The main focus of the book is institutional change in the Scandinavian model with special
emphasis on Norway. There are many reasons to pay closer attention to the Norwegian case when
it comes to analyses of changes in the public sphere. In the country's political history the
arts and the media played a particular role in the processes towards sovereignty at the
beginning of the 20th century. On a par with the other Scandinavian countries Norway is in the
forefront in the world in the distribution and uses of Internet technology. As an extreme case
the most corporatist society within the family of the Nordic Model it offers an opportunity
both for intriguing case studies and for challenging and refining existing theory on processes
of institutional change in media policy and cultural policy. It supplements two recent
important books on political economy in Scandinavia: Varieties of Liberalization and the New
Politics of Social Solidarity (Kathleen Thelen 2014) and The Political Construction of
Business Interests (Cathie Jo Martin and Duane Swank 2013).There are further reasons to pay
particular attention to the Scandinavian and more specifically the Norwegian cases: (i) They
are to varying degrees neo-corporatist societies characterized by ongoing bargaining over
social and political reform processes. From a theoretical perspective this invites reflections
which to some extent are at odds with the dominant conceptions of institutional change.
Neither models of path dependency nor models of aggregate incremental change focus on the
continuous social bargaining over institutional change. (ii) Despite recent processes of
liberalization common to the Western world as a whole corporatism implies a close connection
between state public sphere cultural life and religion. This also means that institutions
are closely bundled in an even stronger way than assumed for example in the Varieties of
Capitalism literature. Furthermore we only have scarce insight in the way the different
spheres of corporatism are connected and interact.In the proposed edited volume we have
collected historical-institutional case studies from a broad set of social fields (a detailed
outline of contents and contributors is attached):- Critical assessments of Jürgen Habermas'
theory of the public sphere- Can the public sphere be considered an institution?- The central
position of the public sphere in social and political change in Norway- Digital transformations
and effects of the growing PR industry on the public sphere- Institutionalization of social
media in local politics and voluntary organizations- Legitimation work in the public sphere-
freedom of expression and warning in the workplace- Return of religion to the public sphere
and its effects
