Educating the Norwegian Nation: Traffic Engineering and Technological Diffusion

Abstract

This article deals with the breakthrough of mass motorization in Norway between 1950 and 1970. Whereas in many countries the car and mass motorization were welcomed as elements in the building of liberal and prosperous nations, in Norway politicians resisted the buildup of mass motorization for a long time. This political deadlock was approached by a new type of scientific expertise, the traffic engineers. They both discursively and practically transformed the private car to the more useful and, for the country, important highway system. This article analyzes the role of science and expertise as a way of bypassing political decisions. Furthermore, it describes how the experts and their exper-tise became an element in the diffusion of international ideas for transport, mobility, and European integration with Norway. To understand these changes, one has to examine how these ideas were transformed and adjusted—in short, domesticated—to fit the Norwegian social, economical, and political environment.

Between Industry and Tourism

“…As has been suggested in the case of Norway, in Italy too traffi c on rubber tyres was 'primarily seen as a means of commercial and industrial transport; useful and necessary'. 60 So it is not surprising to note that, given modest expectations of the growth of car ownership, the promoters of the motorway imagined that any great use of the Turin-Savona route by private cars was a ridiculous notion. Simply, in the 1950s Italian mass motorisation itself was unexpected, and the end result was much bigger in reality than had ever been forecast: it exceeded even the rose-tinted aspirations of the country's motor industry.…”

Mobility and European Integration

“…Based on an analysis of the breakthrough of mass motorisation in Norway Per Östby, for example, concludes that 'expertise became an element in the diffusion of international ideas for transport, mobility and European integration'. 7 Since also this article is dealing with European integration it will be asked how professionals contributed to the specifi c aspect of integration which is considered here.…”