Nordic States Research Articles

A greener shade of black? Statoil, the Norwegian government and climate change,1990—2005

ABSTRACT This article explores the political interplay between Norway’s national oil company Statoil and its government during a period when a truly global debate over climate emerged. The article sheds light on how the climate issue concerned the relationship between a Nordic state and its most important state-controlled enterprise, and exposes how Statoil responded to increasing calls for decarbonization while being privileged in climate policy-making processes. Furthermore, the article explores the origin and shortcomings of the puzzling argument about Norway’s ‘environment-friendly’ oil and gas, and discusses how this argument helped enable Statoil and the rest of the industry to continue with business as usual despite growing social demands for the oil industry to step up its climate efforts.

Nordic Experiences in the UN Human Rights Council: A Tour d’Horizon of 2019 with Iceland and Denmark

ABSTRACT The importance of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) is growing for the Nordic states. Despite the existence of a rotation principle for Nordic representation, in 2019 two Nordic states, Iceland and Denmark, exceptionally both had a seat in the HRC. This article seeks to evaluate that unique situation by taking stock of their respective experiences in the Council, their human rights priorities, as well as Nordic cooperation in general. The aim is to explore similarities and differences between the Nordics, and to inform policymakers about developments within the Council. During a time in which human rights are being challenged worldwide by autocratic states and developments such as COVID-19, it is essential to improve our understanding of what the Nordic countries, as principled supporters of human rights, can bring to the table.

Contextual influence on formal and informal teacher leadership

Using the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey data, this research employed descriptive analysis and multiple logistic regression with the complex survey data analysis approach (resampling with Balanced Repeated Replicate weights), in order to reveal the variations in overall informal and formal teacher leadership, and for different leadership dimensions, respectively, as well as the contextual influence on teacher leadership. The results suggest that there exist significant variations between general informal and formal teacher leadership, and for each of the leadership dimensions internationally. In sum, Eastern and Nordic Europe have a greater extent of teacher leadership, compared to Asia, Latin America, and Latin Europe. There was less prevalent teacher leadership in hiring, setting teacher salary, and budget allocation in general. Formal teacher leaders often make school decisions for disciplinary policy, teacher evaluation, data analysis, and parental communication, while informal teacher leaders frequently decide on instructional content. Female, experienced, and well-educated teachers often make decisions even without positions; schools with increased minority students tend to have a greater extent of teacher leadership, while schools with disproportional poverty students have decreased teacher leadership. Using large-scale and international data, this study has provided nuanced evidence in teacher leadership with the intersection of leadership functions, positions, and contexts.

Nordic Migration Cases before the UN Treaty Bodies: Pathways of International Accountability?

The UN human rights treaty bodies have decided an extensive amount of complaints brought by asylum seekers and immigrants against the Nordic states. This development forms part of a larger shift in international accountability routes that have emerged from the uptake of migrants’ rights claims by human rights courts and treaty bodies. The article examines what this development engenders in both international and national contexts, using the Nordic litigation as a focal point. The first part posits that the litigation has played a significant role in developing international law. It further explains that the significant amount of these cases in the region, but also variance across states, partly comes down to the degree of strategic litigation and the design of national asylum systems. The second part examines what emerges from this oversight, and identifies four factors from which to understand these national contexts: the design of the asylum system; the question of ‘credibility’; existence of parallel jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights; and communicative and functional processes that exist beyond final merits decisions. Overall, attention to the aftermath of these - formally soft law - decisions reveals that they do have quasi-judicial effects in the national contexts.

2020 als Stresstest für die Europäische Union: Herausforderungen in Zeiten der COVID-19-Pandemie

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply shaken the European Union (EU) and exacerbated existing prob- lems. How can the EU gain more autonomy in an ever-changing world order, especially when it comes to international supply chains and health security? To what extent can EU member states reconcile their aspiration to build European sovereignty with their efforts to forge multilateralism? What does European resilience mean and what specific actions does the EU need to take in order to strengthen it? How can the EU’s green goals be achieved in times of the COVID-19 pandemic? In this paper, the authors examine the crisis year 2020 in order to present approaches and solutions to tackle these challenges from the perspective of Germany as well as the Nordic and Baltic states.

