Rhizome in politics

Rhizome in politics

For this task I decided that I would read all the political programs of the parties present in the Storting today. I then had to make a selection of opinions from each party. I tried to see if the parties themselves graded their opinions, if they presented issues as more important than others. Some of the parties had done that, and some had not. I had several attempts trying to balance and make a representative picture of each party, and ended up making a selection of 25 issues/statements from each party, that they had fronted as important on their website. For some parties that meant that only few issues got highlighted, others had spread their focus on a number of issues.

Could I find a rhizome form here? Would their different opinions entwine?

I did find that the opinions entwined. Some of the issues even on the far “right” and the far “left”, but those topics I often found to be harmless, like getting rid of taxes on voluntary work. I also found that when statements were vague, one could more easily find equal or resembling opinions with the other parties. “We want to put money into the rail system” could be paired up with “Speed trains between every large city”. So one of my conclusions is that when the language is unclear, it opens up for more possibilities and ways of renditions. More connection points.

The second part I did not have time for, but these are the thoughts and assumption I have on it;

If I were to write every statement down, and organize them on a table, what form would it take? If I placed topics that were in the same genre next to each other, would there be parts of the table that got more cluttered than others? I think it would, and my assumption is that that would be topics that the parties all were specifically interested in. It could be topics that handled problem issues for Norway, issues that engaged the politicians.

If I am right on this – could it be transferred unto any rhizome system? A cluster of connecting points; would that show a problem in the system? Like a tumour? Or would a cluster just show an area of engagement? These are maybe questions that I can answer after going deeper into the rhizome form in the next weeks.