Taking a comparative perspective, this book casts new light on the changing inequalities in Europe.

The political structures of the Scandinavian nations have long stood as models for government and public policy. This comprehensive study examines how that “Nordic model” of government developed, as well as its far-reaching influence. Respected Scandinavian historian Mary Hilson surveys the political bureaucracies of the five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—and traces their historical influences and the ways they have changed, individually and as a group, over time. The book investigates issues such as economic development, foreign policy, politics, government, and the welfare state, and it also explores prevailing cultural perceptions of Scandinavia in the twentieth century. Hilson then turns to the future of the Nordic region as a unified whole within Europe as well as in the world, and considers the re-emergence of the Baltic Sea as a pivotal region on the global stage. The Nordic Model offers an incisive assessment of Scandinavia yesterday and today, making this an essential text for students and scholars of political science, European history, and Scandinavian studies.

This book explains why the Nordic Model retains its influence, especially on the Anglo-American left, notwithstanding internal problems.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351765633, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. In the 21st century, Norway, Denmark and Sweden remain the icons of fair societies, with high economic productivity and quality of life. But they are also an enigma in a cultural-evolutionary sense: though by no means following the same socio-economic formula, they are all cases of a "non-hubristic", socially sustainable modernity that puzzles outside observers. Using Nordic welfare states as its laboratory, Sustainable Modernity combines evolutionary and socio-cultural perspectives to illuminate the mainsprings of what the authors call the "well-being society". The main contention is that the Nordic uniqueness is not merely the outcome of one particular set of historical institutional or political arrangements, or sheer historical luck; rather, the high welfare creation inherent in the Nordic model has been predicated on a long and durable tradition of social cooperation, which has interacted with global competitive forces. Hence the socially sustainable Nordic modernity should be approached as an integrated and tightly orchestrated ecosystem based on a complex interplay of cooperative and competitive strategies within and across several domains: normative-cultural, socio-political and redistributive. The key question is: Can the Nordic countries uphold the balance of competition and cooperation and reproduce their resilience in the age of globalization, cultural collisions, the digital economy, the fragmentation of the work/life division, and often intrusive EU regulation? With contributors providing insights from the humanities, the social sciences and evolutionary science, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, sociology, history, institutional economics, Nordic studies and human evolution studies.

The project Nordic Ways is a book of short insightful essays written by distinguished authors from all five countries representing a broad spectrum of Nordic life. The project features an impressive and august array of nearly 50 authors representing all five Nordic countries. The ultimate goal is to provide a long-term platform for what it means to be Nordic in business, as environmental stewards, in the arts, culture, innovation, education and in commitment to democratic values. There is growing interest in the United States in Nordic societies and attention being paid to Nordic solutions: cutting edge innovation in technology and design, arts, culture, liberal democratic values, including gender equality and a free press, environmental responsibility, and economic success achieved on a global level in partnership with employees. Today, with a U.S. Presidential campaign marked by widespread dissatisfaction among the electorate, it is abundantly clear that Nordic Ways can guide this new and increasingly important dialogue.

Social Democracy has long been prominent in Nordic politics through the dominant parties and ideological hegemony of the centre-left. This book explores the growth of social democracy and the policy dilemmas that social democrats face today. It breaks new ground by relating recent literature on social democracy in Europe to Scandinavia.

The Nordic Model was originally understood as a compromise between Western and Soviet systems. The Soviet Union has been gone for a generation, but the Nordic Model survives. Much of this has to do with the Model's change from an economic to a largely cultural model. In particular the Model has come to emphasize human (especially women's) rights; environmental consciousness; and cultural innovation. While these each contain an element of fantasy, they retain sufficient substance to provide encouragement to 'progressive' circles in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries. Important in its own right, the Nordic Model provides a fascinating case study of the transmission of goods and ideas between different regions, and the ability of a small and out of the way region to maintain its own identity in a globalized world.

Liberals worldwide invoke Scandinavia as a promised land of equality, while most conservatives fear it as a hotbed of liberty-threatening socialism. But the left and right can usually agree on one thing: that the Nordic system is impossible to replicate elsewhere. The US and UK are too big, or too individualistic, or too . . . something. In Viking Economics George Lakey dispels these myths. He explores the inner workings of the Nordic economies that boast the world’s happiest, most productive workers, and explains how we can enact some of the changes—including universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and a month of paid vacation for all—that the Scandinavians fought for surprisingly recently. We, too, can refuse to be governed by the elites and embrace equality in our economic policy—here’s how.

This book presents a detailed analysis of the educational model in Nordic European countries. It describes the traditional idea of education for all, which can be characterized by the right for every child to have an education of equal quality in a common school for all pupils regardless of social class, abilities, gender, or ethnicity. Against this background, The Nordic Education Model traces the rise of neo-liberal policies that have been enacted by those who believe the School for All ideology does not produce the knowledge and skills that students need to succeed in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace. It examines the conflict between these two ideas and shows how neo-liberal technologies affect the Nordic model in different ways. The authors also show how social technologies are being interpreted in different ways in actual school practices. This process of translating national regulations into internal sense builds on the values in the culture to which they are introduced. In the end, this book reveals that a Nordic model can constitute a delicate balance between traditional values, institutionalized practices, and contemporary, neo-liberal forms of governance and policies. It may be argued from a new institutional perspective that the main structures of the Nordic educational model will sustain as long as the deeply rooted Nordic culture survives in the globalised society.

The Media Welfare State: Nordic Media in the Digital Era comprehensively addresses the central dynamics of the digitalization of the media industry in the Nordic countries—Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland—and the ways media organizations there are transforming to address the new digital environment. Taking a comparative approach, the authors provide an overview of media institutions, content, use, and policy throughout the region, focusing on the impact of information and communication technology/internet and digitalization on the Nordic media sector. Illustrating the shifting media landscape the authors draw on a wide range of cases, including developments in the press, television, the public service media institutions, and telecommunication.