Das Zeitalter der Sozialdemokratie. Schweden und Norwegen im 20. Jahrhundert

The article gives an account of the main ideas of the author’s book containing a comparative analysis of the development of social democracy in Sweden and Norway in the 20th century. The social democratic order is seen as an order in its own right, which is something between a communist and a capitalist order. Emphasis is laid on the development of social integration, industry, welfare and democracy. The latter follows from the rejection of the totalitarian threats from both left and right. Around 1960 social democracy reaches its “happy moment”. A period of criticism follows in which the old ideal of “equality” is replaced by the ideal of “freedom” and that of “unity” by “variety”. The sense of having found the road to a better future fades along with some of the characteristic traits of social democracy

Nordische Wirtschaftszusammenarbeit: Ein unerfüllbarer Traum?

Scandinavian economic cooperation, as Nordic cooperation in general, is traditionally characterized by failures in every attempt to carry out far-reaching cooperation schemes. The breakdown of Swedish-Norwegian negotiations on merging the two countries’ telecommunication companies Telia and Telenor is a recent example, as has been the failure in establishing Volvo as a common Swedish-Norwegian enterprise in the late 1970s. Nonetheless, following each of these failures incremental progress could be made in practical cooperation adding up to a quite considerable amount. It seems that Nordic cooperation is hampered by a direct but still unresolved relationship between the national identities on the one hand and a common Scandinavian/Nordic identity on the other, where strong nationalist commitment and feelings of inferiority among each other tend to bloc some of the most promising opportunities for integration

On Keeping Promises

A collection of articles based on three lectures given at a seminar arranged by Norges Bank and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The articles were published in Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift 1/2009 (in Norwegian) under the heading “Symposion: On keeping promises”. Only minor revisions have been made in the English translation. A seminar entitled “On keeping promises” was hosted by Norges Bank and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters on 11 November 2008. In modern political science, this topic has been analysed as the “Odysseus motive” in Jon Elster’s seminal work Ulysses and the Sirens (1979): Odysseus let himself be bound to the mast to prevent him from being seduced by the song of the sirens. Elster’s theory has inspired Francis Sejersted in his interpretation of the Norwegian state as a constitutional democracy, with predictability as an essential element. In his introduction, Deputy Governor Jan F. Qvigstad discusses the dilemmas facing monetary policy from the same perspective. Qvigstad’s lecture and commentaries by Endre Stavang and Henrik Syse are included here, followed by Francis Sejersted’s concluding remarks on the dilemmas of binding