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    286 views20 pages

    The Cultural Construction of Norden

    Uploaded by

    nada88pe
    the cultural construction of norden

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    The Cultural Construction of Norden Edited by @ystein Sorensen and Bo Strath | SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS sto Stocolm -Copeniagen - Oxford - Boston et Scandinavian Univers Press (Universttirlaget AS) P20, Box 2959 Toyen, X-0608 Oxo, Norway ax +47 22 575553 URL: hap: www scup.n0| Stockholm office SOUP, Seardinaeian Unteersty Press 0. Box 3255,$-103 65Stockhola, Sweden Copenhagen office Seaninavian University Press AS P.O. Box 54 DK-1002 Kebenhava K, Denmark Oxtord olce Scandinavian University Press (UK) Lt (60 St. Aldates, Oxford OXL AST, Bogland Boston ofice Scandinavian University ress North America 1875 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 84, Cambridge MA 02139, USA Fax +1 617 3546875 (© Scandinavian Univers Press (Universitetsforlaget AS) slo 1997 ISBN 82-00-37672-9 Al rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprodsced, stored in retrieval stem. or trananite, in ny form oF by any means, eletronie, rmechanieal, photocopying, recording o otherwise, without the prior permission of Seandinasin Unversity Press. aguities should be sent tothe Rights Departipent, Scandinavian University Pres, Oslo, a the address above Desig: Asti Hsabeth Jorgensen Cover istration: © Nordiska museet. Stackholm, The plcture on the fonteover Shows local meeting ot Swedish: peasants in the 1890s Je was taken in avilage i ‘separa Inthe peosine of Vasterpland ‘Typeset in 9.25 on 13 pint Photina by Formatvisiat 83, OK Printed on 90g Carat Ofke by told Trykkert, Norway Contents Preface Serre ce vw Contributors enn ix 1 Introduction: The Cultural Construction of Nonen 1 ystein Sorensen and Bo Stith 2. The Geopolitics of Nordic Identity ~ From Composite States to Nation States Ee 25 Ul Ostergard 3. Fugitives from Utopia: The Scandinavian Enlightenment Reconsidered... i R Nina Witoseek 4 The Swedish Construction of Nordic Identity. a1 Bernd Henningsen 5 What's in @ Name? The Name of the Written Language of Norway. 21 ystein Sorensen 6 Religious Identity and Nordic Identity ass. Dag Thorkilsen ‘The Good Life is Life of Conformity: The Impact of Latheran Tradltion on Nordic Political Culture 161 Henrik Stentus 10 u a contents Local Politics ~ The Invisible Political Culture. mats) Peter Aronson Scandinavian Liberalism — Prophets instead of Profits.» 206 ‘Torbjira Nilsson Modernity and the Nordic Concept of Youth... 231 Henrik Berggren Statist Individualism: On the Culturality of the Nordic Welfare State aaa a 233 Lars Tragdrdt Nordic Chronology. ene 286 Berit Nokleby Bibliography. 7 Ee rereeeeeeee 207, Preface ‘This volume was conceptualized at a time when the dynamic and dra- ‘matic developments in Europe in the wake of 1989 and increasingly transnationally organized economles put the question of Norden on the agenda in the North. What did ideas of Nordic community represent in. the framework of the new preconditions for European integration? What hhad such ideas meant historically? How had Norden as a community of destiny been constructed culturally? ‘The question of how community is constructed culturally in modern- Ination processes is the key problem in an interdsciplinary research project aiming at a Swedish-German comparison in this respect. This ‘project was in a preliminary and planning phase when it received a grant for a conference from the Bank of Sweden ‘Tercentenary Fund. |At this time, referendums in the Nordic countries concerning their relationship to European integration made the problem of Norden-Burope politically and ideologically hot. There was a deeply felt need for a new perspective on the concepts of Europe and Norden, not ooly for a Nordic public but also for an international public. it was logical that one of the first tasks of the project should be to probe this question to establish a point of departure for further analysis. At the same time, a large interdisciphinary project at Oslo University om “The Development of Norwegian National Identity in the Nineteenth Cents’ sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council had reached the point of drawing more general conclusions about its work. ‘An interest in the cultural construction of community and in what ‘national and Nordic identities represented in the Necth — in comparison with other patterns of national identity and community construction ~ ‘were shared in the two projects. It was therefore quite logical for us to 252 HENRIK BERGGREN social activities ~ places where young people could meet and have fun. Frihet, the bi-weekly journal of the Swedish Soctal Democratic Youth Federation, declared in 1927 that the old bohemian, revolutionary type ‘of socialist with leng hair and borsalino had disappeared; he had been replaced by a new type of socialist worker, ‘close to reality, reliable, pedantic’ (Berggren, 1995, p. 174). And the demands that the youth ‘movements put forward were often taken up by their mother parties, competing to win young voters. A give-und-take had been established that made for the integration of youth into the democratic process (Bergeren. 