‘The most exciting aspect of this election is the increasing fragmentation of Norwegian politics, as voters shift their allegiances to the small parties’, comments election researcher Johannes Bergh (pictured). According to Bergh, researchers favour parties on the left or green side and are less likely to support centrist or conservative parties. He thinks part of the reason for this is that researchers and others with higher education emphasize ‘newer’ political issues such as climate, liberal immigration and LGBT-rights. These groups are maybe less concerned with political issues that follow the classic right-left axis.
So why don’t many researchers vote for the rightwing and centrist parties? The far right is skeptical of invasive climate measures and for a strict immigration policy, comments Bergh. He thinks that centrist politics are similar, though less extreme, and they have the rural vote. Researchers are often quite urban.
