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Nordic Cooperation and High Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
Extract
The 1972 decision of the Norwegian people to reject admission to the European Community has raised some fresh questions about the Nordic countries and Nordic integration. Was the Norwegian decision a protest vote on mainly domestic grounds? Or was it a rejection of the whole structure, system, and ideology of the European Community—as having grown too bureaucratic, too self-centered, and too concerned about economic gains and trade and growth rates rather than about human values? Yet, if the Community was no longer an attractive alternative, what were Norway's other alternatives? The ocean-oriented, outgoing Norwegians could hardly have turned isolationists. Should we read the Norwegian referendum as a “yes” to Nordic cooperation rather than as a “no” to continental Europe? Whatever tipped the scales in Norway's 1972 referendum, the so-called Nordic alternative seems bound to become more prominent in Scandinavia, since Norway has reached a Swedish-modelled trade agreement with the European Community as a substitute for membership.
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- Copyright © The IO Foundation 1974
References
1 The September 1972 referendum showed 53 percent against membership and 47 percent for membership.
2 The term Nordic includes all five countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) whereas Scandinavian usually refers only to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Iceland plays a marginal role, partly because of its size and location, partly because it did not gain independence from Denmark until 1944, and will not be considered here.
3 Since history remains a living force in Scandinavia, it ought to be mentioned that the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were united for a short period under Danish leadership in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the so-called Kalmar Union.
4 There are now a number of sources that bear directly on the Nordic Council. It also issues some very useful publications, such as Nordisk Kontakt, Nordisk Utredningsserie, and The Yearbook of Nordic Statistics.
5 Wendt, Frantz, The Nordic Council and Cooperation in Scandinavia (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1959).Google Scholar All references to Scandinavian literature used in this review essay were checked for accuracy where possible.
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51 The concept of Nordic core areas within a triangular power relationship is discussed further in my Fears and Expectations, pp. 23–30.
52 The best illustration of this special relationship is still found in the books and articles by Troels Fink, cited in footnote 8.
53 See my “Norwegian Foreign Policy: The Impact of Special Relationships,” in The Other Powers: Studies in the Foreign Policies of Small States, ed. Barston, Ronald P. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1973), pp. 29–60.Google Scholar
54 While in September 1972 the Gallup polls showed 53 percent against Norway's membership, the following four months showed 55, 52, 53, 56 percent in favor of membership (Ukens Nytt, February 19, 1973). See special issue of Internasjonal Politikk, No. 4B, 1972.
55 See my “Scandinavian Security in Transition: The Two-Dimensional Threat,” Orbis, XVI, 3 (Fall, 1972), 720–42.Google Scholar
56 A recent case was the turmoil over a premature Swedish initiative on joint marriage legislation (Ukens Nytt, February 14, 1973).
57 See my article, “Integration—For Whom, Against Whom?,” and Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, “Integrational Interdependence and Integration,” in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds.), The Handbook of Political Science (forthcoming).
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