Going Nordic—Can the Nordic model tackle grand challenges and be a beacon to follow?

Abstract

Nordic countries are known for having extensive welfare services, a highly compressed wage structure owing to strong social partners, as well as effective regulation and governance in public administration. Various typologies capture aspects of the institutional features of families of nations across various policy areas, showing that there is a specific Nordic variant of political economy. While there is an extensive literature focusing on socio‐economic outcomes in the Nordic countries, there is less scholarly focus on the linkages between the regulatory processes, and their policy output, in response to various challenges. This volume examines how exogenous challenges (market liberalization promoted by EU integration and the gig economy, as well as the COVID‐19 pandemic) and endogenous challenges in the welfare state (regulation of child‐care quality and retirement ages) are tackled in a selection of Nordic countries. After a bibliometric analysis on the state of the literature, features of the Nordic model are presented. Then, the contributions of the articles to the special issue are summarized, after which lessons for other models of political economy are pinpointed. We find that although there is high variation within the Nordics in the studies of the special issue, there is a trend whereby, over time, a broader range of actors involved in the policy and regulatory process. Although not perfect, challenges are solved incrementally and often at an early stage. In other words, the Nordic regulatory model is highly adaptable to different challenges. Thus, the Nordic model does present crucial lessons for other types of political economy.

Special Issue Introduction: Boundary Spanning in the Age of Collaborative Governance – Insights From Nordic Local Governments

“…Overall, the contributions in this special issue remind us that coordination and boundary spanning are not straight forward in practice, as also suggested by our initial impressions of the research from a Nordic context (see, e.g., Hovik and Stigen 2023). Thus, reality may often fall short of the promises and ideas proposed in the literature as, for example, demonstrated by the multiple voices forwarded by Hoppe et al (2024) in this special issue-even in a celebrated region as the Nordic countries (De la Porte et al 2023b). In this light, careful consideration is essential before undertaking boundary-spanning work, engaging in co-production, or implementing collaborative governance and network mechanisms for achieving grander reform objectives.…”

“…De la Porte et al (2023b) ask whether the model of the Nordic countries, as a "celebrated region" due to their unique and historically well-performing institutional, regulatory, and governance features, can come to grips with the grand contemporary challenges and serve as a beacon for other countries to follow. De la Porte et al (2023b) note that the key features that enable Nordic countries to deal with wicked issues include an inclusive governance style with widespread stakeholder involvement and a versatility and willingness to try out new solutions in how challenges are tackled. The literature on comparative public administration provides further details that shed light on the features of the Nordic administrative profile (Kuhlmann and Wollmann 2019).…”

The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid‐19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments

“…Sweden is also closest to the network‐based approach, although it must be considered loosely coupled with relatively autonomous units, where decisions are made through negotiation and not consensus. When observing cross‐country variation in governance arrangements, it is important to emphasize that all Nordic countries gave priority to networks and consensus in decisionmaking during the pandemic, which is in line with the Nordic model (de la Porte et al 2022 ). Hence, the variation we observe is a question of degree between the Nordic countries, which cannot be extended per se beyond the region, and none of them conforms completely to the model of hierarchical command and control.…”

“…Cross‐country comparisons are key to study variation in crisis responses. The focus on Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden is highly empirically relevant because the “Nordic model” is praised internationally for its performance in terms of government quality (de la Porte et al, 2022 ; Rothstein, 1998 ). Therefore, it is interesting to examine how it performs under circumstances of extreme stress.…”

Regulating the retirement age—Lessons from Nordic pension policy approaches

“…The four Nordic countries have a lot in common. They have extensive welfare states, highly unionized labor markets regulated by collective agreements, and high employment rates for both genders (see De la Porte et al 2022, this issue). In old age security their performances have until recently all been characterized by relatively low rates of at‐risk‐of‐poverty and good replacement rates.…”