The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images

Haldor Byrkjeflot, Lars Mjøset, Mads Mordhorst, Klaus Petersen, Haldor Byrkjeflot, Lars Mjøset, Mads Mordhorst, Klaus Petersen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367742775
• eBook ISBN: 9781000504033
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This critical and empirically based volume examines the multiple existing Nordic models, providing analytically innovative attention to the multitude of circulating ideas, images and experiences referred to as "Nordic".

It addresses related paradoxes as well as patterns of circulation, claims about the exceptionality of Nordic models, and the diffusion and impact of Nordic experiences and ideas. Providing original case studies, the book further examines how the Nordic models have been constructed, transformed and circulated in time and in space. It investigates the actors and channels that have been involved in circulating models: journalists and media, bureaucrats and policy-makers, international organizations, national politicians and institutions, scholars, public diplomats and analyses where and why models have travelled. Finally, the book shows that Nordic models, perspectives, or ideas do not always originate in the Nordic region, nor do they always develop as deliberate efforts to promote Nordic interests.

This book will be of key interest to Nordic and Scandinavian studies, European studies, and more broadly to history, sociology, political science, marketing, social policy, organizational theory and public management.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

1 The making and circulation of Nordic models An introduction

Haldor Byrkjeflot, Mads Mordhorst and Klaus Petersen

DOI: 10.4324/9781003156925-1

Since the early twentieth century, Nordic societies have attracted the attention of international observers. From this attention grew the concept of a ‘Nordic model’, still today a dominant idea among academics as well as policymakers, experts, social movements and the like. For most people, ‘the Nordic Model’ represents a progressive pathway successfully combining factors such as economic growth, democracy, social and gender equality, social welfare, a highly skilled labor force, and high quality of living. However, for others, more critically minded, the Nordic model represents paternalistic, self-righteous, homogenous – quasi-socialist – welfare states which tax their citizens far too much and represent xenophobic treatment of asylum seekers and non-Western ethnic groups. In other words, we do not only find positive views of ‘Nordic solutions’; there are also very strong negative images as well.

This does not only reflect the diverging ideological frames or political positions of the observers; it also reflects the movement toward multiple understandings of the Nordic model. Although mainly associated with developments in the sphere of socioeconomics, labor, and welfare (Christiansen et al., 2006; Dølvik et al., 2015), the Nordic model has expanded into labeling a diversity of experiences and perspectives in spheres like gender equality, education, daycare, prisons, design, food, and culture. The idea of Nordic models has thus traveled into new fields of expertise, culture, institutional spheres, or lifestyles, but there is a lack of knowledge on how this has happened and how the models in the different fields are related.

Drawing on theories of translation, cross-national policy transfer, diffusion theory, and transnational history, this volume emphasizes how ideas related to the Nordics as models and policies associated with them have circulated internationally. By circulation we mean ‘a double movement of going back and forth and coming back, which can be repeated indefinitely’ (Markovits et al., 2006: 2–3, see also Marklund and Petersen, 2013). This way, our circulation approach differs from the more one-directional translation perspective which focuses on the travel of ideas from source to receiver but shares the assumption that ideas and models get transformed during their journey.

Historians have pointed out that knowledge related to Nordic exceptionalism, in its many manifestations, is a cultural construction (Sørensen and Stråth, 1997). This perspective does not reject the importance of institutional similarities or other kinds of common Nordic traits (or the opposite), but it emphasizes that our understandings and conceptualizations of such similarities and differences have been culturally constructed – and these constructions have real-life repercussions. The way we label ‘the Nordic Model’ matters. In this volume, we go beyond the Nordic realm and demonstrate how international circulation has informed the analysis of the Nordic trajectory as well as how the Nordic societies were socially constructed as models. Meanings, content, and values associated with Nordic models both historically and in the present may be related to their history of circulation (see also Petersen, 2011; Kettunen et al., 2016).

Rather than seeing a Nordic model as a something defined once and for all, we argue that it may be seen as what in conceptual history is called a ‘collective singular’ (Koselleck, 2011: 13), a concept that is mentioned in singular, but in praxis is used in different ways in space and over time. How this exactly happens is an empirical question addressed in this volume. These ways of using ‘the Nordic Model’ allow for exploration of the many historical layers that underpins it, which again opens for understanding the possible coexistence of different meanings activated at the same time. On the one hand, there are meanings on a synthetic level, claims about common traits in the five countries across more than one issue area (Chapter 3). On the other hand, there are also a set of meanings associated with specific issue areas or spheres, such as the Nordic model of healthcare policy (Chapter 11), prostitution regulation (Chapter 9), or New Nordic cuisine (Chapter 12). The aim of this book is to pay attention to the historical multitude of circulating ideas referred to as ‘Nordic’ at the general level, associated with the specific Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and linked to various fields.

