The Nordic Model of Social Democracy by Nik Brandal, Øivind Bratberg, and Dag Einar Thorsen (review)

This concise volume traces the development of the social democratic movement and parties in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from their mid-nineteenth-century origins to the present. It is based on a 2011 volume in Norwegian, but adds details useful to a non-Scandinavian reader. The focus is on Norway, but there is adequate attention to Denmark and Sweden. Finland and Iceland are only rarely mentioned, as their political and party systems developed differently. The authors use an approach that draws on the social sciences, history, and social theory. Many readers will be relieved to find the text clear and accessible without excessive jargon or quantitative apparatus.

The study is divided into four parts. Part I traces the origins of the social democratic movement in nineteenth-century Europe through its development in Scandinavia to its apex around 1970. Readers familiar with European politics will be aware of the origins of Marxism and other political movements during Western Europe's path to democratic government. By the end of the nineteenth century, Scandinavia had developed a constitutional government, but it was not until the end of World War I that democratic parliamentary government was secured. Social democrats benefitted from the spread of voting rights and, in turn, supported a broader definition of democracy to include social and economic rights and security. It was part of a larger labor movement fostered by industrial growth. The early emergence of pragmatic "reformism" in Scandinavia first by liberal parties and then by the mainstream socialist and labor movements no doubt shaped the programs of the socialist parties. A crucial moment followed the First World War, when Soviet communism (Bolshevism) divided the European Left, and more moderate social democratic parties formed governments threatened from the Left and the anti-democratic Right. Norway's Socialist Left and the Norwegian Labour parties reflected this schism for a decade, but by the 1930s, the reformists regained control.

The start of the Social democratic "age" in Scandinavia came during the economic and political turmoil of the 1930s. Political pragmatism and moderation on the Left were reciprocated by most non-socialist parties in response first to the Great Depression and then to the totalitarian threats. World War II interrupted the reforms and innovations of the 1930s and affected the social democratic parties differently in each country. Norway's [Social democratic] Labour party leadership fled to England and, along with other democratic leaders, formed a government-in-exile. Denmark's Social Democrats participated in the unique "cooperation policy" (samarbejdspolitik) with the German occupiers until 1943. Sweden managed to preserve its neutrality through clever maneuvers supported by a broad coalition of all democratic parties. The authors cover these complex events well, but there are a few minor quibbles: Denmark's non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany was signed in 1939 not 1938 (p. 54), and it would be wrong to characterize Denmark's "cooperation policy" with Germany as outright collaboration. There was no Danish equivalent of Quisling, and Quisling's Nazi regime in Norway was under direct German direction.

Common to all three countries was the legacy of coalitions and political cooperation that started during the economic crisis and prevailed during the war. It would shape the "politics of compromise" that resumed after 1945 and during the decades of economic recovery and growth until the 1970s. Although 1945–1970 was the period of social democratic hegemony and the culmination of welfare state reforms, non-socialist parties were frequently partners in this enterprise and would maintain it even when they formed governments after 1970.

Part II describes and assesses the Nordic welfare states in their late twentieth-century forms. The authors are careful not to posit identical policies and issues across the region, but the fundamental forms are clear. They draw on the useful formula of the British social liberal William Beveridge whose 1942 report set the agenda for postwar reform in Britain and indirectly throughout most of Western Europe. The...