Nordic Paths to Modernity ed. by Jóhann Páll Árnason and Björn Wittrock (review)

In this edited volume, leading Scandinavian social scientists, historians, and philosophers explore the nature of a distinctly Scandinavian, or Nordic, path to modernity. Taking their starting point in individual national experiences, the authors simultaneously try to establish the commonalities within the region and the societal preconditions that allowed for a high degree of parallel development. They are particularly interested in the historical origins of a characteristically Scandinavian model of balancing capitalism and democracy.

The individual contributions reveal a diversity of national experiences. Uffe Østergård describes the discontinuity between the old conglomerate state and the new Danish nation-state that arose in the middle of the nineteenth century, which was paralleled by a passage from semi-absolutist structures to a constitutional peasant democracy. He stresses the agrarian roots of Danish national identity and the importance of the cooperative and other popular movements. Niels Kayser Nielsen, by contrast, classifies Denmark as a highly centralized state without the same level of civic participation encountered in other Nordic countries. Its centralization predated nationalization and went hand in hand with individualization. Although state-sponsored initiatives such as religious homogenization, schooling, and improvements in infrastructure and communications were not part of a national agenda, they advanced the forming of national identity.

Björn Wittrock begins his analysis of modern Sweden by describing its transformation from the efficient military state of early modern Europe to the comparatively democratic one of the 1700s and the homogenous rump state in search of a mission of the 1800s. He then examines the prevailing narratives of twentieth-century Sweden with special focus on the long-term hegemony of the Social Democratic Party. By the end of the century, Wittrock concludes, Sweden had begun to resemble other small European democracies, although there remained some antinomies that were rooted in a disjuncture between traditional Swedish self-perceptions and increasingly globalized realities. Peter Hallberg, in turn, analyzes the historical writing of eighteenth-century Sweden with its focus on moral education and the creating of social bonds.

Looking at Norway, Rune Slagstad investigates the successive expressions of Norwegian reformism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He argues that the passage from liberalism to Social Democracy to new reform movements such as feminism also entailed a change in discourses of knowledge from legal to pedagogical, and then on to economic and sociological. Starting with a discussion of the nature and variability of modernity, Gunnar Skirbekk sees modernization in Norway as driven by the state bureaucracy and popular movements.

Risto Alapuro reflects on how well Finland fits into the general Nordic experience. In spite of the country’s internal and external dependence on Russia, the structural similarities with Scandinavia prevailed. This demonstrated that even in its arguably most divergent Finnish expression, the intrinsic logic of Nordic modernization took its course. Henrik Stenius, in turn, sees the origins of the Nordic model in the Reformation, which resulted in the unity of spiritual and secular power. Moral and legal codes merged, leaving little room for theological or ideological divergence. In regard to Finland’s adherence to this model, Stenius allows for conflicting interpretive approaches. If one views universalism in combination with a strong state as a central feature of Nordic modernity, Finland appears more archetypically Nordic than any other country. If, by contrast, one sees the smooth transition to modernity as an essential feature of Nordic political culture, Finland’s civil war distinctly sets the country apart.

Jóhann Páll Árnason maintains that even though the impulses for Iceland’s modernization came from abroad, the ensuing nation-building process proceeded from a strong historical legacy. While giving serious thought to sociologist Richard Tomasson’s typological inclusion of Iceland among the settler societies of European expansion, Árnason sees Iceland as part of a larger Western European context. He considers neither the patriotic imagery of a national awakening nor its more analytical alternative of intrinsic structural transformations very convincing. Instead, he focuses...