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Ola Innset

Researcher - Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture

Email ola.innset@tik.uio.no

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Visiting address Moltke Moes vei 31 Eilert Sundts hus 10. etg. 0851 Oslo

Postal address Postboks 1108 Blindern 0317 Oslo

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Academic interests

I am broadly interested in anything having to do with the relationship between democracy and capitalism in modern history. I have published journal articles within intellectual history, economic history, political theory and various social sciences. My PhD project covered the transnational development of early neoliberal thought in the years between 1920 and 1947, and was published as the monograph "Reinventing Liberalism" (Springer, 2020). I have also written a monograph on market reforms in Norway entiteld "Markedesvendingen" (Fagbokforlaget, 2020). As a postdoc at BI Norwegian Business School I worked on the corporate governance of hybrid state owned enterprises that are also publicly listed, and at the TIK-centre I am working on a new book on the history of economics in Norway.

Background

I have a PhD in history and civilization from the European University Institute (2017). Previously I have been a postdoctoral scholar at BI Norwegian Business School (2021 - 2025) and a public events officer at the National Library of Norway (2019 - 2021). I was the editor of the literary journal Vinduet from 2021 - 2024, and I have published four novels and four non-fiction books.

Awards

2026 Bjørnson-stipendet
2025 Eilert Sundts Forskningspris
2022 European Business History Association Annual Congress Best Paper Prize
2019 Joseph Dorfman Award for the Best Dissertation in the History of Economic Thought
2018 Den norske historiske forenings pris for mest nyskapende bidrag til historisk tidsskrift

Innset, Ola (2026). Et optimalt økonomisk system. Trygve Haavelmo i de norske systemdebattene. Arr - Idéhistorisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0802-7005. Full text in Research Archive
Nevalainen, Pasi & Innset, Ola (2026). Politics back in business? State ownership, historical change, and the Nordic cases. Scandinavian Economic History Review. ISSN 0358-5522. 74(3), p. 195–195. doi: 10.1080/03585522.2026.2698051. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2025). Nyliberalismen i praksis. Barnehageforliket og lobbyvirksomhet på Stortinget. In Sandvik, Pål Thonstad; Ekberg, Espen & Øksendal, Lars Fredrik Moe (Ed.), Skarpe briller og bitre piller, Festskrift til Harald Espeli og Finn Erhard Johannessen. Bokstav og bilde AS. ISSN 9788230369449. p. 225–235. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2024). State-owned enterprises after the market turn: Hybridisation and the historical development of nested paradoxes in the case of Norway. Business History. ISSN 0007-6791. doi: 10.1080/00076791.2024.2353661. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
The article studies the recent history of state owned enterprises (SOEs) in Norway through the lens of paradox theory. A tension between busi- ness goals and political goals lie at the heart of SOEs, and I analyse processes of partial privatisations in the 1990s and early 2000s as attempts to overcome this original paradox. Through the public listing of major SOEs, the Norwegian state became the largest owner on the Oslo stock exchange and a new corporate governance setup for these entities arose. I propose to see this development as a case of historically developed nested paradoxes, and argue that a new paradox emerged in which the Norwegian state attempted to reach political goals through the ownership of SOEs by not having explicit political goals. I find two main equilibrating mechanisms for this paradox, and discuss some of the ways paradoxical tensions of SOEs still persist despite attempts to overcome them
Innset, Ola (2024). National Interests as Positive Externalities: Headquarters Retainment as Justification for Hybrid State-owned Enterprises in Norway (2000–2021). Enterprise & Society. ISSN 1467-2227. doi: 10.1017/eso.2024.25. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
As a result of the partial privatization and public listing of two large state-owned enterprises in 2001, the Norwegian state became the largest owner at the Oslo stock exchange. A new mode of corporate governance was developed, through which retainment of the corporate headquarters (HQ) of hybrid state-owned enterprises became the sole political goal of continued state ownership in these corporations. This article explores the perceived benefits to the national economy of these company HQ through an investigation of public documents and interviews with key stakeholders. The article argues that the main function of the goal of HQ retainment was to portray national interests and political goals as mere (positive) externalities of HQ location, and that this goal was formalized due to a perceived need to depoliticize the corporate governance of hybrid state-owned enterprises.
Innset, Ola & Rudberg, Elin Åström (2024). Varieties of Marketization. Nordisk välfärdsforskning | Nordic Welfare Research. 9(1), p. 11–27. doi: 10.18261/nwr.9.1.2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
The article develops a new framework for the study of market reforms in Nordic welfare states based on a division between “markets”, “quasi-markets” and “pseudo-markets”. The two latter types of marketization have been the most common, and the article exemplifies them by revisiting the early 1990s Swedish school reform, “Friskolereformen”—which instigated a quasi-market for publicly funded schools run by both for-profit companies and non-profit actors—and the Norwegian hospital reform, “Foretaksreformen” of 2001—which created what we call a pseudo-market, in which public hospitals were reorganized to mimic the structures of capitalist enterprise. By discussing the different reforms in relation to justification, the type of welfare state sector, and the political orientation of the government implementing the reform, our study sheds new light on similarities and differences in marketization processes in the Nordics. Particularly, we find that the justification for the reforms differed, with the Swedish reform being justified in ideological terms and the Norwegian in technocratic terms. Contrary to some literature, we hold that marketization has fundamentally altered Nordic welfare states and the relationship between capital and society in the Nordics, and we suggest that our framework could be used for future comparative studies of market reforms.
Heiret, Yngve Solli & Innset, Ola (2024). Austerity without deficits: The global political economy of Norway’s fiscal paradox. Environment & Planning. D, Society and Space. ISSN 0263-7758. doi: 10.1177/02637758241311020. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This article advances a new theoretical understanding of the global political economy of austerity through an examination of austerity policies in Norway, a country with soaring fiscal surpluses. Critical scholarship has analyzed austerity as an incoherent economic idea – a product of unreasonable public accounting, or simply ideological nonsense. No national context seems to confirm such a view more than Norway, where wage growth has been curbed and welfare spending restrained in a context of unprecedented public prosperity. Yet, this article argues that there is a rational core to Norwegian ‘austerity without deficits’, if seen from the vantage point of capital in globally integrated neoliberal capitalism. Examining the development of Norwegian economic policies since the 1970s, we demonstrate how the Norwegian state has imposed austerity measures in order to bolster national capital’s global competitiveness. Disciplining labor and public budgets is, we argue, the cost of doing business in today’s world economy. We call this uneven and combined austerity: combining national economies in a global structure of interlocking dependence, neoliberal austerity imposes limits to popular demands for welfare and better material conditions of living, even in countries where public money abounds.
Innset, Ola (2024). Tor Bjørklund i samarbeid med Axel Fjeldavli Norske partier og velgere. Valgresultatenes historiske røtter. Historisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0018-263X. 103(1), p. 69–72. doi: 10.18261/ht.103.1.8. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2023). Dual Argument, Double Truth: On the Continued Importance of the State in Neoliberal Thought. Journal of the History of Economic Thought (JHET). ISSN 1053-8372. 45(4). doi: 10.1017/S105383722200044X. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
It has been established that the neoliberal creed arising in the interwar and early postwar years, despite its strong rejection of economic planning, also entailed a rejection of laissez-faire liberalism. This article argues that recent attempts at construing early neoliberalism as thus being a more nuanced or moderate creed than later iterations are nonetheless flawed. The “dual argument” of early neoliberalism indicated a new approach to market liberalism in which the state was not seen as the market’s opposite but rather its precondition. This important move is obscured by the language of moderation and nuance. In place of “the radicalization thesis,” the second part of the article considers Philip Mirowski’s concept of a “double-truth doctrine” and argues that an appreciation of the state for social and economic governance is a common feature of different neoliberalisms, which nonetheless differ in their preferred policy suggestions for the use of state power.
Innset, Ola (2023). From open borders to ‘rasisit’: libertarianism and populism on the Scandinavian periphery (1980–1994). Journal of Political Ideologies. ISSN 1356-9317. p. 373–391. doi: 10.1080/13569317.2023.2249647. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In 1980s Norway, a group committed to libertarian ideology became influential within Fremskrittspartiet. This new party became known for its opposition not only to taxation and public spending, but also to non-western immigration. The libertarians within the same party, however, advocated open borders. The libertarians were ousted from the party in 1994, but libertarianism has remained a key plank in the party’s otherwise national-conservative ideology. Crossovers and alliances between cosmopolitan libertarians and nationalistic anti-immigration groups have become commonplace, and through an analysis of the Norwegian libertarian movement, I argue that these are possible due to the idea of open borders only holding a peripheral position within libertarian ideology. The issue of open borders was given some attention in debates between libertarians and populists within FrP, but was not an important ideological concept for the intellectuals behind the libertarian journal Ideer om Frihet. The article thus argues that a commitment to what we may call cosmopolitanism does exist within libertarianism and may be used to make sense of core concepts such as individualism, freedom and markets, but is nonetheless expendable for most libertarians, as they were for the Norwegian libertarians who found a home in the country’s most nativist political party.
Innset, Ola (2022). Metahistory as Public History: On Introducing Metahistorical Perspectives in Events about Events. History: The Journal of the Historical Association. ISSN 0018-2648. 107(375), p. 392–407. doi: 10.1111/1468-229X.13265. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This article argues that the introduction of ‘metahistorical perspectives’ can greatly enrich the practice of public history. Through the example of a series of public events about important historical events held at the National Library of Norway, it is argued that an attention to microhistory, pedagogical theory and especially William Sewell Jr.’s theory of events can be beneficial when programming events for the general public. This focus on ‘metahistorical perspectives’ in the practice of public history stands in contrast to widely held notions of public history as entailing simplifications and ‘dumbing down’ of academic knowledge.
Innset, Ola (2021). An Army of Fighters for Freedom. The social environment of the first Mont Pélerin-Society conference. Revue d' Economie politique. ISSN 0373-2630. 131(5), p. 753–776. doi: 10.3917/redp.315.0035. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In 1944, Friedrich Hayek gave a lecture at Stanford University where he referred to the organization he was planning to set up as “an army of fighters for freedom”. This article investigates the social environment of “Hayek’s army” by looking specifically at the founding conference of the Mont-Pèlerin Society, some three years later. An exploration of this famous 10-day conference in the Swiss Alps shows that the transnational group of neoliberal thinkers was characterized by social privilege, something that contributes to contextualising their rightleaning political views. Several of the American conference attendees hailed from more modest backgrounds than their European counter parts, however, and the views on display during the conference were far from uniform. This was especially the case when discussions centred on redistribution and poverty, where, to widespread criticism, Milton Friedman presented his famous proposal for a negative income tax.
Innset, Ola (2020). Review of Janek Wasserman’s The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019, 354 pp. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics. 13(2). doi: 10.23941/ejpe.v13i2.517. Full text in Research Archive
Hverven, Sigurd; Dybedahl, Oscar; Innset, Ola & Kristjánsson, Mímir (2019). Avkledd liberalisme. Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (NNT). ISSN 0800-336X. p. 41–52. doi: 10.18261/issn.1504-3054-2019-01-05. Full text in Research Archive

