Summary:

The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) is the largest sovereign welfare fund in the world, invested in more than 9,000 companies globally. Because GPFG is owned by the Norwegian state, overlapping consensus is an important pillar in the Fund’s standard. However, GPFG’s investments in conventional arms producing companies have received criticism from media and NGOs for the last two years, accusing the investments of not reflecting Norwegian values, or for being in accordance with international agreements and the Fund’s ethical guidelines. The aim of the thesis is therefore to disclose whether the investments in arms industry weakens the Fund’s overlapping consensus. Therefore, this thesis research question is “Does the GPFG’s investments in arms producing companies weaken the overlapping consensus between the Fund and Norwegian citizens, the Funds ultimate owners, by violating national law, international agreements and/or ethical codes of conduct?” Drawing on CSR and SRI-literature, organisational theory and theoretical perspectives on how state-ownership influence corporate behaviour, I develop five expectations to guide the thesis’ analysis. To gather data I use triangulation, combining semi-structured interviews and document analysis, with GPFG serving as the only case. However, I draw comparative lines to Norwegian private funds. The paper concludes that the overlapping consensus is weakened by investing in international arms industry, but not because GPFG is violating institutional framework. It is weakened because the institutional framework lacks clarity and does not reflect Norwegian values. I suggest that the ethical guidelines should be changed in accordance with the Norwegian export control system and remove all room for interpretation.