Bureaucratic Voluntarism: The Role of Formal Voluntary Organizations in the Rise of Nordic Welfare States

This study seeks to explore the complex and evolving relationship between civil society organizations and the state in Norway over the past 150 years, focusing on large voluntary organizations and the “people´s movements” in the development of welfare states. In many accounts of the relationship between states and voluntary organizations it is referred to the latter as the third sector or the “informal sector” indicating that it is the state that is the driver for bureaucratization and formalization, whereas the voluntary organizations were more network-like, informal, in opposition to the state bureaucracy, and therefore innovative.

However, historical sources show that the secret behind the success and innovative capacity of the socalled “people´s movements” may be found in their state-friendly approach and in their ability to build formal structures from below. Most of these organizations were organized at three levels, local, regional and national. In order to maintain membership support at the same time as they were building welfare institutions they had to develop advanced formalized structures.

In the paper I will focus on large organizations in the welfare field and show how they, in contrast to current organizational fashions, have been successful because they were organizing for the long term and made used of formality as a means to achieve their goals. I will focus in particular on two large organizations in the field of healthcare and welfare, the National Association for Public Health and the Norwegian Women´s Public Health Association. These associations, which are stil active with a large membership may be compared with a new kind of more informal and short-term oriented organizations in the welfare field. The study, which will mainly be based on secondary historical sources, will be supplemented with archival data and interviews.