'Perfect' Norway? How Breivik's ideology is related to the integration policy in Norway

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2013-06
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en
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This thesis studied why a country as perfect as Norway could bring forth someone like Breivik. Instead of looking at Breivik as a lone wolf, this thesis researched the Norwegian integration policy, which Breivik opposes. Therefore, the research question of this thesis is the following:“How are potential issues within the Norwegian integration policy related to an extreme ideology such as Breivik´s?" Exploratory research is used to investigate this question. The first chapter focuses on the discourse of a 'perfect' Norway, which emerges in a 'perfect' integration policy. Chapter 3 investigates whether there are possible ambiguities or issues within these integration policies, since Breivik focuses on the danger of these policies. This chapter analyses five potential issues - welfare state, multiculturalism, gender equality, citizenship and ethnicity. Chapter 4 investigates - by empirical research - to what extent and how these issues from the literature research lead to tensions. The chapter concludes that some issues of the integration policy lead to more tensions than others. It confirmed that all the issues lead to certain degrees of tension. The issues of multiculturalism, gender equality and the welfare state in particular are confirmed as tensions within the Norwegian integration policy. The final chapter aimed at investigating whether and to what extent these issues – and therefore tensions – are found in Breivik's manifest. Breivik is not a lone wolf, because some of this ideology can be traced back to the tensions in the analytical and empirical discussion about the integration policy. Breivik launched an anti-discourse about multiculturalism, in which he expresses that not all cultures are equal. In doing so, Breivik turns the private narrative of some of the interviewees into a public narrative. In addition, with Breivik's discourse about the future of the nation state, he continues the existing discourse. One could conclude that the issues – each to a certain extent - in the Norwegian integration policy are related to Breivik's ideology. Exposing this relation provides an understanding of the origins of Breivik's ideology as a product of society, and will possibly lead to a better handling of such extreme ideologies.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen