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This article is an introduction to a new and promising alternative to dominant reductionistic, utilitarian and instrumental political theories. 'Cultural Theory', or 'Grid‐Group' analysis has been developed by the British anthropologist Mary Douglas and transferred to political science by the American political scientist Aaron Wildavsky. Starting from two dimensions ‐ 'group' (group strength) and 'grid' (the number of rules that influence the individual space of action), there exist four main forms of human interaction or ways of life ‐ individualism (markets), sectarianism (egalitarism). collectivism (hierarchy) and fatalism (slavery) which can be applied to all kinds of societies, organizations and individuals. These cultures are then used to predict political action (politics), institutions (polity) and results (policies). The article shows how the theory is built up and where it comes from, and then concentrates on important logical and empirical problems that so far remain unsolved.

The main purpose of this article is to argue the importance of combining several approaches in studies of communist parties: socio‐economic structures, competitive relations to other left wing parties, organizational implantation, and the role of political tradition. The present ecological analysis will particularly emphasize the organizational approach and the importance of political tradition. In keeping with Allardt's and Lipset's theories, socio‐economic structure seemed to a great extent to be a necessary condition for communist strength in this period. Both significant employment in industry and/or forestry and a strong social democratic party turned out to be necessary conditions for communist strength, but only when we analysed the 'historical' and organizational dimensions in more detail were we able to determine more accurately the areas of strong electoral support of the Norwegian Communist Party.