Noreg som politisk referanse i britisk og irsk offentleg debatt 1830-1920.

Prosjektsamandrag

After the ratification of the Norwegian constitution in 1814, the Norwegian system of government was regularly employed as a political example and a model in British and Irish public debate. The great campaigner for Catholic rights in Ireland, Daniel O’Connell, the famous Prime Minister William Gladstone, as well as a wide range of political groups from the Chartists to Irish home rule campaigners referred to Norway in their respective political mobilisations.

The project will examine the representation of the 1814 constitution and the Norwegian system of government in the public debate in Britain and Ireland between ca. 1830 and 1920. I seek to explore what function the references to Norway had in the political debates where they were introduced. I will show how various political movements and parties perceived the Norwegian system of government, and consider the factors that seem to have attracted them to using Norway as an example, and also at times as a model. Moreover, I will discuss two particular significant dimensions concerning the travel of political notions from one setting to another: Firstly, how knowledge of the Norwegian system of government was established and disseminated, and secondly, how the political contexts in Britain and Ireland at the various stages influenced the employment and political expediency of “the Norwegian example”.