Labor walked away from before WW2. They pionered anti-Americanism years before this was fashionable, (back when Labor was a strongly pro-American party, and even carried out its own communist hunts). The Socialist Left can be counted on to support a whole range of ridiculous causes, (such as the six hour working day), and will certainly not leave Norwegian government the way they find it - unlike Labor, a status quo centre-left party that has only the basic worldview in common with the Socialist Left. (In other words, this is completely the opposite of Labor's relationship with the Christian People's Party, which has compatible politics, incompatible worldview.)

Similarly, the Progress Party is a radical party - not consistently right-wing, but always radical. They too would leave a mark, if given half a chance. I've written enough about them before, but let me just bring up one major difference between these potential alliances. Some will claim that the Socialist Left is a grassroot rebellion from the left, just as the Progress Party is a grassroot rebellion from the right. But the Socialist Left, like Labor, probably has a stronger foundation with the elites - they're just not the same elites: Socialist Left has the cultural and intellectual elites, Labor the bureaucratic and institutional elites. (That's why, for instance, 36% of journalists support the Socialist Left, which again explains why they did such a lousy job on Iraq.) The Socialist Left also has a grassroot appeal, of course, partly thanks to the charismatic Kristin Halvorsen. Unlike many politicians (such as Progress Party's Siv Jensen), Halvorsen appears more trustworthy when she's angry than when she's calm, and being a genuine socialist she has quite a lot of indignation to share.

I'm generalizing about all of this, of course, but my point is that there aren't any good, stable alliances in Stortinget as it is today, nor as it would look tomorrow if there were an election. And I haven't even mentioned the EU yet. In other words, it seems to me we're in for more rough years of temporary, unstable alliances. The most important difference from the way things are now may be a shift towards the right, and towards populism in general. So not only will there be more instability, there'll be more and louder shouting about it too! (Both the left-wing and the "serious" media will have fits.) I'm looking forward to it - just as long as we get rid of Bondevik.

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