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Innset, Ola (2020). Markedsvendingen. Nyliberalismens historie i Norge. Fagbokforlaget. ISBN 9788245031966. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Reinventing Liberalism. The Politics, Philosophy and Economics of Early Neoliberalism (1920 - 1947). Springer. ISBN 9783030388850. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-38885-0. Full text in Research Archive
Hverven, Sigurd; Innset, Ola; Kristjánsson, Mímir & Dybedahl, Oscar (2020). Markedsmennesker: Kritikk av tidsånden. Dreyer Forlag A/S. ISBN 9788282655576. 224 p. Full text in Research Archive

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Innset, Ola (2026). Friedrich Hayek. Full text in Research Archive
Einevoll, Gaute & Innset, Ola (2025). #108: Om penger, skatt og kampen om verdiene { med Ola Innset. Full text in Research Archive
Johansen, Anders; Innset, Ola & Pilskog, Ingjald (2025). Ola Innset: Kampen om verdiene | Forum for vitenskap og demokrati. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Antallet milliardærer vokser for hvert år, og de bruker enorme summer for å påvirke politikk og valgresultater. Ola Innset Forsker, Senter for teknologi, innovasjon og kultur, Universitetet i Oslo. Antallet milliardærer vokser for hvert år, og de bruker enorme summer for å påvirke politikk og valgresultater. De rikeste gyver løs på offentlig velferd og pengebruk. Ola Innset har nylig kommet med en kritikk av de ideologiske premissene for denne offensiven, blant annet som svar på Martin Bech Holtes bok «Landet som ble for rikt». Ved å rykke opp i fastlåste forestillinger om verdiskaping og produktivitet viser Innset at det ikke er slik at privat sektor skaper verdier mens offentlig sektor bruker dem opp. Hovedargumentet er at velferdsstaten både kan og bør bli større, og at det er nettopp det som må til for å hindre at høyreradikale bevegelser får ytterligere vind i seilene. Ola Innsets siste bok: Kampen om verdiene - Om velferdsstaten og landet som fikk for mange rike (2025). Møteleder: Anders Johansen
Innset, Ola (2023). John L. Campbell and John A. Hall, What Capitalism Needs: Forgotten Lessons of Great Economists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 299, $28.95 (hardcover). Journal of the History of Economic Thought (JHET). ISSN 1053-8372. doi: 10.1017/S1053837222000220. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2023). Context and the Neoliberalism Wars. Œconomia – Histoire/Epistémologie/Philosophie. ISSN 2113-5207. 13(1), p. 101–114. doi: 10.4000/oeconomia.14061. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2023). Neoliberalism and Norway. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2023). Ideen som trollbinder både Silicon Valley-kapitalister og europeiske sosialister. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2023). Per Kleppe - sosialliberalist? Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2023). Lobbying for a Norwegian kindergarten market: Private barnehagers landsforbund, 1992 – 2003. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). Neoliberalism as Common Sense Conservatism: Kåre Willoch's Translation of Henry Hazlitt. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). State Ownership in the HQ Economy. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). Priskrig og krigspriser (om Rupert Russells "Price Wars"). Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). The Paradox of Stateowned Enterprise Hybrids. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). Preteritum maskin. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). Steile fronter. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). En dyp åre av irrasjonalitet (intervju med Geir Pollen). [Journal]. Vinduet. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). Husbanken og boligpolitikken 1996–2021. En jubileumsbok [The housing bank and the housing policies – an anniversary book]. Scandinavian Economic History Review. ISSN 0358-5522. doi: 10.1080/03585522.2022.2130974. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2022). The paradox of hybrid SOEs. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Digital syndebukk. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Paradoxes of innovation in a hybrid SOE. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Børs uten katedral. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Makt uten ansvar. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Neoliberalism and the Art School. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Idé til personlighet. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Nyliberalismen som en mer indirekte styringskunst? Ny tid. ISSN 0803-3498. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Sett oss i sving! Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Håpe på Arbeiderpartiet? Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Aps flakkende blikk. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2021). Kunst som velferd. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). The market turn in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Civita-notat i forsvarsmodus. Minervanett. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Ola-notat#1 - 2020: Et svar til Lars Peder Nordbakkens «Anmeldelse og kritikk av en ny fortelling om (ny)liberalisme» (Civita-notat #18 – 2020). Minervanett. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Virkelige tankesmier. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Tenk om det går. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Aldri mer 12. mars. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Bundet til oljemasta. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Vorbehalte gegen Massendemokratie. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. ISSN 0174-4909. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). En råtten avokado. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Nyliberalisme før og nå. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Den tapte våren. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Nyliberalisme - en forklaring. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Jo, vi har råd. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Jobbe litt mindre. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Presidentens deal. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Tjener eller herre? Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Glorifisert marked. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Naiv tro på markedsmekanismene. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Selvstendig sparegris. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Ap og høyrebølgen. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Tomt på kontoen? Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Review of Janek Wasserman’s The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019, 354 pp. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics. doi: 10.23941/ejpe.v13i2.517. Full text in Research Archive
Herning, Linn & Innset, Ola (2020). Når staten skal leke butikk. In Hverven, Sigurd; Innset, Ola; Kristjánsson, Mímir & Dybedahl, Oscar (Ed.), Markedsmennesker: Kritikk av tidsånden. Dreyer Forlag A/S. ISSN 9788282655576. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Workers of Europe: Compete? (Roarmag#10). Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Ikke glem økonomien (23.12.2020). Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Transnasjonalt gjennombrud - 18.9.2020. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2020). Med markedet mot bunnen - 18.9.2020. Full text in Research Archive
Hverven, Sigurd; Innset, Ola; Kristjánsson, Mímir & Dybedahl, Oscar (2020). Forord: Markedet og det nye mennesket. In Hverven, Sigurd; Innset, Ola; Kristjánsson, Mímir & Dybedahl, Oscar (Ed.), Markedsmennesker: Kritikk av tidsånden. Dreyer Forlag A/S. ISSN 9788282655576. p. 7–26. Full text in Research Archive
Slottemo, Hilde Gunn & Innset, Ola (2019). «Børnene ser gråblege ud». Min kilde, faglig samtale. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Neoliberalism with Norwegian characteristics. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Til Dovre faller. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Løsningen på Nordbakkens Hayek-gåte. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Veien videre. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Ti tusen milliarder. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Prisen for kunnskap. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Exit demokratiet. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Sparkesykkel-isme. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). SVs skjebnevalg. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Pengegaloppen. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Det angår oss alle. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Høyre-symbiose. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Slipp pressen fri. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Uklart hat. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Digital kapital. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2019). Quinn Slobodian, Globalists - The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. Agora. ISSN 1380-6319. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Markedsvendingen. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Fascismens arv: økonomi. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Nyliberal splittelse. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Nyliberalismens nytte. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Kapitalismen og nyliberalismen. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Being Simon Malkenes. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Falsk konsensus. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Den rette tro. Full text in Research Archive
Innset, Ola (2018). Elskede Europa. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive

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Published June 19, 2025 10:01 AM - Last modified Aug. 3, 2026 10:19 PM