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Nordic Cooperation and High Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Nils Ørvik
Nils Ørvik
Affiliation:
Nils Ørvik is a professor of international politics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
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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.

Type
Review Essay
Information
International Organization , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 1974 , pp. 61 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1974

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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.

6 Bonsdorff, Göran von, “Regional Cooperation in the Nordic Countries,” Cooperation and Conflict, 1 (1965), 32–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Törnudd, Klaus, “Finland Economic Integration in Europe,” Cooperation and Conflict, 4 (1969), 63–72,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Dimensions of Unification and Integration,” Cooperation and Conflict, II (1966), 94–101.Google Scholar

8 Wendt; Bjøl, Erling, “The Power of the Weak,” Cooperation and Conflict, 3 (1968), 157–68,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Atomvaabnene og fremtiden (Copenhagen: Udenrigspoli-tiske selskab, 1963).Google Scholar See also Munch, Peter, Norden og Folkenes Forbund (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1935).Google Scholar The most pertinent analyses of the Danish case are probably still Fink, Troels, Fern Foredrag om Dansk Udenriks politik After 1894 (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1958),Google ScholarUstabil Balance: Dansk Forsvar despolitik 1894–1905 (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1961),Google Scholar and Spillet om Dansk Neutralitet 1905–1909 (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1959).Google Scholar For other versions, see: Keilhau, Vilhelm, Det Norske Folks Liv og Historie (Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co., 1938)Google Scholar; Bjøl, Erling, Denmark og NATO (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1938).Google Scholar

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11 Andrén, Nils, “Nordic Integration—Aspects and Problems,” Cooperation and Conflict, 2 (1967), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also his Government and Politics in the Nordic Countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1964).Google Scholar

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14 As readily admitted by most observers, even the consultation mechanisms tend to malfunction when national actors see their interest better served by acting unilaterally. Consultation has a threshold value, determined in each case by a rational cost-benefit analysis. Andrén, , Cooperation and Conflict, 2 (1967), pp. 10–14, 22.Google Scholar

15 Apart from Nils Andrén, most other indigenous writers on Nordic cooperation either have pursued a particular national line of argumentation, followed the general trend of the cobweb theory, or tried other adaptations of a step-by-step neo-functionalist approach.

16 Those in the latter group are mostly younger people who have used the Nordic area as a data bank and laboratory for their doctoral dissertations. This group includes Barbara Haskel, Matthew Bonham, George Dawson, etc.

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20 Christian Stephansen Oftedal, Storpolitikk Pa Naert Hold; Om Fred Og Ufred i FN (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1953).Google Scholar

21 See Haskel's, Barbara pertinent review, “Is there an Unseen Spider?,” Cooperation and Conflict, 2 (1967), 229–34,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Andren's, Nils “A Note on a Note” in the same issue (pp. 235–37).Google Scholar

22 Etzioni, p. 220ff.

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24 Whether one sticks to the twelve conditions suggested by Deutsch or to the nine offered by Ernst Haas and Philippe Schmitter is not essential in this context. Haas, Ernst B. and Schmitter, Philippe, “Economics and Differential Patterns of Political Integration: Projections About Unity in Latin America,” International Organization, 18, 4 (Autumn, 1964), 705–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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29 See my “Integration—For Whom, Against Whom?,” Cooperation and Conflict, II (1967), p. 58.Google Scholar

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31 Deutsch, et al. contained in International Political Communities: An Anthology, P. 11. Joseph S. Nye mentions that fresh evidence shows that in 1939 Britain planned seriously for an invasion of Ireland. Nye, Joseph S., Peace in Parts (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971), p. 48.Google Scholar

32 Skeie, Jon, Gronlandsaken (Oslo: Fabritius & Sønner, 1931),Google Scholar and Politikere Og Diplomater i Grønlandsaken (Oslo: Nikolai Olsens Boktr, 1933).Google Scholar

33 It should be added that the unilateral disarmament policy that both countries practiced in the early thirties would have made an attempt to stage military operations exceedingly embarrassing. Shown in detail in my Sikkerhets politikken 1920–1939, Vol. I: Vern eller Vakt? (Oslo: Tanum, 1960).Google Scholar

34 Jarlsberg, P. Wedel, Reisen Gjennem Livet (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1932)Google Scholar; Lind-gren, Norway-Sweden.

35 Rintala, Marvin, Three Generations: The Extreme Right Wing in Finnish Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

36 These preparations, paralleled in other European countries at that time, never got very far, but there can be little doubt that the intentions were serious. See my Sikkerhets politikken 1920–1939, Vol. I: Vera eller Vakt?, pp. 105–34.

37 Jutikkala, Eino, A History of Finland (New York: Praeger, 1962).Google Scholar

38 For an interesting attempt to apply an actor approach to continental Europe, see Saeter, Martin, Det politiske Europa (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1971).Google Scholar

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40 See Nye's, Joseph S. discussion of the background conditions in “Patterns and Catalysts in Regional Integration,” in Nye, Joseph S. (ed.), International Regionalism (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1968), pp. 333–49.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 345.

42 Haas, Ernst B., “The Uniting of Europe and the Uniting of Latin America,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 5, 4 (1967), 327–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Stanley Hoffmann dealt with the high politics concept some years earlier, linking it to Grosspolitik, in a Gaullist version; see Hoffmann, Stanley, “Discord in Community: The North Atlantic Areas as a Partial International System,” in The Atlantic Community, eds. Wilcox, Francis O. and Haviland, H. Field (New York: Praeger, 1963), p. 13Google Scholar; Hoffmann also refers to it in “The European Process at Atlantic Crossroads,” Journal of Common Market Studies (1964–1965), 89.Google Scholar

43 Wendt, pp. 104–6.

44 These two basic concepts are discussed in more detail in my Fears and Expectations: Norwegian Attitudes to European Integration (Oslo: Universitets-forlaget, 1972), pp. 30–38.Google Scholar

45 The only major exception was 1948–49, when a Scandinavian defense pact was seen as preferable to a North Atlantic one—provided Sweden would accept a bilateral arrangement.

46 National versions and explanations can be found in Lönnroth, Erik, Den Svenska Utrikes politikens Historia, 1919–1939 (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1959)Google Scholar; and in my Sikkerhets politikken 1920–1939, Vol. I: Vern eller Vakt? For a discussion of the Nordic states and the League of Nations, see also Bourne, K. and Watt, D. C. (eds.), Studies in International History (London: Longmans, 1967), passim.Google Scholar

47 See Stanley Anderson's observations of Sweden's front row position in the Nordic Council, in Anderson, pp. 62–75.

48 Deutsch, , et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, pp. 137–39.Google Scholar

49 Haas, Ernst B., “Challenge to Regionalism,” in Hoffmann, Stanley (ed.), Contemporary Theory in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960), pp. 228–30. Etzioni, p. 221.Google Scholar

50 Nye, , Peace in Parts, pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

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).