Educational Biblical Nationalism and the Project of the Modern Secular State

Biblical Criticism, the historical study of Biblical texts, spread across the Europeanuniversities during the late 19th century, the same period when the European statesmodernized, and identifying state and nation became a political project. The newscientific view on the Bible became in this political reform context a topic of publicdebate: Should the national education systems under construction implementthe modern scientific understanding of the Bible, should school keep teaching theCatechism, or should religious instruction be separated from the school of the nationin order to become a ‘school for all’?Whereas the academic hotbeds of Biblical Criticism were not least the Germanspeakinguniversities and academic institutions in France, the popularization ofBiblical Criticism through education proved more successful in the Nordic states thanin e.g. Prussia and France. The article explores the gradual success of Biblical Criticismeducation reform efforts in the case of Denmark from the late 19th to mid-20th centuryin relation to the development of the state from an absolutist kingdom to a nationstate with constitutional monarchy and parliamentarism, and discusses on this basisthe relation between religion, secularization and educational nation-state crafting.Keywords: Biblical Criticism; Christian modernism; education reform; meso-levelactors; nation-state crafting.

The Rise of Indigenous (Pluri-)Nationalism: The Case of the Sámi People

Indigenous peoples have found the nationalist language of peoples’ inherent right to self-determination helpful in articulating their political demands. Gerald Taiaiake Alfred’s model of indigenous nationalism explains the emergence of this form of indigenous self-assertion as a reaction to settler-colonial incursions. However, it cannot account for the timing of its recent successes in unsettling the status quo of indigenous–settler-state relations. This article addresses this limitation by incorporating Michael Keating’s concept of post-sovereignty, which highlights the supranational plane constraining states’ freedom of action, while providing indigenous peoples with laws and norms above state level to appeal to. Additionally, Keating’s concept of plurinationalism is drawn upon to capture the emerging reconfiguration of indigenous–settler-state relations. This combined conceptual framework is used to illuminate the Sámi people’s relations to the Nordic states as expressive of emergent indigenous nationalism, formed in reaction to settler-colonialism and enabled by international norms, laws and global indigenous peoples’ networks.

European Nordic Countries Stock Market Listed Companies’: Factor and Cluster Analysis Approach

Public financial markets are crucial in the access to the funding and as a platform for investments to the investors in today’s world. Nordic European Union countries such as Sweden, Finland and Denmark are considered to have advanced and well-developed stock markets, while neighboring three Baltic States have rather small stock market. Backbone of the stock market are there listed companies. In this analysis authors attempt to analyze 510 Nordic countries listed companies’ absolute value indicators using factor and cluster analysis and to compare results with similar analysis of the Baltic States. Factor and cluster analysis revealed the homogeneity of Nordic countries stock market listed companies’ absolute values, authors obtained three complex factors, explaining 89% of dispersion within the indicators, which in turn resulted in being able to obtain the portrait of Nordic States stock market listed company. Similar results were obtained for Baltic States listed companies, though on different scale. Authors have not seen as detailed analysis of Nordic Stock market on the level of listed companies financial statement analysis. Time period covered in this research of the financials are from 2004 to 2018. The analysis could be beneficial for other researchers focusing on the Nordic region stock market companies and also to the policy makers in the Baltic States, how the neighboring well-developed countries indicators could be interpreted and obtained results used for the enhancement of Baltic States stock market. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2020-01244 Full Text: PDF

The Nordic Balance Revisited: Differentiation and the Foreign Policy Repertoires of the Nordic States

Nordic governments frequently broadcast their ambition to do more together on the international stage. The five Nordic states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway) also share many basic goals as foreign policy actors, including a steadfast and vocal commitment to safeguarding the ‘rules-based international order.’ Why then, do we not see more organized Nordic foreign policy collaboration, for example in the form of a joint ‘grand strategy’ on core foreign policy issues, or in relation to great powers and international organizations? In this article, we draw on Charles Tilly’s concept of ‘repertoires’ to address the discrepancy between ambitions and developments in Nordic foreign policy cooperation, highlighting how the bundles of policy instruments—repertoires—that each Nordic state has developed over time take on an identity-defining quality. We argue that the Nordic states have invested in and become attached to their foreign policy differences, niches, and ‘brands.’ On the international scene, and especially when interacting with significant other states, they tend not only to stick to what they know how to do and are accustomed to doing but also to promote their national rather than their Nordic profile. While Nordic cooperation forms part of all the five states’ foreign policy repertoire in specific policy areas, these are marginal compared to the distinctive repertoires on which each Nordic state rely in relation to more powerful states. It is therefore unlikely that we will see a ‘common order’ among the Nordic states in the foreign policy domain in the near future.

Going Nordic in European Administrative Networks?