The historical layers and dualities of the Swedish and Nordic models are discussed in more detail in the chapters by Kettunen and Petersen (Chapter 2) and Mjøset (Chapter 3). Kettunen and Petersen refer to the way there is both a nostalgia and a future-oriented aspect associated with the use of the model. First, there is the idea of a people’s home that may provide a shelter from international competition, whereas the more future-oriented aspect of the model suggests that we all have to adapt to global markets in order to stay competitive (see also Chapter 4). Mjøset refers to three versions of the Swedish model: the radical, the cautious, and the liberal/conservative model. The first two models circulated in the mid-1970s in Sweden, while the liberal/conservative model has become more important over time. Currently the neoliberal Nordic model may again be challenged as the COVID pandemic has favored ideas of a strong public sector and state intervention, which may result in a return to previous perceptions of the Nordic models or to something new. The most important insight here, however, is that such ambivalent images of the Nordic model contribute to its circulation as it may be – or at least sound – attractive to a diverse set of audiences and carriers of ideas at the same time.

Approaches to the Nordic model

As demonstrated by comparative research (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and aggregated analyzes of indexes (Kirkebø et al., 2021), the Nordic countries often cluster, differing from other nation states and ‘families of nations’ (Castles, 1993) on multiple dimensions. Arguably, the most established feature is the Nordic welfare model with comprehensive and generous welfare states (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Christiansen et al., 2006). However, scholars have also highlighted other aspects related to particular institutionalized spheres of these societies such as gender equality (Hernes, 1987; Lundqvist, 2017), labor market relations (Hvid and Falkum, 2018), old age pensions (Petersen and Åmark, 2006), the role of experts and knowledge (Lundqvist and Petersen, 2010; Christensen et al., 2017; Österling et al., 2020), politics (Nedergaard and Wivel, 2017), industrial management (Byrkjeflot et al., 2001), and education (Blossing et al., 2014). This list can be expanded to include other perspectives such as Lutheranism (Markkola, 2015; Nelson, 2017), the role of Social Democracy (Brandal et al., 2013), Nordic democracy and political culture (Knutsen, 2017), Nordic cooperation (Strang, 2016; Mordhorst and Jensen, 2019), Nordic capitalism (Byrkjeflot et al., 2001; Fellman et al., 2008; Mjøset, 2011), and Nordic civil society (Stenius, 2010).

More recently, literature on the Nordic model has expanded beyond the academic (and political) market (discussed in Chapters 5–11) and ventured into the general popular life-style literature. In some ways, popular books on the Nordic model are not anything new, and the Nordic countries have for almost a century used the Nordic model brand as a selling point for products (see Chapters 12 and 13) and tourism (see Chapter 4). However, the post-2000s Nordic hype has engaged new topics such as popular culture, food, and comfort. Concepts like happiness, Nordic cuisine, and ‘hygge’ (Wiking, 2016) are associated with a Nordic way of living. Likewise, cultural innovations of New Nordic cuisine, Nordic design, Nordic Noir, and Nordic music have similarly become brands that are sold as products.

In this way, studies on the Nordic model – or rather the Nordic models (in plural) – have demonstrated its multiple societal and cultural dimensions. We want to add to and challenge the existent literature in four ways:

First, we add a historical and sociological dimension highlighting the dynamic character of the Nordic model. The term Nordic ‘model’ was popularized in the 1980s (see Chapter 4) although as many of the chapters in this book show Nordic societies and policies were already ‘modelized’ throughout the twentieth century. Over time, the content, the images, and the valorization of the Nordic model have changed significantly. We need to approach the Nordic model as something historically dynamic where meanings and connotations change over time.

Second, we add a transnational dimension. The Nordic model was not the result of splendid Nordic isolation, but of national Nordic processes constantly interacting with the outside world. Following the Finnish historian Pauli Kettunen (2011), comparison is not only an analytical strategy used by researchers but also a part and parcel of policymaking. National policy processes are based on cross-country learning and diffusion (cf. Rose, 1991), and political debates are loaded with comparisons. As pointed out by von Beyme (1994), the use of models is often serving domestic political purposes rather than aiming for a true representation of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• 1 The making and circulation of Nordic models: an introduction
• PART 1 The Nordic model as socio-economic and political construct
• PART 2 Nordic models in specific spheres
• Index