The Nordic Model on the Global Market of Ideas: The Welfare State as Scandinavia’s Best Brand

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the contemporary deployment of the Nordic welfare state model as a centrepiece of Nordic competitive identity and strategic communication on the global market of ideas. First, it looks at the interrelated phenomena of global competition, competitive identity and region branding. Second, it studies the interplay between Nordic transnational public diplomacy and national public diplomacy of individual Nordic countries, in particular Sweden, on the one hand and international media outlets’ reporting on the Nordic countries on the other. In analysing this cross-fertilizing genre, the article identifies how the welfare state is being repackaged for export along with a set of “progressive values” which are coded as specifically “Nordic.” The article discusses (1) the interaction between outer images and inner visions; (2) the place and significance of the Nordic model, progressive values and the welfare state in today’s Nordic branding; and (3) the possible function of outward competitive identity as a kind of “compensatory imagination” directed inward as well as outward.