Conspiracy Theories and the Nordic Countries

Anastasiya Astapova, Eirikur Bergmann, Asbjørn Dyrendal, Annika Rabo, Kasper Grotle Rasmussen, Hulda Thórisdóttir, Andreas Önnerfors

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367354473
• eBook ISBN: 9781000331103
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores the relevance of conspiracy theories in the modern social and political history of the Nordic countries.

The Nordic countries have traditionally imagined themselves as stable, wealthy, egalitarian welfare states. Conspiracy theories, mistrust and disunity, the argument goes, happened elsewhere in Europe (especially Eastern Europe), the Middle East or in the United States. This book paints a different picture by demonstrating that conspiracy theories have always existed in the Nordic region, both as a result of structural tensions between different groups and in the aftermath of traumatic events, but seem to have become more prominent over the last 30 or 40 years. While the book covers events and developments in each of the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland), it is not a comparative country analysis. Rather, the book focuses on conspiracy theories in and about the Nordic region as a region, arguing that similarities in the trajectories of conspiratorial thinking are interesting to examine in cultural, social, and political terms. The book takes a thematic approach, including looking at states and elites; family, gender and sexuality; migration and the outside view on the Nordic region; conspiracy theories about the Nordic countries; and Nordic noir.

This book will be of great interest to researchers on extremism, conspiracy theories and the politics of the Nordic countries.

1 Conspiracy theories and the Nordic countries

In recent years the Nordics have garnered fascination far beyond their borders for gory murders, rape, corruption, and conspiracies – although invented by writers of the Nordic noir genre. Following the incredible success of Stieg Larsson’s crime novels, the Millennium trilogy in the mid-2000s, Nordic noir was propelled to international fame. Novels and TV shows depicting peaceful Nordic societies beset by crimes and conspiracies clearly had an irresistible allure for large swathes of audiences from the United States to Australia.

It might seem contradictory that countries known for their peacefulness, prosperity, and low crime rate could produce such an abundance of chilling crime novels. Some have suggested that the origins of Nordic noir can be traced to one of the most traumatic events in Sweden’s modern history – the murder of the country’s Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. Along with his wife, Palme was walking home late at night from a movie theatre in central Stockholm when an assassin suddenly appeared and fatally shot him in the back at close range. The murderer escaped and remained at large.

Although the murder was traumatizing, its aftermath, a botched investigation that was still ongoing more than three decades later, is claimed to have impacted Swedes more than the murder itself (West-Knights 2019). More than 10,000 people have been questioned in relation to the murder, and the material takes up 250 metres of shelf space in police storage. The unsolved murder caused even greater trauma in Sweden than the killing of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) did in the United States (Åsard 2006). The term “Palmessjukdom,” or Palme sickness, is used to describe obsession with the murder, covering everything from the 130 individuals who have confessed to the murder to the countless numbers of amateur investigators who have poured their hearts into trying to solve the crime. The perceived incompetence of the authorities in solving the case affected political trust and caused damage to democracy, while, as recently as 2016, the Swedish prime minister described the unsolved murder as ‘an open wound in Swedish society’ (in Bbc.com 2018).

Theories about who was behind the murder are abundant and range from disgruntled lone wolves to undercover operations by foreign governments. Olof Palme spearheaded many of the left-leaning social policies Sweden has become known for and he was not shy of taking a strong stance on international issues of the era, such as on apartheid in South Africa. Because of his somewhat radical reforms and non-compromising political style, he faced strong opponents among the public and politicians, both domestically and internationally. Lennart Gustafsson, an investigator on the case from 1986 to 2016, said in an interview that ‘you could suspect half the Swedish population’ (Johnson 2012).

The Swedish novelist Henning Mankell, often considered the father of Nordic noir, was highly influenced by the case. The journalist and crime writer Stieg Larsson developed a deep interest in the unsolved murder starting when he was a young investigative journalist. By the time of his untimely death from a heart attack in 2004, he had amassed twenty cardboard boxes worth of material on the murder and was working on a book about it, suggesting that South African security and intelligence services were behind the murder via a far-right Swedish mercenary (West-Knights 2019).

Other traumatic events have also spawned (or even been spawned by) conspiracy theories. The sinking of the ferry MS Estonia in 1994 resulted in 852 casualties, the largest loss of human life in European waters during peacetime. The ferry was crossing the Baltic sea from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, on a September night. The weather wasn’t good and an official investigation concluded that the bow door of the ferry had opened due to the strong waves, which resulted in the ship flooding with water. This fairly straightforward conclusion did not prevent alternative theories from gaining some traction. Most notably, a conspiracy theory put forward by a German journalist was that the ferry had been transporting sensitive military equipment, and that what caused the sinking was a deliberate explosion that Swedish, Russian, and British authorities were eager to conceal (Davis 2005).

