Rural reawakening in Norway

This rural reawakening is a societal backlash against neoliberal policy reforms, the state withdrawal from welfare provision, cultural and economic globalization, perceived threats to the ‘rural way of life’, and other changes in the countryside. Related rhetoric and protests can often take on nativist, conservative and even xenophobic expressions, making them easily slip into a right-wing populist spectrum. Many European right-wing populists came to power by exploiting and fueling the existing discontent in the countryside.

While right-wing populist sentiment seems to be absent in rural Norway, rural reawakening takes place here as well. This project aims to analyze rural discontent in Norway as an indicator of what some might see as a creeping crisis of neoliberalism. We will explore the similarities and differences between rural awakening in Norway and in other Western countries. We aim to answer the following questions:

1.  Does Norwegian rural discontent correspond to rural populist sentiments and politics in other Western countries? If so, why does Norwegian rural discontent not have right-wing features?
2.  Is rural discontent in Norway a sign of the creeping crisis of neoliberalism that develops over long periods of time before it explodes?

In media:

23 February 2024          EU-bøndene har fått nok (interview with Natalia Mamonova) Dag og Tid (IN NORWEGIAN)

02 February 2024           Rural sociologist: Farmer protests a reaction to ‘the crisis of globalised agriculture’. Interview with Natalia Mamonova by EURACTIV about farmers protests in Europe (IN ENGLISH)

1 February 2024              Blame the System, Not the Farmers. Natalia Mamonova’s opinion piece on farmers protests in Europe, published by Agricultural and Rural Convention 2020 (ARC2020) (IN ENGLISH)

26 January 2024             Europees rechts heeft profijt van boerenprotest. Interview with Natalia Mamonova by NRC (the Dutch national quality newspapers) about the farmers protests in Europe (IN DUTCH)

12 November 2023       Beweegt de hele EU naar rechts-radicaal populisme? Interview with Natalia Mamonova by NRC (the Dutch national quality newspapers) about the rural dimension of right-wing populism in Europe (IN DUTCH)