Round table regulation: How sectoral corporatism makes Norway's offshore petroleum industry safer

The blow-out on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010 and the ensuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico drew strong public attention to the environment and safety standards in the offshore petroleum industry and their enforcement. While it quickly became clear that there were significant deficits in these regards in the U.S., Norway was repeatedly praised for the allegedly unparalleled level of safety in its offshore petroleum industry. A number of different characteristics of the Norwegian regulatory approach were advanced as being crucial to maintaining such a high level of safety. Based primarily on semistructured interviews with stakeholders in the Norwegian petroleum sector, this working paper demonstrates that certain features of Norway's variety of capitalism go a long way toward explaining the safety performance of its oil and gas industry. The petroleum sector is characterized by the strong corporatist arrangements for which Norway has been known among students of political economy for a long time. These arrangements facilitate information exchange and consensus-based problem solving and they serve as arenas for strong labour unions to confront the industry with their claims and requests for safety improvements. As environmental and safety concerns often coincide, the unions play to a certain extent a watchdog role that is normally reserved for environmental NGOs. As most safety and environmental issues are dealt with in a trialogue between public authorities, industry organizations and trade unions, both environmental NGOs and statutory law play a limited role in the safety politics of the petroleum sector.