Nordic and World Economic-Political Cooperation: Competition, Adaptation or Participation?

Abstract

The world economic-political system seems to be in a process of structural change. To some observers these developments are producing an increasing need for an expanded Nordic cooperation in the area of trade and international economic affairs. One manifestation of this has been the calls for the establishment of a true home market for Scandinavian exporting firms. The desirable, or predicted, future changes in forms and contents of Nordic cooperation should, however, not be considered in isolation. They have to be systematically inter-related to the modifications which are expected to occur in the systems for economic-political cooperation in Western Europe, as well as at the global level, in which Scandinavian countries participate: the EC, EFTA, OECD, GATT, etc. This comprehensive perspective is all the more important because institutionalized economic-political cooperation seems to have entered into a process of structural reform with possible far-reaching consequences. In order to pave the way for a strategic and comprehensive cost/benefit evaluation of Nordic cooperation in the future, a tentative model has been developed for the definition and assessment of the various types of relationships that may exist between Nordic cooperation and other forms of inter-related systems for economic-political collaboration. This "linkage analysis" is undertaken within two contexts: First, a number of theoretical propositions concerning the "anatomy" of institutionalized economic-political cooperation. Secondly, for the sake of empirical illustration, a concrete case: the demand for international cooperation pertaining to the formulation and conduct of Swedish trade policy.