The integration and policymaking of the European Union (EU) are claimed to challenge Nordic cooperation as a separate ‘common order.’ Increasing interdependencies in the EU have forced all EU member states to collaborate and share sovereignty in an increasing number of policy areas. This article studies the coexistence of Nordic cooperation and European integration by taking a network approach. It analyses the extent to which Nordic members of European Administrative Networks ‘go Nordic’ to solve problems or exchange advice, information and best practices. Based on unique survey data on interactions related to the implementation of EU policies in Social Policy, Health and the Internal Market by national governmental organisations across the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA), we use social network analysis to test for distinguishable patterns of Nordic cooperation. We find evidence to suggest that Nordic cooperation in the EU and EEA is best characterised by differentiated integration. The Nordic states tend to form a separate community for problem-solving and exchanging best practices, advice and information in Health and Social policy networks, but less so in SOLVIT, a network related to the Internal Market.

The Arctic mineral resource rush and the ontological struggle for the Viiankiaapa peatland in Sodankylä, Finland

ABSTRACT The Nordic states and the Arctic have recently received increasing attention as a consequence of the rush to excavate newly discovered mineral resources in the Global North. Local land struggles related to the expansion of the extractive industry need to be assessed and constitute the focus of the present article. I examine the deeper levels of conflict between the mineral resource rush and local people. I highlight local people's plural ways of being in relation to the land through an ethnographic exploration of a pivotal mining project in Arctic Finland being resisted by Finns, who live in a pro-mining municipality. These people experience a threat to the continuation of their lifeworlds when large-scale extraction enters their territories. However, achieving legitimacy for their lifeworlds has been difficult. The article suggests that a key reason for this lack of legitimacy is the dominant ‘one' world ontology and its ‘nature’ knowledge practices.

Обеспечение равенства в образовании: анализ опыта Дании, Норвегии, Финляндии и Швеции

This paper is focused on mitigating the challenge of inequality in educational systems of the four Nordic states: Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Alt-hough many other countries invest significantly in education, the Nordic states accommodate lower level of child poverty and smaller scales of such negative social processes as criminality, child preg-nancies, substance abuse, etc. The author summar-ies modern research findings revealing that equal societies with the smallest property gap between the richest and the poorest are safe, healthy, and there-fore competitive. The experience of the Nordic states suggests inter alia that competition between pupils, as a manifestation of inequality, does not benefit anyone. From inequalities, the society suffers as a whole. It can thus be approximated equality in the Nordic states which explains their leading position in international education rankings and the overall high level of social welfare.

Landscape, Geopolitics, and National Identity in the Norwegian Thrillers Occupied and Nobel

Abstract Focusing on the use of landscape in the Norwegian series Occupied (2015–2020) and Nobel (2016), this article examines the ways in which cityscapes and panoramas of the natural environment are employed as affective, as well as aesthetic tools for storytelling within a geopolitically inflected framework. Drawing on literature from popular geopolitics, geocriticism, and visual politics, my analysis interrogates the ways in which geopolitical codes and visions manifest via televisual fiction, reflecting a variety of insecurities associated with Norway's current position in world affairs, as well as contemporary challenges to Norwegian national identity. This article also discusses how these two series have adapted key geovisual elements of the what I deem the “near Nordic Noir” style to focus more explicitly on geopolitical questions, linking Occupied and Nobel to other geopolitically inflected series from Nordic Europe.

Shaping the European School of Intelligence Studies

ABSTRACT Within a generation, intelligence studies have established themselves in continental Europe. Research infrastructure has been created with journals and conferences. The article explores how a European School of Intelligence Studies (ESIS) differs from the traditional British and American research and which scholars constitute ESIS. This work also presents new methodical proposals (e.g. using a quantitative method for selecting material from the existing empirical data sets), following the requirement that intelligence studies should have an interdisciplinary nature. Our argumentation is based on an analysis of the two main conferences, the conference of the International Intelligence History Association (IIHA) and the Need to Know-format (NtK), and it defines the content of the ESIS based on state of the art. European researchers participating in these fora were primary from Germany, Benelux, the Nordic states, and Central- and Eastern Europe. ESIS shows European West-East unity and strong ties to British, American and Israeli research, it also indicates a North-South divide. The Archival Revolution has been defining for the development of the ESIS. The access to documents regarding all areas of intelligence activity, including operational records and personal files of agents, differs from traditional declassification. This way, it is possible in Europe to do empirical research on intelligence operations in a hitherto unseen scale. Furthermore, the ESIS is characterized by substantial interest to counterintelligence and awareness of the differences between intelligence in democracies and authoritarian regimes.

