Scandinavian politics today SPT.indb 1 26/07/2008 13:43:05 Politics Today Series editor: Bill Jones Ideology and politics in Britain today Ian Adams Political ideology today, 2nd edition Ian Adams Scandinavian politics today, 2nd edition David Arter American society today Edward Ashbee US politics today, 2nd edition Edward Ashbee French politics today, new edition David S. Bell Local government today, 3rd edition J. A. Chandler Irish politics today, 4th edition Neil Collins and Terry Cradden Political issues in Ireland today, 3rd edition Neil Collins and Terry Cradden (editors) US elections today (Elections USA, 2nd edition) Philip John Davies Political issues in America today Philip John Davies and Fredric A. Waldstein (editors) Devolution in Britain today, 2nd edition Russell Deacon Spanish politics today John Gibbons The Politics Today companion to American government Alan Grant and Edward Ashbee European politics today, 2nd edition Patricia Hogwood and Geoffrey K. Roberts Dictionary of British politics Bill Jones Political issues today, 5th edition Bill Jones (editor) British politics today, 7th edition Bill Jones and Dennis Kavanagh Political issues in the world today Don MacIver Italian politics today Hilary Partridge The Politics Today companion to the British Constitution Colin Pilkington German politics today Geoffrey Roberts The Politics Today companion to West European politics Geoffrey K. Roberts and Patricia Hogwood Debates in British politics today Lynton Robins and Bill Jones (editors) Parliament today Michael Rush Russian politics today Michael Waller Britain in the European Union today, 3rd edition Duncan Watts and Colin Pilkington SPT.indb 2 26/07/2008 13:43:05 Scandinavian politics today Second edition David Arter Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan SPT.indb 3 26/07/2008 13:43:05 Copyright © David Arter 1999, 2008 The right of David Arter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition published 1999 by Manchester University Press This edition published 2008 by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 0 7190 7853 8 paperback This edition first published 2008 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow SPT.indb 4 26/07/2008 13:43:05 Contents List of tables page vii Preface ix List of abbreviations xi Part I: Scandinavia past and present 1 The eight quills of the swan 3 2 Nation-building and state-building, 1809–1944 25 Part II: Parties in developmental perspective 3 The emergence of the Scandinavian party system(s) 51 4 The historic strengths of the five main types of party 72 Part III: Parties, voters and social change: w(h)ither the Scandinavian party system model? 5 The ‘earthquake elections’ of 1970–73 and the emergence of new party types 101 6 Party system change since 1970 133 Part IV: The Nordic model 7 A Nordic model of government? 151 8 The Nordic welfare model 170 Part V: Legislative–executive relations in the Nordic region 9 The Nordic parliaments: an alternative model? 193 10 ‘Fairly strong standing committees’ and ‘influential party groups’ – a distinctively Nordic mix? 209 11 Nordic government(s): parliamentary, presidential or prime ministerial? 229 SPT.indb 5 26/07/2008 13:43:05 vi Contents Part VI: The strategic security environment 12 The changing security environment of the Nordic region: from Cold War ‘security threats’ to the ‘security challenges’ of today 259 13 ‘Reluctant Nordics’, ‘reluctant Europeans’, but ‘moral superpowers’? 297 Epilogue 340 Index 344 SPT.indb 6 26/07/2008 13:43:05 Tables 1.1 The population size and density of the Nordic states in 2007 page 5 1.2 Total civilian employment in the Nordic states by major economic sectors in 2005 6 1.3 The composition of the Nordic Council in 2007 9 1.4 The Sámi parliaments in Norden 11 1.5 Finnish as the ‘odd one out’ 12 2.1 Nation-building and state-building in Norden, 1809–1922: a chronology of events 28 3.1 Party support at the 1985 Swedish general election 57 3.2 Elections to the Swedish Riksdag’s Second Chamber, 1944–68 60 3.3 Elections to the Danish Folketing, 1945–68 62 3.4 The Finland Swede population as a percentage of the total Finnish population, 1880–2003 64 3.5 Elections to the Finnish Eduskunta, 1945–66 65 3.6 Elections to the Norwegian Storting, 1945–69 67 3.7 Elections to the Icelandic Alþingi, 1942–67 68 4.1 The average percentage poll of the mainland Nordic Social Democratic/Labour parties, 1920–2007 73 4.2 The average