Of a very different nature was the financial crisis that hit Iceland in 2009, when the three national banks could not finance their debts and collapsed, leaving the Icelandic economy reeling on the edge of bankruptcy. The loss was significant for both ordinary depositors in Iceland as well as large international financial institutions which had extended loans to Icelandic businessmen and companies. Although the dominant view was that the crisis was the result of reckless business practices, a vocal minority claims that British and American banks, entangled with their authorities, deliberately decided to let Iceland crash as a warning to other countries. Later, during the aftermath and slow recovery from the crisis, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, the former prime minister of Iceland, had to resign due to not being transparent about how his wife had invested large sums of her substantial personal wealth in offshore accounts. During this political scandal, Gunnlaugsson and his supporters accused foreign creditors of using secret surveillance and intimidation on him and other high-profile government officials.

Conspiracy beliefs are forms of theodicy, that is, they are explanations of evil events and difficult circumstances. As such, they compete with other explanations of evil, and their success varies. Conspiracy theories have always existed in the Nordic countries, though perhaps in a quieter fashion and less focused on the evils of the state than has been seen in many other places. In the last roughly 50 years, however, conspiracy theories seem to have an increased public presence in the Nordic countries. Three overall reasons suggest this may be true. First, while social and political trust remain high in the Nordic countries, there has been a rising, minority ‘cultural backlash’ (Norris and Inglehart 2019) against the rapid cultural change towards socially libertarian attitudes, increasing the level of populist and authoritarian responses. Second, and particularly tied to this, migration to the Nordic countries and popular reaction to it have further challenged societal cohesion and sparked suspicion and conspiratorial ideas. Third, the high level of education and language proficiency, with English as the main foreign language, has made conspiracy narratives highly available. The strong transatlantic influence – especially evident since the turn of the millennium – of conspiracy theories against the state and the elites, has played a role in not merely bringing in new conspiracy theories, but in making conspiracy theorizing salient as a central mode of explaining evil. Conversely, globalization and the welfare success of the Nordic countries has also made them famous around the world, not least as protagonists of conspiracy theories.

The field of study of conspiracy theories in the Nordic countries has been underdeveloped. With this book we aim to partially fill the gap by providing a general overview of the topic and discussing some examples of conspiratorialism in the region. We will be drawing out several case studies, both from specific countries and from the region as a whole. Some of the cases illustrate particular dynamics, while others have been especially important to public discourse and/or politics. Both types provide a broader picture of the state of conspiracy theories, their history, meanings, and, to some degree, importance in the Nordic countries. While the focus here is on the Nordics, the book draws out some comparative perspectives, showing how cultural diffusion of international conspiracy narratives changes them to suit new circumstances. The Nordic self-perception may long have been that ‘conspiracy theories’ belong to the irrational other; we show how they have been made relevant for and adapted to Nordic culture. Moreover, the dynamics in which they have been made, has partially made conspiracy theories about the Nordic countries salient also abroad, especially in Russia, the nearby Baltic countries and Eastern Europe.

What is a conspiracy theory?

The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is applied in various ways. The broad definition of political scientists Uscinski and Parent (2014: 32) is useful here: ‘an explanation of historical, ongoing, or future events that cites as a main causal factor a small group of powerful persons […] acting in secret for their own benefit against the common good’. A host of problems often associated with conspiracy theories could be added, mostly regarding epistemically questionable, immunizing strategies to avoid falsification, but also demands about the degree of elaboration (‘theory’) involved (e.g. Butter 2014). In this book, ‘conspiracy theory’ is most often used as the vernacular form that covers the gamut from conspiracy rumours to elaborate theories. The implication is that while actual conspiracies are abundant, ‘conspiracy theories’ are epistemically suspect, but still serve other, sometimes vital, social purposes. They typically, as mentioned above, explain ‘evil’ in terms of hidden human agency (Barkun 2003), and in that regard, they often express arenas of social conflict, but distort facts and deflect blame (Butter 2014). C...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Conspiracy theories and the Nordic countries
• 2 The state and secret elites in the Nordic countries
• 3 Family, gender, and sexuality
• 4 Migration and the dangerous outsiders: Anti-immigrant conspiracy theories in the Nordic countries
• 5 Conspiracy theories about the Nordic countries
• 6 Nordic noir
• Bibliography
• Index