Structural Changes and New Cleavages: The Progress Parties in Denmark and Norway

The Progress parties have been variously dubbed ‘flash party, protest party’, ‘tax-revolt party’, petty bourgeois protest movement populist party, ‘extreme right-wing party’ None of these labels passess unambrguously through a critical examination More recently, commentators have some times referred to the Progress parties as conventional bourgeois parties. Such a label is however. also problematic, as the social background or class profile of both parties shows an increasing dewaUun from conventional bourgeois parties Our approach is that the Progress parties must be inter preted in connection with the new cleavages in postindustral society We discuss the Progress parties in relation to cleavages emanating from the welfare state, and in particular to postindustrial materialism and the changed role of the working class.