1995, 3p. 162-164). ‘As with the Nordic Romanticism of the 19th century, an abstract ide- lise that came fram the continent was once again grounded in the prag- ‘matic and egalitarian tradition of the Nordic countries. However, it must ‘be remembered that this was ne ‘natural’ process it was to high degree a work of ideology, the creation of a Nordic youth. it was a self-conscious ‘hetorical move that involved the redefinition of the Romantic concert of youth, In 1939 © young poet wrote an indignant article accusing the ‘Swedish Social Democratic Youth Federation of betraying the principles ‘ol youth with its lack of revolutionary spirit. The leader of the Federation, the future foreign minister Torsten Nilsson, replied that the poet had mis- taken poetry for polities: He has been seduced by the red lags, the burning torches, the songs and the musi. And ofcourse this means a lotto polcally fighting youth, But if he cannot see his political belief dressed inthe dress of diligent work, his con- vietions mast be shallow: (Fhe, 6.1933) Chapter 11 Statist Individualism: On the Culturality of the Nordic Welfare State Lars Tragardh Social scientists who have studied the welfare state (rom a comparative ‘viewpoint have been quick to note the difference between the Nordic, or ‘social democratic’, welfare regime(s), on the one hand, and the ‘iberal’ ‘and ‘conservative’ ones, on the other (Esping-Andersea. 1990). Although this distinction has been criticlzed both for underplaying differences within the Nordic region and for exaggerating diflerences between the Nordic countries and other European countries (Baldwin, 1990), there can be little doubt that the Nordic welfare states, and more broadly Nordic political culture(s), do in fact exhibit traits that set them apart from continental Burope as well as from Great Eritain and the United States (Olsson, 1990; see Ostergird’s contribution in this volume) Although the singularity of the Nordic ‘model’ has most often been depicted in terms of ‘solidarity’ or ‘universality’ ~ emphasizing rights associated with citizenship, nationhood, and the principle of equality (Rothstein, 1994) — the focus of this paper will be on the ‘individualist’ dimension of the Nordic social contract. It will be argued that. despite the ‘common perception of the collectivist nature of the Nordic wellare state, what is perhaps even more remarkable is the extent to which behind the Gemeinschaje of the so-called “homes of the people’ one finds a Geselschaft of atomized, autonomous individuals. This is not to suggest that the Nordic welfare state does not exhibit traits that con be expressed in terms of statism. Rather, the central, org nizing principle of the Nordic welfare state (and especially the Swedish variant) is the alllance between the state and the individual. To a degree unheard of elsewhere, benefits are provided by the state and received by individuals. in eflect bypassing mediating institutions within civil society. be they private insurance companies at the giving end, or the family at 254 LARS TRAGARDE the receiving one. As one of most vocal public defenders of the Swedish ‘welfare state recently noted: Few welfare sales are as consistently based on the idea of individual auton- omy ass the Swedish, Vitwally all ofour welfare programmes are ied to the individual persia, not to the family or to the job as Is tha norm in other ‘Western countries... the struaele for fll employment... follows the pin ciple thet each person should have power over his or her own life... . The Aelvery of wellere services throug the public sector rather than within the family has constituted a process of emancipation .. . the pressure on the family has decreased... The dependency on other family members has diminished as the performance of many often instrumental tasks has been placed outside the family domain, {(Antman, 1994) ‘The crucial and prominent role played by the state has led other observers, less seuced by what I shall later discuss in terms of a peculiar ‘Swedish theory of ove’ to see at the heart of the Nordic soclal contract fan authoritarian impulse, even dubbing the Swedes the ‘New ‘Totalitarians’ in one infamous case (Huntford, 1972). Others, like the his- torian Yeonne Hirdman, have focused on the fanciful rhetoric of Gunnar ‘and Alva Myrdal, concluding that the welfare state best be seen as an. ambitious, paternalistic, and suffocating experiment in social engineet- ‘ng, a theme also embraced with vigour and relish by the conservative- libertarian critics associated with the Timbro Institute in Stockholm (Hirdman, 1989, 192; Zetterberg, 1992). However, as the political sci- ‘entist Bo Rothstein has convincingly argued, in the Swedish case it was ‘Gustav Moller, the minister in charge of social welfare, not the Myrdals, who won out during that crucial, formative phase of welfare state con- struction during the 1930s and 1940s (Rothstein, 1994). And, signil- ‘cantly, Mélle’s policy revolved around the objective of liberating Individuals both from the humiliating dependence on private charity, an. experience recent enough for many of the rank-and-file members of the workers’ movement, and from the spectre of equally offensive Intrusions, bby modern, wellinténtioned social workers setting out to ‘means test the poor. Miller's idea was to provide general, not means-tested, assistance: as Karl Hojer noted in 1952 with respect to the social insurance scheme Inspired by Molle, ‘it provided cash and left the people in peace’ (quoted in