The Contextualist Approach to Social Science Methodology L a r s M j ø s e t When delimiting a case, we start from a problem, then select a process towards an outcome and finally define a context in which it takes place. We explain by tracing the process within the context. These are the three basic operations of a contextualist methodology. This chapter provides a detailed comparison of this methodology with two other-the standard and the social-philosophical-methodologies. This comparison emphasizes how important it is that researchers in the qualitative tradition do not simply subordinate their reflection on the conduct of case studies to either of the other two methodologies. It also generates more general lessons on how we should think about methodologies, theory and accumulated knowledge in social science.

Although the Nordic countries are small, open economies, they were able to benefit considerably from the expansion of the world economy during the “Golden Age” of the 1950s and 1960s. They achieved industrial diversification and consolidated welfare-state reforms. Throughout this period, several economic policy routines were institutionalized. These routines may be analyzed as parts of a specific economic policy model, determined by the economic structure and the pattern of political mobilization. It seems more fruitful to distinguish five such models rather than to use the generalizing notion of a “Scandinavian model.” In the 1970s, the world economic crisis posed new challenges for the Nordic countries. In the first phase of the crisis, economic policies continued to operate in accordance with the established routines. But structural problems, new patterns of political mobilization, and new forms of external pressure forced governments to shift towards austerity policies in the late 1970s. The extent and the specificities of these shifts are compared and the degree to which the economic policy models have changed assessed. Such an analysis is a first step to answer some crucial questions now facing the Nordic countries: Was their flexible adjustment merely the result of favorable conditions during the 1960s—or is it a permanent trait? Are they now trapped between large industrial nations and dynamic newly industrializingcountries? If so, what will be the fate of their advanced welfare sectors?

During the 1950-70s Norway had relatively low GDP per capita compared to the OECD average and even more so compared to Denmark and Sweden. During the 1970s there was a significant catch-up in incomes and from the early 1990s a 'take-off' in relative income. Norway is currently ranked among the countries with the highest GDP per capita in the world and is at the top according to UNDP's human development indicator. We argue that this development is related to the growth of the Norwegian petroleum sector, although many studies of economic growth conclude that countries abundant in natural resources are not blessed but cursed by gifts of nature. How has Norway avoided so many of the possible problems that follow in the wake of a natural resource-based development? Nowadays the standard answer to this question is 'good institutions' and 'clever policies'. In this paper we detail the institutions and policies that may explain the peculiar development success of Norway. There are lessons here that can contribute to policy learning, but only on the provision that the specificities of the 'learning' country are understood.

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