19th-century Norway, (semi-)independent from 1814, presents a (perhaps) unique example of the university educated knowledge elite occupying the position of the social elite and the political ruling class. In its heyday (c. 1830-70), the class of the higher civil servants (German Beamten, Norwegian embetsmenn), appointed by the king, possessed the ...
(Show more)19th-century Norway, (semi-)independent from 1814, presents a (perhaps) unique example of the university educated knowledge elite occupying the position of the social elite and the political ruling class. In its heyday (c. 1830-70), the class of the higher civil servants (German Beamten, Norwegian embetsmenn), appointed by the king, possessed the political, social and cultural hegemony in the country, even though the group was only 2000-3000 men strong, in a population of about 1,5 million.
How did this situation come about? The Danish-Norwegian monarchy, supported by the burghers, in the 17th and 18th centuries built a civil service, partly against the aristocracy. The civil servants consisted mainly of university educated lawyers, theologians and medical doctors, plus academy educated officers. Most of the civil servants were educated in Copenhagen, from 1813 in Christiana (present-day Oslo).
The position of the Beamten in the 19th century was partly a result of a political and social void. The nobility withdrew early from Norway (and was in fact ruled out in 1821), and the formerly powerful timber barons were more or less crushed in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. Even though the Constitution of 1814 gave the vote to 40% of the adult males, a long and complicated voting process turned out the render the real power to the class which, with superior verbal skills, convinced most others that it was fit to rule.
The power of the educated class was broken in the course of a few decades after c. 1870. It was economically weakened by inflation and met a competitor in a rising commercial and industrial bourgeoisie. Another competitor was the national counter-cultural opposition, led by farmers, radical university graduates (solicitors and others) and a new educated opposition consisting of college educated teachers and others.
Finally: the hegemony of the civil servant class also rested on its (informal) control of the public sphere, fitting an educated elite. However, with the academic and literary fields parting towards the end of the century, that advantage waned as well.
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