Social Democratic Internationalism and the Welfare State After the ‘Golden Age’

Abstract

The ‘Nordic model’ is often seen to exist in political economy, where, according to many commentators, the main components of the model have been the universal welfare state, centralized wage-bargaining structures and high level of taxation. However, the argument in this article is that the ‘Nordic model’ should be seen as a broader concept, ranging from social and economic policy to foreign and security policy. In addition, the central claim here is that the socio-political history of that model is crucially important in providing understanding of the linkages in ideational inspiration across these different policy sectors. The ‘Nordic normative legacy’ and the experience of nation- and state-building and construction of national identity were important in the construction of the welfare state. However, the ‘Nordic model’ was traditionally based on a form of ‘welfare state nationalism’ that is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain in the ‘global age’. The main problem comes from confronting the challenges of multiculturalism. It is one of the central arguments here that the decline of Nordic internationalism and the ‘crisis’ of the welfare state are inherently linked. The ‘Nordic model’ is not well equipped to deal with the blurring of the boundaries between internal and external—domestic and foreign. However, as Nordicity and its social foundations are still largely intact, the task now is to rejuvenate the ‘Nordic model’ and move away from welfare state nationalism towards a more inclusive concept of welfare state internationalism.