The Norwegian Constitution is the oldest functioning constitution in Europe. Its bicentenary in 2014 has inspired the analyses in this volume, where contributors focus on the Constitution as a text to explore new ways of analyzing democratic development.

List of Figures Acknowledgments Note on interdisciplinarity and stylistic conventions Introduction: The Norwegian Constitution as a text Karen Gammelgaard and Eirik Holmøyvik PART I: EMBARKING ON THE MATTER Chapter 1. The Thing that Invented Norway William B. Warner, Eirik Holmøyvik, and Mona Ringvej Chapter 2. The changing meaning of “constitution” in Norwegian constitutional history Eirik Holmøyvik Chapter 3. The many textual identities of constitutions Dag Michalsen PART II: TRANSNATIONAL CONVERSATIONS Chapter 4. The Norwegian Constitution and the Rhetoric of Political Poetry Ulrich Schmid Chapter 5. Constitution as a Transnational Genre: Norway 1814 and the Habsburg Empire 1848–1849 Karen Gammelgaard Chapter 6. Discursive patterns in the Italian and Norwegian Constitutions Jacqueline Visconti PART III: HISTORICAL TRANSFORMATIONS Chapter 7. Timing the Constitutional Moment: Time and Language in the Norwegian Constitution Helge Jordheim Chapter 8. The Norwegian Constitution and its multiple codes: Expressions of historical and political change Inger-Johanne Sand Chapter 9. Norwegian parliamentary discourse 2004–2012 on the Norwegian Constitution’s language form Yordanka Madzharova Bruteig PART IV: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Chapter 10. The evolution of a public opinion text culture in Denmark-Norway 1770–1799 Kjell Lars Berge Chapter 11. To speak what the hour demands: Framing the future of public speech at Eidsvold in 1814 Mona Ringvej Chapter 12. Scholarly texts’ influence on the 2004 revision of the Norwegian Constitution’s Article 100 Ragnvald Kalleberg Appendixes Appendix I: Constitution for Kongeriget Norge Appendix II: The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway Bibliography Contributors

“This is an interesting and timely collection of studies of an important document that is all too often neglected by scholars of other countries and traditions.”  ·  Lynn Hunt, UCLA “Writing Democracy is a marvelous study of textual practices connected to the use of the Norwegian constitution and is thus situated in the engine room of modern Western style democracy.”  ·  Peter Hervik, Aalborg University