The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images


Book Description

This critical and empirically based volume examines the multiple existing Nordic models, providing analytically innovative attention to the multitude of circulating ideas, images and experiences referred to as "Nordic". It addresses related paradoxes as well as patterns of circulation, claims about the exceptionality of Nordic models, and the diffusion and impact of Nordic experiences and ideas. Providing original case studies, the book further examines how the Nordic models have been constructed, transformed and circulated in time and in space. It investigates the actors and channels that have been involved in circulating models: journalists and media, bureaucrats and policy-makers, international organizations, national politicians and institutions, scholars, public diplomats and analyses where and why models have travelled. Finally, the book shows that Nordic models, perspectives, or ideas do not always originate in the Nordic region, nor do they always develop as deliberate efforts to promote Nordic interests. This book will be of key interest to Nordic and Scandinavian studies, European studies, and more broadly to history, sociology, political science, marketing, social policy, organizational theory and public management. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.




Gender Equality and Nation Branding in the Nordic Region


Book Description

This book explores how gender equality, a central part of the Nordic imaginary, is used in the political communication of Nordic states. The analyses presented move beyond conventional images and discourses of Nordic gender- and women-friendliness by critically investigating how and to what extent gender equality serves nation-branding in the Nordic region. Nation-branding is an unescapable part of globalisation, which is a market-oriented process dominated by the West and predicated on the creation of winners and losers. Hence, efforts to strengthen the national brand or reputation of specific Nordic countries with the aid of gender equality as a political and symbolic value inevitably help to reinforce already established global hierarchies where the Nordics play the role of moral superpower. This book comprises scholars from various fields of specialisation, and provides evidence and understanding for the growing interaction between gender-equality policies and nation-branding in all five Nordic countries. It does so by exploring a variety of policy fields and issues including women’s rights, foreign policy, rape and legislation, female quotas and business policies, in addition to the index industry. The rise of the global indexes has reproduced forceful images of the Nordic countries as frontrunners of gender equality, which indeed help the Nordic countries to further position themselves as ‘best at being good’. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Nordic gender equality in political science, sociology, law, criminology, political psychology and history, as well as those interested in nation branding, Nordic studies and exceptionalism. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003017134, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.




The Media Welfare State


Book Description

The Media Welfare State: Nordic Media in the Digital Era comprehensively addresses the central dynamics of the digitalization of the media industry in the Nordic countries—Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland—and the ways media organizations there are transforming to address the new digital environment. Taking a comparative approach, the authors provide an overview of media institutions, content, use, and policy throughout the region, focusing on the impact of information and communication technology/internet and digitalization on the Nordic media sector. Illustrating the shifting media landscape the authors draw on a wide range of cases, including developments in the press, television, the public service media institutions, and telecommunication.




The Democratic Challenge to Capitalism


Book Description

The book examines how industrial leaders met the challenge from the democratic movements and how this affected democratisation processes and management models in the Nordic region.




A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950


Book Description

A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950 is the first publication to deal with the avant-garde in the Nordic countries in this period. The essays cover a wide range of avant-garde manifestations: literature, visual arts, theatre, architecture and design, film, radio, body culture and magazines. It is the first major historical work to consider the Nordic avant-garde in a transnational perspective that includes all the arts and to discuss the role of the avant-garde not only within the aesthetic field but in a broader cultural and political context: the pre-war and wartime responses to international developments, the new cultural institutions, sexual politics, the impact of refugees and the new start after the war.




Critical Studies of Gender Equalities


Book Description

There is an increasing awareness that gender equality is not something that just "is" in unproblematic and natural ways, but that it may be understood and packaged in several ways, with quite different consequences. It therefore makes good sense to ask, with the authors in this book, how gender equality is understood and practised in the Nordic countries, with their avowedly good record on gender equality measures. It makes especially good sense to look closely at the consequences and difficulties that arise out of the many-faceted meanings attached to "gender" and "equality" in politics and policies, as well as in daily life. In this book, eleven Nordic scholars offer critical analyses of current dislocations, dilemmas and contradictions in the field of Nordic gender equality. They have studied issues to do with constructing state and nation, regulating political practices and producing gendered subjectivities. The authors are affiliated with universities in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and united in seeing the need for a critical scholarly stance on Nordic gender equality policies and practices.




Introduction to Nordic Cultures


Book Description

Introduction to Nordic Cultures is an innovative, interdisciplinary introduction to Nordic history, cultures and societies from medieval times to today. The textbook spans the whole Nordic region, covering historical periods from the Viking Age to modern society, and engages with a range of subjects: from runic inscriptions on iron rings and stone monuments, via eighteenth-century scientists, Ibsen’s dramas and turn-of-the-century travel, to twentieth-century health films and the welfare state, nature ideology, Greenlandic literature, Nordic Noir, migration, ‘new’ Scandinavians, and stereotypes of the Nordic. The chapters provide fundamental knowledge and insights into the history and structures of Nordic societies, while constructing critical analyses around specific case studies that help build an informed picture of how societies grow and of the interplay between history, politics, culture, geography and people. Introduction to Nordic Cultures is a tool for understanding issues related to the Nordic region as a whole, offering the reader engaging and stimulating ways of discovering a variety of cultural expressions, historical developments and local preoccupations. The textbook is a valuable resource for undergraduate students of Scandinavian and Nordic studies, as well as students of European history, culture, literature and linguistics.




Nordic Civic Society Organisations and the Future of Welfare Services


Book Description

When well functioning national welfare states are put under pressure, also the tasks of civic society and citizens' mutual responsibility are being re-defined. Hence, the significance of the civic society organisations in one of the most successful and stable circumstances of welfare states - in Northern Europe - is of great interest. This publication gives a first comprehensive overview of existing research on civic society organisations in the area of welfare services in the five Nordic countries. Besides a comparative Nordic analysis, focussed national contributions are provided. Finally, leading European researchers connect the Nordic debate in to a stimulating European context. How far are the Nordic welfare traditions still of significance, since all welfare states are similarly challenged by the global market economy? Can welfare organisations provide opportunities even for the most vulnerable groups to achieve full citizenship?







The Nordic Model of Social Democracy


Book Description

Social Democracy has long been prominent in Nordic politics through the dominant parties and ideological hegemony of the centre-left. This book explores the growth of social democracy and the policy dilemmas that social democrats face today. It breaks new ground by relating recent literature on social democracy in Europe to Scandinavia.