Conclusion: The End of Scandinavian Exceptionalism?

Abstract

Even though Norway was once described as a ‘distant democracy’ (Martinussen 1977) when held up against participatory democratic ideals, it is probably no exaggeration to speak of the Scandinavian democracies at that time as coming close to ‘ideal democracies’ if we take comparative analyses of democratic systems in the real world as our standard of evaluation. The Scandinavian countries have been stable democracies with consensual politics and social peace, and they have been affluent countries characterized by strong egalitarianism embodied in generous welfare states (heralded as the ‘Scandinavian welfare model’). And if we use comparative figures as standard, the Scandinavian countries could also qualify as ‘participatory’ democracies in the sense that social and political participation has been high and quite evenly distributed between major social groups — in particular, due to the high mobilization of people with few socioeconomic resources in political parties, in trade unions and farmers’ associations, and in elections.