Nordic dog whistles. Analyzing discriminatory discourses in the parlance of the Scandinavian radical right parties

The Nordic states had an active radical right presence long before the economic and refugee crises that swept the shores of the European Union (EU) left in their wake a reinvigorated right-wing contingent. The radical right parties (RRPs) have not only registered various degrees of electoral success, but have also made inroads into the political mainstream. The three defining characteristics that set these parties apart from the more traditional far-right ones are: 1) the repudiation of hardcore extremism; 2) the search for political viability; and 3) the acquisition of mainstream recognition. The present article argues that as these parties compete for legitimacy, they are forced to alter their discriminatory rhetoric by switching tonal registers. One of the political strategies that enables them to put the outright “overt” in the “covert” is the recourse to dog whistle politics. How well can they overcome the stigma associated with their more extreme reflexes depends on a case by case basis. This article examines whether the four most prominent examples of Nordic radicalism (the Danish People’s Party, Finns Party, Sweden Democrats, and Norway’s Progress Party) have integrated dog whistles in their political messaging and tracks how these coded appeals change from one country to another. In analyzing the response to the 2015 refugee crisis, the study finds that to a certain extent, the rhetoric utilized falls into the coded register or at the very least purposefully attempts to veer away from the radical excesses which are marginalizing and self-exclusionary.

The Limits of Change: German Family Policy and the Dynamics of Policy Transfer 2009–2017

German family policy has undergone path shifting reforms departing from the traditional male breadwinner model during the 2000s. These reforms were partially the result of policy transfers from European soft law and the Nordic family model. This contribution analyses which role ‘learning from abroad’ played for the path of German family policy in the years following these reforms and which factors help to explain these dynamics. We find that the relevance and role of policy transfer significantly changed compared to the 2000s: First, policy transfer from both the EU and the Nordic countries lost in importance as a political strategy for German family policy reforms. Second, in the one case of policy transfer from the Nordic states, it was instrumentalised by one of the governing parties to facilitate a shift reversing reform consolidating the old conservative family model. We argue that this change in the dynamics of policy transfer can be traced back to three interdependent explanatory factors: changing actor constellations and motivations of German government coalitions, declining problem pressures due to increasing female labour participation and a higher fertility rate, and a decrease in the transferability of policies from the EU and the Nordic countries. By highlighting the different dynamics and effects of policy transfer for German family policy the paper contributes to the wider theoretical debate about the hybridisation of family policy regimes.

Open data and its peers: understanding promising harbingers from Nordic Europe

PurposeThe peer-to-peer perspective on open data is an interesting topic to research, taking into account that data-driven innovations and related startups are often developed independently by civic and private stakeholders in a highly collaborative manner and are tentatively beginning to directly compete with traditional e-government solutions, providing arguably better services to citizens and businesses. In this regard, the paper aims to further debate on the potential of such independent data-driven collaboration not only to transform the traditional mechanisms of public sector innovations but also provide more democratic ways to ensure greater transparency of government and its responsibility before the society.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a cross-country case study, resorting to the content analysis of three demonstrative cases in the development of open data-driven projects, which specifically promote peer-to-peer communication between its stakeholders. In this regard, the case study itself relies heavily on the analysis of rich empirical data that the author collected during his field studies in the Northern European region in 2015–2017, particularly in Estonia, Finland and Sweden. The practical research itself consists of three major parts, which reflect peer-to-peer perspectives of correspondingly civic, public and private stakeholders through manifested examples of related independent projects in the area.FindingsThe paper's results demonstrate that the use of peer-to-peer mechanisms in advancing related public sector reforms allows to transform the traditional understanding of e-government phenomena in a conceptually new way. E-government or its last more political interpretation – from the perspective of its peers could be regarded not necessarily as a platform to provide digital public services but as a source of raw material for various third party projects in, respectively, civic, government and business peer-to-peer dimensions of such reforms. As a result, open data provides an interesting playground to change the very nature of public sector innovations in the area.Research limitations/implicationsThe choice of countries for research was motivated by purposive and convenience sampling because all these countries are situated in one region, have both similarities and differences in historical, political and socioeconomic backgrounds and, therefore, provide an ideal playground to investigate open data as a context dependable phenomenon. In this regard, the unique political and socioeconomic contexts of these countries provide an interesting playground to debate on the potential of social democracy, egalitarian society and social equality, i.e. public values that are deeply embedded into the fabric of societies there, to benefit the open data movement in a fundamental manner.Practical implicationsThis paper reports on unique practical approaches for peer-to-peer collaboration and cooperation in advancing open data-driven platforms among stakeholders. The results of the case studies in three Nordic countries, which are currently among global leaders in advancing the concept of open government, are presented in an intrinsically illustrative manner, which could help practitioners and policymakers to understand better the potential of such a peer-to-peer perspective on open data. In this regard, the models proposed, of citizen-to-citizen, business-to-business, government-to-government interactions, could be interesting to a wide audience of e-government stakeholders in many nations.Social implicationsThe paper also enters into philosophical debates about societal implications of digital peer-to-peer data-driven communication among people. Recent efforts to digitize almost every part of social life, starting from popularization of solutions for distant work and ending to online access to various public services, incentivize individual members of civil society to communicate in an inherently peer-to-peer way. This fact will definitely increase the demand for related digital services. Social distancing in a digital context will allow to paradoxically emancipate technically savvy and entrepreneurial people in creating new services, including using open data, which could meet the demand.Originality/valueThe research is intrinsically of an empirical character because recent e-government reforms in the public sector in many countries, including in the open data area, provide rich practical knowledge to test the limits of new technologies to advance society in socioeconomic and, more importantly, political development. In this regard, this paper provides the first research in analyzing open data from a unique peer-to-peer perspective with an ultimate goal of the whole investigation to draw the attention of other e-government scholars and initiate debates on the collaborative nature of the phenomena to empower civil society and ensure transparency of government.