Agrarian Party poll in the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish general elections, 1919–62 79 4.3 The average communist/‘old left’ poll in Nordic general elections since 1919 82 4.4 The average vote for the Conservative and Liberal parties in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, 1919–2007 91 4.5 Percentage class composition of support for the Norwegian parties in 1957 93 4.6 Percentage class composition of support for the Finnish parties in 1948 and 1966 94 4.7 Percentage class composition of support for the Swedish Social Democrats in 1964 95 SPT.indb 7 26/07/2008 13:43:05 viii List of tables 5.1 The proportion of party switchers in Sweden, 1988–2006 103 5.2 The proportion of party switchers in Norway, 1981–2005 104 5.3 The proportion of party switchers in Denmark, 1981–2005 104 5.4 The Nordic eco-socialist parties 108 5.5 Classification of the new Scandinavian radical right 116 5.6 Nordic Green parties 120 5.7 Nordic Christian parties 124 6.1 The average of the effective number of electoral parties in the five Nordic states in the pre- and post-1970 periods 134 6.2 Vote share of the ‘pole parties’, Liberals and Communists and ‘others’ in general elections in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, 1945–2007 136 8.1 Participation in the labour force in the Nordic countries, by gender, 2007 182 8.2 Female representation in the Nordic parliaments, 2007 184 8.3 Female ministers in Nordic governments, 2007 184 8.4 Female representation on company boards in Scandinavia 185 11.1 Minority governments in the metropolitan Scandinavian states, 1970/71–2007 231 11.2 Icelandic presidents since 1944 239 11.3 Finnish presidents since 1919 242 11.4 Swedish prime ministers since 1945 246 11.5 Danish prime ministers since 1945 247 11.6 Finnish prime ministers since 1946 248 11.7 Norwegian prime ministers since 1945 249 11.8 Icelandic prime ministers since 1944 250 13.1 The main landmarks of Nordic regional co-operation during the Cold War 299 13.2 Scandinavia and European integration 1945–2007: a chronology of events 318 13.3 Danish referenda on Europe 327 SPT.indb 8 26/07/2008 13:43:06 Preface When Bill Jones approached me to revise Scandinavian Politics Today for a second edition, my hope (very quickly dashed!) was that ‘cosmetic surgery’ might suffice, simply dotting the ‘i’s here and crossing the ‘t’s there, so to speak. In the event, this second edition represents a complete rewrite – major surgery, if you will – and only chapter 2, ‘Nation-building and state-building’, has survived relatively unscathed. This is because if a week is a long time in politics, à la Harold Wilson, the eight-year period since Scandinavian Politics Today first came out is a veritable eternity in the life of a textbook, particularly when so much has changed. For example, when Finland adopted a new consti- tution in 2000, which, in significantly reducing the formal powers of the head of state, meant it could no longer be described as a case of ‘semi-presidential government’, it was obvious that chapter 11 would need substantial revision. Equally, the analysis of the strength of Scandinavian social democracy would need some recasting given that in 2000 there were Social Democratic/Labour prime ministers in all the Nordic states except Iceland, whereas seven years later this was true only in Norway. Indeed, in both Denmark and Finland the Social Democrats are no longer the largest party and, at the November 2007 general election, the Danish party polled its worst result since 1906. Account would also have to be taken in the ‘international relations’ chapters (part VI) of the implications for the special US–Icelandic relationship of the departure of American forces from the military base at Keflavík in 2006, the Danes’ and Swedes’ rejection of the euro in referenda in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and the radical transformation of the security environment of northern Europe subsequent to the Baltic states’ membership of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the European Union. Then there were the international ramifications for Denmark of the Muhammad cartoon episode in 2006 and the possible damage caused to the Finns’ reputation abroad following the Jokela school massacre in November 2007. The statistic that appeared widely in the global media coverage of the event hardly painted a glowing picture of Finnish SPT.indb 9 26/07/2008 13:43:06