Rothstein, 1994, p. 218). STATIST INDIVIDUALISM 255 Furthermore, by casting the analysis ofthe Nordie societies in terms of the intimately related notions of ‘sxcal engineering’ and Nord, Swed, Scandinavian, or social democratic so-called ‘models, analysts have often obscured the extent to which the Nordic socal contracts ~ however we evaluate them ~ derive far less from the efforts made by ‘rationalising intellactoals than from complex and historically contingent caltarallega es (Tragardh, 1990a). Thus, whereas some socal scientists have argued that welfare statism has led to a purported ‘decline’ of the family (Popence, 1988) and more generally to @ widespread ‘colonlzation’ of civil society by the state (Habermas, 1990b: Of, 1984; Keane, 1988), the historical record suggests that the ‘individualism’ of the Nordic ‘elle state has cultural roots that antedate by far the family polices that were instituted mostly after 1970 (Fagard, 1995). this paper | will. then, focus on tro aspects ofthe ‘cultural’ of the Nordic welfare state, On the one hand I will argue that Nordic political cultures, although ata superficial level similar to those of'the West, n fact difler rather dramatically a the level of fst principles. On the other hand, Ill pursue the notion thatthe relatively recent institationalization of individ- ual autonomy in the form of what we may call ‘statist individualism’ can. fruitfully be regarded as but the latest expression of a deeply rooted pref ference expressed again and again in a variety of literatures, together forming a remarkably stable trope extolling as well as lamenting the Gentlemen Liberals and Peasants Democrats ‘Turning first to the political culture that underpins the Nordic welfare state, let us begin by comparing the development of modern Nordic democracy with that of other Westom, liberal democratic states, Broadly speaking, liberal democracy of the ‘Western’ variety grew out of gentry and bourgeois resistance to the absolutist state. In France and Germany, “eivil society’ and the ‘public sphere’, as Koselleck and Habermas have argued, formed as a response to absolutism. as a free social space for (critical) moral and increasingly political discourse (Koselleck. 1988 1, Lveite ‘men’ ofthe Nocth with intended polemical emphasis: a I wil discuss later, the dominance of statist individualism has led to a pecullar infection of Scandinavian feminism and has gendered the Scandinavian easel contract in the Image ofthe male worker, 256 LARS TRAGARDH Habermas, 1989), The institutions of civil society — at frst secret or semt- legal societies, later olllally sanctioned if still eared by the state ~ ‘became the locus for social and political Utopianism and for the produc tion and dissemination of public opinion, and came to serve as a powerful ‘fourth estate’. In the Anglo-American context, where the strugsle against the absolutist state was more muted, ever & mere Action, {0 politcal traditions came to compete for supremacy. On the one hand there was the liberal tradition which we associate with John Locke and ‘Adam Smith, one that emphasized che primacy of private property, com- merce. fee trade, and pessessive individualism. On the other. there was ‘what John Pocock has famously called the ‘Atlantic Repablican tradition rooted in Florentine politcal thought and Machiavelis revival of classical civic republicanism (Pocock, 1975). Against the figure ofthe selfish mer chant, the divic republicans offered the active citizen, devoted ~ lke Plato's Guardians ~ to the good of the Republic. Conversely, they associ- ated the commercial ethos of the liberal, one that inked the pursuit of selFinterest to ‘the wealth of the nation’. with corruption and the decline of eivie vitae, This antipathy towards commerce and the nascent cult of wealth production was shared by many in what came to be known as the battle between the ‘moderns’ and the ‘ancients’ In the French context one may recall Rousseat’s ranting and raving in The Government of Poland here he admonishes the Poles to reject corrupting wealth In favour of virtuous simplicity. This position Is to be contrasted with Slaves’ 'mod- cemist’ reading of the Third Estate as the vanguard of the productive ‘lasses destined to eliminate the idle and useless aristocracy. However, as important as this battle was and continues to be today ~ witness the current debate between ‘communitarians’ and ‘liberals’ in the USA ~ for ‘our immediate purposes what needs to be underlined is the extent to ‘which in both eases the ‘hero’ remained the same. Whether the virtuous citizen or the productive bourgeo's. they belonged to the same class of ‘gentlemen’ and they shared a defining suspicion of populist rabble and centralized power alike. ‘As Chacles Taylor has argued, the development of a modern. “Western democratic political culure was a process that entailed the universaliza~ tion —or ‘democratization’ ~ of the rights and sensibilities once peculiar to the ‘noble’ members of society; the gradual mutation of aristocratic prvi lege into ‘human and civil rights’ It was @ process of raising formerly downtrodden members of society tothe level ofthe privileged. of granting, STATIST INDIVIDUALISM 257. | ‘recognition’ and aristocratic-cum-human dignity to all (Taylor, 1994), At the same tne the contemporary political culture of the Anglo- ‘American-

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