Archive of State Secretaries
Abstract
The Archive of State secretaries consists of data about the Norwegian governments and state secretaries since 1945. Information about the state secretaries may be accessed either through 'government' or 'ministry' as the overarching structure. All in all the data contain information on three levels:
- Government (chronological government overview; see the Archive of Ministers for more variables)
- Ministry (overview of existing and non-existing ministries and the state secretaries who were in office)
- State secretary (e.g. party affiliation, birth date (death date), Storting activity, education, other employment)
The state secretaries are linked to the Storting's online biography service in cases where they are biographed there. This biography service is continuously updated.
The search function
If you are interested in a certain person, the easiest thing to do would be to search for this person directly. However, worth noticing here is that in connection with 'Find person' we have also made a name index that includes all the persons that exist in NSD's Archives of Politicians. In other words: all former and present members (and quite a lot of substitutes) of the Storting are included in this index. With that regard we have made a simple table that systematically indicates whether the indexed persons have taken office as minister and/or state secretary and/or member of the Storting.
About Archive of State Secretaries
Sources
The State Secretary's archive was the subject of updating and improvement in 2007. In this connection, the following sources were mainly used:
About the members of the individual ministries and governments
- Østang, Øivind (1996): Det norske statsråd 1814-1945. Oslo
- Østang, Øivind (2004): The Norwegian Council of State Since 1814. Oslo
Biografisk informasjon
- Arntzen, Jon Gunnar og Knut Helle (red.) (1999): Norsk biografisk leksikon. Oslo
- Nordby, Trond (red.) (1985): Storting og regjering 1945-1985. Oslo
Furthermore, the Norwegian government's websites in particular, but also the Storting's websites and the internet in general, have been valuable sources. The continuous update of sitting state secretaries is based on press releases from the Prime Minister's office.
Variable Description
The table provides a continuous overview of the state secretaries.
The variables are as follows:
Main index. Continuous internal identifier from the table i_politikere. Is mandatory and unique. Example: Tina Bru is 31610.
Indicates the position percentage if it deviates from 100. Example: 50.
Specifies for which minister the person was state secretary. Numerical consecutive index in the table i_politikere.
The text as it may appear (in Norwegian): 'for <title> <Name> (<Party>)'.
Indicates which ministry the state secretary belongs to. Index in the table i_departementer. A state secretary can be subordinate to a minister who spans several ministries, and we then get one entry for each combination minister – ministry.
Party affiliation upon entry into government. Is index in the table i_parti. Is unique for a given date, but overlaps for years when names are changed. Example: 21 gives 'Det Norske Arbeiderparti' in the period 1930-2011, 'Arbeiderpartiet' from 2011.
Date of the state secretary's appointment regardless of what time of day the change takes place.
Date of the state secretary's resignation. Counting whole days; if the shift occurs in the middle of the day, the date is set to the day before. Not yet completed service is defined as 09-09-9999.
Special circumstances.