Atle Hennum Haugsgjerd

• Haugsgjerd, Atle; Karlsen, Rune; Figenschou, Tine Ustad; Ihlebæk, Karoline Andrea & Aalberg, Toril (2026). Does alternative news media inform or misinform voters during election campaigns? New Media & Society. s. 1–21. doi: 10.1177/14614448261473777. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A growing body of literature has studied the audiences and effects of alternative media use. We contribute by examining how such usage shapes political knowledge during election campaigns. Given their partisan orientation, lack of professional verification, and often provocative style, alternative media are found to produce and circulate misinformation, even as their users are often politically engaged, active news consumers. We ask whether alternative media inform rather than misinform citizens during election campaigns. Adopting a two-dimensional conception of political knowledge, we examine both surveillance knowledge and confidence in that knowledge – along with misinformation understood as the combination of the two. Utilizing individual-level panel data from Norway, our findings suggest that alternative news use is not associated with being better or worse informed, but with being more confident in one’s political knowledge. We discuss how these effects may differ in more polarized or lower-quality information environments.

• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum; Kumlin, Staffan & Linde, Jonas (2026). Politisk tillit under press i Norge? I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 393–421. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter examines how political trust in Norway has developed over time and asks whether recent trends indicate a decline. Using time series from the Norwegian Election Studies, it analyses trust in political institutions and trust in politicians. It also examines differences by generation and gender, as well as winner–loser differences in political trust. The chapter shows that Norway still has high levels of political trust in comparative perspective, but that the overall picture is less stable than before. Trust in political institutions has remained relatively robust since 2005, although it declined from 2021 to 2025. Trust in politicians follows a clearer and more long-term decline, reaching its lowest level in 2025. The analyses also reveal growing differences by generation and gender. Younger cohorts, especially young men, have markedly lower trust in politicians than earlier generations had at the same age. Finally, the winner–loser gap in political trust has historically been small in Norway. In 2025, however, this gap became more pronounced, especially for trust in politicians. The chapter concludes that although Norway is not facing a dramatic trust crisis, several emerging patterns warrant attention.

• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum; Karlsen, Rune; Martins, Guri Barka & Steen-Johnsen, Kari (2026). Generativ KI i valgkampen 2025: Ny teknologi, etablerte medievaner. I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 281–302. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How much did generative AI matter in the 2025 Norwegian parliamentary election? This chapter approaches the question from the voters’ perspective, examining who used tools like ChatGPT and Claude during the campaign, what they used them for, and how much they trusted what these tools told them. We then turn from use to perception: how voters considered AI’s influence on themselves and on others, and whether they found it harder to tell true from false in an information environment increasingly shaped by AI-generated content. The results complicates both the optimistic and the alarmist accounts of AI’s arrival in electoral politics. The use of AI was concentrated in particular groups, and AI were used alongside established news sources. Situated at an early stage of generative AI’s integration into election campaigns, the analysis offers a baseline for tracking how this technology may reshape the political information environment in future elections.

• Bergh, Johannes; Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum & Karlsen, Rune (2026). Skiftende preferanser: Velgeroverganger ved stortingsvalget 2025. I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 155–171. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Norwegian voters are less loyal to political parties and more likely to switch vote between elections than in earlier years. In the 2025 parliamentary election, 39 percent of all voters changed their vote from the previous election in 2021 – this includes voters who took part in both elections. The level of volatility is even higher when including those who switched in or out of the “no vote” group: 55 percent. The two winners in the election, the Progress Party and the Labor Party, both won over voters that supported the Center Party in 2021. Young voters and especially young women tend to switch their vote more often than others. Tactical voting played a role in the election, but we see no evidence that it determined the balance of power in Parliament.

• Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2026). Høyrebølge, men en rødgrønn seier. I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 11–26. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The 2025 Norwegian parliamentary (Storting) election was a win for the governing Labor Party. The five center-left parties barely retained their majority in Stortinget, thus enabling Prime Minister Støre of the Labor Party to continue governing. The election was also a win for the right-wing populist Progress Party, whose support surged to a record high. This book is an in-depth analysis of the election, but also of Norwegian politics and voter behavior, generally. This introduction provides an overview of the outcome of the election and some main trends in Norwegian politics. It also outlines the rest of the book's 21 chapters.

• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum & Bergh, Johannes (2026). Tilbake på velgernes dagsorden? Utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk ved stortingsvalget 2025. I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 237–259. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter examines the role of foreign and security policy in the 2025 Norwegian parliamentary election. It shows that these issues were high on voters’ agenda after several decades of low salience, reflecting a more unsettled geopolitical context. The specific issues that mattered varied between voter groups. The Israel–Palestine conflict was especially important on the left, while defense policy was more prominent among center-right voters. The chapter also shows that conflict patterns differed across issues: support for Ukraine and strengthening the Norwegian defense were marked by broad agreement, whereas attitudes towards Israel and the United States followed clearer left–right divisions. Overall, foreign and security policy had limited independent importance for vote choice when studied as positional issues. However, these issues also mattered through a valence logic, by shaping voters’ assessments of competence, credibility, and governing capacity.

• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum & Karlsen, Rune (2026). Velgere i møte med gamle og nye medier: Valgkampens informasjonslandskap og politisk kunnskap. I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 189–210. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter examines Norwegian voters’ political media use during the 2025 election campaign and how different forms of media use were related to political knowledge. We find that traditional editorial media remain the core sources of political information, both in terms of daily use and perceived importance. Social media play a more limited role in the electorate as a whole but are important for many young voters, especially as supplementary channels for following political events and actors. The analyses further show that Norwegian voters were relatively well informed after the campaign. Traditional media use is positively associated with political knowledge, while social media use and political use of AI show no clear relationship with either game or substance knowledge. Overall, the chapter shows that the Norwegian campaign information environment is changing, but not disintegrating

• Steenvoorden, Eefje; Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum; Elsas, Erika van & Meer, Tom van der (2026). Politicians on political trust: substantive and strategic use in four West European parliaments (1998–2018). West European Politics. s. 32–32. doi: 10.1080/01402382.2026.2682369. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Although political trust is commonly understood as a relation between subject (truster) and object (trustee), research almost exclusively focuses on citizens. The inherent agency of politicians has been overlooked. This article sets three aims: (1) to develop a codebook to analyse trust in texts and speeches by politicians, (2) to describe the use of political trust in parliamentary debates, and (3) to understand how MPs employ political trust in these debates. It studies annual state-of-the-nation debates in four European (high-trust and low-trust; majoritarian and proportional) democracies between 1998 and 2018. Generally, political trust receives little attention in these debates. Over time, politicians’ attention for political trust coincides with economic hardship and rising radical-right populism. Moreover, politicians discuss trust predominantly for strategic purposes (discrediting others; praising themselves), rather than as a substantive concern. This may contribute to a politicisation of political distrust that may harm legitimacy in the long run.

• Bergh, Johannes; Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum; Hesstvedt, Stine; Karlsen, Rune & Magin, Melanie (2026). Konflikt og mobilisering: En ny fase i norsk politikk? I Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (Red.), Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. s. 511–524. doi: 10.23865/cdf.296. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This concluding chapter summarizes the main findings of the book and discusses what explains the outcome of the 2025 Norwegian parliamentary election. The chapter highlights five central explanations: i) an ideological shift to the right, ii) increased voter turnout with partisan consequences, iii) the growing importance of economic concerns, iv) the role of foreign and security policy, and v) the media’s influence on voter’s political priorities. The chapter concludes by discussing what the 2025 election tells us about broader trends in Norwegian politics in the 2020s.

• Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2025). Voting Behaviour in Norway: Social Structure, Ideology, and Issue Ownership. I Kolltveit, Kristoffer; Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Braut-Hegghammer, Målfrid & Rasch, Bjørn Erik (Red.), The Oxford Handbook of Norwegian Politics. Oxford University Press. s. 258–282. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This handbook provides a comprehensive examination of Norway’s political institutions, electoral politics, public policymaking, and international relations. As the introductory chapter highlights, Norway is a highly consolidated, homogeneous, corporatist, and consensus-orientated democracy having faced rapid economic growth, significant government access to massive oil revenues, deindustrialization, public-sector expansion, increasing cultural pluralism, and economic inequality, as well as growing party system fragmentation and the decline of the once dominant Social Democratic Party. Each chapter offers foundational knowledge about the present Norwegian system while presenting state-of-the-art overviews of key issues and findings drawn from the most relevant research in their respective fields. Additionally, the chapters provide original analyses of more specialized topics or trace historical developments and overarching trends. The handbook is designed primarily for scholars and students specializing in the covered topics, but it is also intended to serve a secondary readership that includes politicians, journalists, and other individuals interested in gaining a deeper understanding of Norwegian politics. The authors, selected for their in-depth knowledge and expertise as well as their proven track record of publishing research in highly ranked international outlets, offer valuable insights into the different aspects of Norwegian politics. Although the primary focus is on research within political science, contributions from disciplines such as public law, history, and education science are also included. This diverse set of authors brings extensive expertise and presents the chapters in an accessible manner, making this handbook an indispensable resource for understanding Norwegian politics.

• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum; Linde, Jonas & Mathisen, Ruben Berge (2025). Populist radical right party representation and satisfaction with democracy in Europe. Journal of European Public Policy. doi: 10.1080/13501763.2025.2601295. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper examines how political representation of the populist radical right (PRR) in Europe affects citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. Earlier research provides conflicting expectations: Some studies view PRR parties as vehicles of discontent, others as correctives to the waning representational function of mainstream parties. To examine the long-term effects of PRR representation on political support, we apply recent panel-data methods to a dataset on PRR representation and satisfaction with democracy in Europe spanning five decades (1973-2020). The analysis shows that PRR inclusion in government has a positive effect on satisfaction with democracy. Additional individual-level analyses, using 11 rounds of the European Social Survey reveal that the positive net effect of PRR inclusion stems from rising satisfaction not only among PRR voters but also among conservatives and Christian democrats, while having no significant negative impact on most left-leaning voters.

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• Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2026). Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Cappelen Damm AS. doi: 10.23865/cdf.296. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Norwegian politics is changing. Voters are ideologically moving towards the right. There is increased polarization. International events such as the wars in the Middle East and in the Ukraine affects Norwegian politics in ways that we have not seen in a long time. Voters’ trust in politicians is falling. Politics has become more serious than Norwegians have been used to in recent decades. At the same time, we also see stronger political engagement and a mobilization of voters who previously stood on the sidelines. The authors of the book analyze trends in Norwegian politics in connection with the 2025 Parliamentary (Storting) election. The Norwegian National Election Studies have a long history, stretching back to the 1957 parliamentary election. Data from this long time-series provide an historic backdrop for the analyses of the 2025-election. Conflict and Mobilization. An Analysis of the 2025 Norwegian Parliamentary Election provides both an introduction to and an updated analysis of Norwegian politics. The authors point in particular to five factors that help explain the outcome of the 2025 election: 1) an ideological shift to the right among voters, 2) the mobilization of previous non-voters who supported the Progress Party, 3) the increased importance of economic issues for voters’ priorities, 4) the strengthened popularity of the incumbent government before the election, not least linked to its handling of foreign and security policy, and 5) a changing media landscape, in which both patterns of media use and media content affect voters’ issue priorities and vote choice.

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• Bergh, Johannes & Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2026). Boklansering. Konflikt og mobilisering. En studie av stortingsvalget 2025. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum & Bergh, Johannes (2026). Arendalsuka - Tillitsbarometeret 2026. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2026). Stoler du på ordføreren? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2026). Menn mellom 18 og 30 år leder an i mistillit mot politikere. [Journal]. Morgenbladet. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum (2026). Tronskifte, tillitskrise og unge menn. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum; Linde, Jonas & Mathisen, Ruben Berge (2026). Kan høyrepopulistiske partier gjøre folk mer fornøyde med demokratiet? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Steen-Johnsen, Kari; Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum & Karlsen, Rune (2025). Concern and Enthusiasm for AI Across the Globe – The Role of Trust. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Karlsen, Rune; Haugsgjerd, Atle Hennum & Steen-Johnsen, Kari (2025). Generative AI as a Source Cue in Information Processing. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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