Three Nordic Power Investigations on the Repercussions of the European Union on Sovereignty and Democracy

Abstract

Public inquiries into the state of democracy and power were undertaken in three Scandinavian states—Norway, Denmark and Sweden—on the threshold of the twenty-first century. The parliamentary directives identified globalization and, above all, the effects of European integration as the main challenges to popular rule in these three small democracies. The Scandinavian power investigations arrived at different conclusions about the impact of European integration on national sovereignty and on the distribution of power in the respective societies, and each country saw their problem differently. The Swedish report acknowledged minor difficulty with regard to the distribution of power; the Norwegian investigation concluded on a bleak note; whereas the Danish conclusion was affirmative and was self-conscious of being a European role model. The article attributes national differences to different normative conceptions of sovereignty and to the historical and institutional character of the three states' relationship with the EU.