Stein Rokkan

Arild Stubhaug is a writer of fiction and biography with an honorary doctorate from Oslo University. He has written several biographies and won numerous awards, including the Norwegian Language Council Prize, the Norwegian Academy Prize and the Dobloug Prize awarded by the Swedish Academy.

Table of contents

FOREWORD

CHAPTER 1: BORN IN LOFOTEN, UPBRINGING IN NARVIK
Stein’s father: Georg Rokkan
Stein’s mother: Day Rokkan
The years in Lofoten
The home next to the fire station
Summer holidays in Holandshamn
The family in hindsight
The bookworm and his father
The Esperantist
A new house in the town, a holiday cabin in the village
Examen artium
Father and son again
En route to the capital

CHAPTER 2: STUDIES IN THE WARTIME YEARS
The early days in Oslo
The home in Narvik
The first teacher
Intellectual devotions
Back to the logbook and the reports
Existential crisis
In Narvik, summer 1942
French examination
The final years of the war in Narvik and Holandshamn
Speech to his mother and father
Peace celebrations. the great aftermath
A secret he carried within

CHAPTER 3: FROM PROMISING STUDENT TO A SUPPORTER WITHIN UNESCO
Differing war experiences and attitudes
Improving his finances
Peter Rokseth’s death
Magister’s studies
A digression from his studies
First stay in Paris
Letters to Karl Popper. The trip home via London
Revitalisation in Oslo: ‘Sociology – a science we need’
A femme fatale
Correspondence with Karl Popper
Support for sociology teaching at the University of Oslo
Magister’s degree

CHAPTER 4: BETWEEN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND EMPIRICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE
With Arne Næss in Paris. The meaning of the concept of democracy
The meeting with Elizabeth
‘A break in my research career’
The early days in New York
Seven weeks at Princeton University. The letters to Elizabeth
Back in New York; a few weeks at Harvard University
Three months in Chicago, the reports to Elizabeth Christmas celebrations with his relatives in Charleroi, Pittsburgh
A month in Washington D.C.
Based in Manhattan
Seminar at Cornell University. Trip to Vancouver
Back in London, Oslo, Zurich; engagement and marriage
At the London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE

CHAPTER 5: BASED IN OSLO
The return in summer 1951
ISF: Establishment and growth
The first major task: characteristics of the teaching profession in seven countries
A manifesto based on personal experience
At the heart of international collaboration
Oslo 1952
Debut paper, 1952
The Seven Nation Study
Another inspiring year in the US
Stockholm 1955: Prelude to a data archive movement
International department of the ISF. Norwegian National Election Study
Valued abroad, less securely placed at home
Tug-of-war over the readership in political science
Memorandum about the election research programme
Summoned to Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen
1957: the great year

CHAPTER 6: BASED AT CHR. MICHELSEN INSTITUTE
A manifesto
In Bergen and on the move
Why people vote as they do
Lecturer and opponent in Oslo
Election in Norway. Preparations for a new stay in the US
En route to the US
Speech at Stresa, September 1959
A new year in the US from October 1959
While Stein was in America
A hectic autumn
Adoption: A new addition to the family
Collaborations and publications
Unesco seminar in Bergen, June 1961
Elections in Norway: Final act
Constant travels and new tasks
New House in Sandviken
The Work at the CMI
Norway’s first EEC debate. An application to parliament
The organiser
The Smaller Democracies of Europe
Expansion of the CMI
Some personal meetings
Visiting professor at Yale University. Home and a new adoption in Bergen
A backward glance
A task from the Ministry of Justice
Manchester, spring 1964
Votes count but resources decide. Norwegian history
Conferences and committee meetings: 1964-65
Parliamentary election 1965
Smaller European Democracies. Research with a political aim
A cumulative process: Building a reputation as a researcher

CHAPTER 7: PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN
Several offers
‘Let the world come to us’
Transition from the CMI to UiB
Spring and summer in California. Party Systems and Voter Alignments
Norwegian countercultures: An example
A tour of Europe: Inaugural lecture and teaching in Bergen

CHAPTER 8: A MAN OF SEVERAL WORLDS
Offers from the US – Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Wisconsin
Student politics 1968: a momentous year
A packed agenda
Preparations for the visiting professorship at Yale
The structure of the nation state
Confrontation with student radicalism
Academic interest and scepticism in Oslo
Yale professor with one foot in Bergen

CHAPTER 9: THE BUILDER OF INSTITUTIONS, BACK IN EUROPE
Expert meeting in Normandy
Unesco conference in Bergen
Complications at the Department of Sociology
Rokkan becomes President of the IPSA and establishes a new organisation
Themes in Rokkan’s research. A new book
Data use in research
Programme for ECPR, the new organisation
Planning, book projects and supervision
Mutterings from the students
Villa Serbelloni, a popular meeting place
Fiftieth birthday celebrations ‘in the far north’
Multi-faceted at fifty
One research style; one scientific view
The European perspective
Can Weber save us?

CHAPTER 10: BUSY AS EVER, 1972
Extensive archives and admiring testimony
A scholarly craftsman
Honorary posts and duties
Yet another impossible book project
Summer school in Cologne
Into Europe? The EEC referendum, 25 September 1972
An interpretation of Norwegian history
With President Pompidou in Paris

CHAPTER 11: ESTABLISHED AND STIPULATED
The organiser and the participant
To his mother’s sickbed
Tasks in Bergen
Departure. Start-up in New Haven
The book on nation-building and state formation
Success in Mannheim
New Haven, Cologne, Bergen and Villa Serbelloni
Success in Montreal
Based at St David’s
Comment on the 1973 parliamentary election
Stein takes the NSD in hand
Political research in Norway
Full speed ahead

CHAPTER 12: WHAT HAPPENED IN RØROS?
Background and introduction, the Rokkan-Seip relationship
‘What is more beautiful than a circle? What is more attractive than a centre?’
‘Yesterday’s perspective may be out of date tomorrow’
Seip on Rokkan
Seip on Sars, Koht and Rokkan
Rokkan’s sketches of Norwegian history
Explanatory hypotheses, opening words and conceptual poetry Conclusion in Røros
Epilogue I
Epilogue II

CHAPTER 13: CONVALESCENCE I
Summer and autumn 1974: ban on international travel
‘We ask for a leadership’. Queen or clown
‘Under my wing’
The Western Norwegian Dynamo
On the move again
The Almanac I
Nordic political scientists gather
A diverse landscape
Something to remember

CHAPTER 14: DIMINISHED POWERS BUT UNDIMINISHED COMMITMENT
Projects at home and abroad
A mark of honour, opponent and yet another new organisation
Summer in Wales, Essex and Edinburgh; autumn in Bergen and Paris
A new seminar in Bellagio
Spring 1977 in Paris
The Almanac II
At death’s door in Mannheim

CHAPTER 15: CONVALESCENCE II
Keen to scale back
An intellectual prodder
An academic legacy
Positive signs and messages
An evolutionist research ideal
Back to the CMI?
The university: This is where he belongs
The CMI or UiB: both
The big clinical picture
To my many friends from Stein Rokkan
My most important contribution to Norwegian social research
Status
‘I am against cultural serfdom.’
Honours and the Order of St. Olav
Still at work, holding the reins
His last illness

CHAPTER 16: STEIN ROKKAN HAS PASSED AWAY
Obituaries
Funeral and burial of the urn
Initiatives in Rokkan’s name
Posthumous publications
How did he see himself?

APPENDIX
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Archives
Documents
Literature
Index of institutions and organisations
Notes
List of people