The administrative architecture of a Norwegian social security scandal

The administrative architecture of a Norwegian social security scandal

22-06-2025

Sage

Engelsk

17

In 2019, Norwegian society was shocked to learn about grave and systemic errors in the social security system. A practice prevailing for 25 years of disregarding EU law when applying a requirement that recipients of social security benefits should have stayed in Norway at all times had caused several incorrect court judgments and thousands of erroneous administrative decisions, with grave consequences for those concerned. Around 70 individuals were subject to wrongful criminal convictions, in addition to around 7000 incorrect decisions concerning denial and reduction of benefits, as well as demands for repayment of benefits already received. We suggest that in order to learn lessons from this complex of cases, attention must be paid to the structural conditions that allowed the errors to arise and to continue for more than two decades. The landscape surrounding the scandal was characterised by three major contextual shifts over the last three decades: changes in welfare policy, an emphasis on digitalisation, and increased normative complexity. Arguing that the relevant ministry and the Norwegian welfare administration formed the centre of the scandal, we focus more closely on the specific legal architecture of administrative practice. The regulatory techniques confined complex interpretative tasks to a closed administrative space. In this space, several missed opportunities for stopping the scandal demonstrate systemic weaknesses in internal processes of the welfare administration. Moreover, there was limited external control. Overall, the pre-existing structures in Norway's welfare administration shaped its vulnerability to failure. This can provide lessons on how to reduce the risk of future welfare dystopias.

2399-2948