Research

Working with migrants can challenge the usual expectations and routines of the workforce in welfare institutions. Bureaucrats respond differently depending on their own background and they can resort to different coping strategies, such as, ‘othering’ their migrant clients. Organizational pressures such as integrating new public management processes add to these challenges and can result in existential insecurity amongst bureaucrats; their ontological security is challenged which can have a knock-on effect on their work, that of the institutions they work for and outcomes for their migrant clients.

Listen to a podcast on hot topics in current academic research on the Nordic region today include welfare, colonialism and heterogeneity.

The three Scandinavian states of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden all played an important role in shaping international environmental policy from 1970 to 2000, and they have all been key norm entrepreneurs in a variety of International Organizations. Following the growth of the environmentalist movement in the 1960s, Sweden had a pivotal role in the launch of the United Nation’s Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and all three states took on the issue of acid rain in the 1970s. The countries’ diplomacy and expertise in environmental issues throughout 1980s and 90s included Norway’s high-profile position within the World Commission on Environment and Development, and their early efforts to fight climate change and, with respect to Denmark and Sweden, to shape the environmental policies of the European Union.

Prominent Nordic archaeologists have included C J Thomsen, who proposed the first the chronological classification of artefacts, and Lennart von Post, who pioneered useful dating methods. Archaeology as a discipline in the Nordics has changed dramatically over time, from traditional archaeology in 19th century, to more emphasis on scientific methods in the 1960s, to a greater emphasis on the subjectivity of archaeological interpretation in the 1980s. Latterly, as elsewhere, science and technology have paved the wave for more innovative methods.

It is Sweden’s goal to become one of the world’s first fossil fuel free welfare states, and many Swedish companies are voluntarily working to reduce their climate impact. The reasons for this are manifold; they primarily involve risk management, a sense of responsibility, management of reputation, and addressing the demands of various stakeholders, many of which are increasingly expressing concerns. Even though taking action often involves significant costs, some businesses have suggested that action is taken because of the high environmental awareness amongst the Swedish public, favorable conditions for taking climate action (such as high availability of renewable energy), and good cooperation between the state and non-state actors—factors which are arguably present in the other Nordic countries. While effective climate action still requires both states and non-state actors to show leadership and focus on speeding up implementation, Nordic companies have the potential to also be a driver for change abroad.

Widespread economic transformations, such as increasing automation, tend to negatively affect some groups more than others in the Nordic countries, as elsewhere. Workers who risk losing their jobs to machines or other means are a societal concern; it is, after all, not their fault that society is changing. Importantly, not only are these workers at risk of unemployment, but there appears to be a correlation between employment vulnerability due to automation and voting habits. A recent study of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and other western European countries has shown that workers whose jobs are vulnerable to automation are most likely to vote for radical right-wing parties. However, initiatives to help people into other types of work must be treated with caution as they are not always successful, and further research is required.

The Nordic countries have some of the highest trade union rates of membership in the world. This has by some been attributed to unemployment insurance being largely administered by trade unions. Since around 1910, unemployment insurance in the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland and Sweden has been based on a voluntary system (‘Ghent’), rather than the compulsory system which is common in most other welfare states. However, since 1992, these countries have reformed their insurance schemes, which has had a negative effect on union density. In 1992, Finland introduced an independent fund which is not linked to trade unions, and this has provided workers with a greater number of options concerning unemployment benefits. To workers with low or precarious incomes, the cheaper option of the independent fund can be attractive. While it seems clear that different types of precarious workers choose different types of unemployment insurance options, the introduction of funds not linked to trade unions is likely to have contributed to the already decreasing level of trade union membership in the Ghent countries.

In this short video, Johan Strang, Associate Professor at the Centre for Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki compares the social democratic heyday of the mid-20th century in the Nordics with trends in politics and society since 1990. While some commentators apply the ‘socialist’ label to aspects of both these wide-ranging and complex time periods, this film compares and contrasts them in a nuanced and enlightening way.

In 1962 Sweden was said to be the country with the most extensive correspondence education enrolment per capita in the world. This was explained with reference to its sparse and widespread population with a high level of literacy, an efficient publishing industry and reliable postal services. None of these conditions existed in Tanganyika (renamed Tanzania in 1964), yet one of Sweden’s earliest forays into development co-operation focused precisely on expanding correspondence education in the former British colony. This somewhat counterintuitive historical encounter between the Nordics and East Africa was the result of the active role played by Swedes in international organisations, where they encountered the agenda of postcolonial states and sought to offer solutions based on their personal experiences of mass correspondence education back home in Sweden. However, the obvious difficulties of adapting that experience meant that they were quite ambivalent towards the ideal of “exporting” a successful Nordic or Swedish “model” to postcolonial Africa.

In Argentina, Danish television drama series such as Borgen, The Killing and The Bridge attract a small and dedicated niche audience that is actively on the look out for new content. A 2017 study of 83 Argentinian viewers found that these “intelligent” series featured interesting characters who were well-acted and were about topics that they could relate to. Authenticity was also important, but this was interestingly undercut by Scandinavian society being, for example, too politically correct and lacking in corruption for an Argentinian audience to consider ‘real’ per se.