Regional Identities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: Being Baltic, Looking North

ABSTRACT The article analyzes ideas about regions in the political language of the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2014–2018. The analysis argues that a dominant trilateral Baltic regional identity is embedded in geopolitical security concerns and Soviet legacies. The Northern European identity emerges as the second most important regional togetherness in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania alike, by combining security concerns, a similarity of values, and an orientation toward a positive role model among the Nordic states. Eastern Europe is viewed as a region the Baltic states do not belong to and Central European images are nearly non-existent.

Reconciliation as a Threat or Structural Change? The Truth and Reconciliation Process and Settler Colonial Policy Making in Finland

The Sámi have long desired a public process to examine and expose the Nordic states’ colonial, assimilationist practices and policies, past and present, toward the Sámi people. This article considers the truth and reconciliation process in Finland, assessing it in light of recent legislative and other measures. Employing settler colonial theory, it argues that reconciliation, although seemingly progressive, signifies a continuation of colonialism unless the state terminates its current approach of overlooking Sámi rights. The article concludes with a discussion of structural reconciliation and justice and considers some concrete measures for structural change in order for the reconciliation process to be valid and successful in Finland.

Legal Vision of Naming in Nordic States: Challenges for Ukraine

In this article, I research on few fundamental issues regarding naming. All Nordic states (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden) apply the traditional name repertoire. Also, they create a catalog of names which is recommended for usage by the competent public authorities during the state registration of the person's birth. Both issues are supposed not to be an obstacle for citizens of the Nordic states to realize/enjoy the right to a name, prescribed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). It is declared in article 7(1) that "the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality...". It is the first step to recognize every newborn as an individual, a human being with rights, duties, and privileges. Without them, children remain invisible both on the national and international levels, and they can not identify with society and the state.
 On the contrary, these issues are fixed at the legislative level, demonstrate a part of the national identity of citizens, while taking into account current trends in the transformation of value perception of the name. Everybody must know himself/herself and how he/she fits into the world, state, community. Everybody must know who he/she is and to whom, what and why they belong, or what they are a part of. For these essential reasons, having a name and nationality are fundamental human rights acquired by everybody after birth. When both rights are honored, children can know themselves and identify with their state of birth/origin.
 Parents, communities, and the state via government and other relevant public bodies should work for and support human rights for every child, provide ethnic and national knowledge and roots for them. Parents name their children and help them to acquire a pure sense of belonging to the family, nation, state, and world. Through this kind of belonging, children become members of the community, society, and country via identification.
 Every citizen born in-country or extra-territory is responsible for the correct application of all-important rules determined by every state. Also, everyone who was born in one country and acquired name and nationality due to its rules and conditions should respect those of a host country while migrating. It is up to every country to formulate on the national level, its own indicators of identity regarding values, traditions, history, and culture. They draft a name catalog to preserve national identity from the erosion; they form it by names which are traditional for the particular nation-state. They adopt such a list of names (allowed or prohibited) by the legislature as an annex to the law/code. They implement rules, conditions, and the exact procedure to register the desired name or to reject it.
 All Nordic countries have some shared vision on name's application: a name should be written following the ordinary rules of state (official) language orthography, it must not be foreign to the naming tradition of a particular country; it must indicate gender (not unisex or used by another sex bearer); it cannot be a surname except a patronymic as last given name; it shall not be approved if it can cause offense or can be supposed to cause discomfort for the one using it, etc. The same naming practice should be adopted and used in Ukraine.