Criminal
01-02-2005, 08:22 PM
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/gemenskap/inhalt/publikationen/arbeitspapiere/ahe_17.html
Denmark Versus Sweden as a Typical Example of the Scandinavian Progressiveness
The powerful influence of American scholars after World War Two resulted in generalisation of typologies, e.g. they launched the Anglo-American model playing down the differences between Britain and the United States. Consequently, such an attitude also led to simplification and categorisation of Scandinavia. The Scandinavian/Swedish model, which as a term started entering the political and social science vocabulary by the end of the 1960s(22), without much consideration was earlier often placed together in one basket with the Benelux states. It is easier to understand why this happened if one keeps in mind that from American perspective it was rather Western Europe on the whole that presented a more tangible analytical unit. In this respect, Scandinavia, with its small and homogeneous population, and with territory lying at European periphery was likely to be overlooked in the classifications made according to very general criteria. Gradually the foreign image of a homogenous Scandinavian region entered the consciousness of its inhabitants. From the national, Danish or Swedish point of view the diversity, which had been an acknowledged fact, was likely to be forgotten if only the countries could avoid the obscure small state image.
The 1960s are usually regarded as the period which brought about changes in this attitude. Small was not yet beautiful but it was at least appreciated. At that time the older, mainly of Anglo-American origin, popular notion of the Scandinavian progressiveness was reformulated again as a success story of small Nordic democracies. Supported by the economic data it seemed credible enough to be told and spread. This was being done both in Scandinavia and abroad where Sweden came to be regarded as the most exemplary and progressive among the Nordic siblings.
The alleged progressiveness seemed easiest to prove by means of the social sciences. As a result, for example, in Sweden social history started to develop as a special sub-discipline of the national history writing.(23) Also in the other Scandinavian countries social sciences such as sociology, political science and statistics as well as economics were seen as patterns for the social history to follow.(24) Foreign images of the Scandinavian progressiveness were eagerly confirmed and developed by the Scandinavian scholars. In the post-war period they were likely to become attracted to the institutionally reformulated image of the Scandinavian progress. They followed its development very diligently and even argued about which Nordic country was more successful in realising the Scandinavian model framework in practice.
Thanks to the scholars and scientists, both Scandinavian and foreign, the newly invented term Scandinavian model had its raison d'être. Developing theoretical models describing economic, social and political reality was a comparatively new phenomenon after World War Two. Indeed, the theories of modernisation and the world-system theories in sociology which were meant to explain patterns of social change in the third world countries were only developing rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. These theories mostly resulted in analysis which could easily adopt a success story of European periphery as a model for the world's periphery.(25) It was generally believed that sooner or later all countries were bound to follow the standard 'Western' route to modernisation. Progressive Scandinavia was supposed to show the way. However, the Scandinavian model was not only a theoretically defined analytical unit. Scandinavia was not only seen as an ideal type in the Weberian sense but there was a wide-spread belief that Scandinavia actually was progressive and as such it could provide solutions for the world.
Undoubtedly, after World War Two it was the Swedish who, among the Scandinavians, enjoyed the world's greatest attention. Not only the scientific projections but also politics and economic results influenced the perception. What made Sweden in many scholars' eyes the most interesting case to study in Scandinavia was the country's effective corporativist tradition which enabled it to control capitalism, and practically continuous development despite the atrocities of World War Two in the rest of Europe. In Denmark there was a certain break in the government's activity, not to mention social legislation, and the 'real' welfare state development is claimed to have started only after the Second World War.(26) In many respects the war also had a bearing on other aspects which made Sweden more attractive to study. Its increased economic capacity in the post-war period was seen as a result of Sweden's peculiar neutrality. The war let the Swedes grow rich while the Danish economy to a great extent shared the fate of other countries in continental Europe.(27)
However, there is little wonder that Sweden got so popular after World War Two. The image of her success and progress was not created from one day to another. Already by the end of the 1930s the country was presented in magazine articles, in newspapers, as well as in academic works as the epitome of excellency and modernity.(28) Especially in economics the assumed ingenuity of the Swedish solutions à la New Deal overshadowed the Scandinavian perspective. For example, in September 1938 the American magazine Fortune gave probably the most characteristic account of what was being said about Sweden those days.
From Sweden comes news of a rare fiscal miracle, an unprecedented boom; and a new technique of outmanoeuvring the depressions. This smart and prosperous little country has discovered how to put through social reforms without troubling business confidence. Administered by Socialists, kind to capitalists, present-day Sweden is a lesson in New Dealism without tears - and almost without debts. [...] Sometimes the inhabitants themselves complain that nothing happens in Sweden - the country is too happy. The headlines reflect neither imperial ambitions nor labour fratricide. In the last five years, for instance, nothing has happened, except that Sweden has created the greatest boom in her history, the greatest boom in any peaceful country to-day. Industrial production is 50 per cent above the 1929 peak with mills, mines, forests, and factories producing at almost 100 per cent capacity. Unemployment is reduced to a minimum and the national income can buy 25 per cent more than ever before. The government has emerged from five years of extensive agricultural subsidies and public works with a healthy budget and a startling method of handling depressions. [...] The incredible fact to be noted by Americans of every stripe is that Sweden has gone in for a far reaching New Dealism without scaring, overtaxing, or otherwise discouraging private enterprise and investment. [...] Sweden's experiment is worth reporting, not only because Sweden is half the distance again ahead of the 1929 milestone at a time when the U.S. is still struggling to get back there, nor because Sweden is at the same time ready and waiting for the next depression, but because she has achieved those two miracles without the sacrifice of essential democracy.(29)
Furthermore, both in Sweden and abroad Swedish singularity was underlined by the scholarly elaborated foundations of the Swedish economic solutions.(30) Later on emphasising singularity and importance of the Stockholm School of Economics in elaborating scientific foundations of the Scandinavian model would become one of the favourite Swedish topics when referring to the successful crisis solutions in the 1930s. Coinciding with it the moralistic overtones like 'Sweden is the best and socially most advanced place in the world' created a picture of a steady island on the wild ocean of international economic chaos and crises.(31) Already in the late 1930s it was believed that the country not only invented a successful pattern of dealing with the social problems but also had a patent on realising the goals of a socialist society, while nominally still remaining a capitalist country. Subsequently this notion allowed the Swedes to feel superior in the world polarised between two orthodoxies of the western liberal market economy on the one hand, and the infamous Soviet economic planning on the other. The Swedish originality, which was already portrayed as the middle way in the 1930s, seemed to live up to expectations. At the same time it was clear that 'Swedes know what [...] others find especially Swedish and this is incorporated in the construction of Swedish understanding of their singularity'.(32) As a result, a kind of national hubris was created among Swedes, which was built upon a myth of economic and political superiority. Sweden epitomised the notion of Scandinavian progressiveness while other Scandinavian countries were only seldom mentioned abroad as realising a variant of the Swedish model.(33) The notion of Swedish progressiveness, which already earlier developed in the English speaking world driven by sociological and politological functionalism, dominated the international perspective. According to popular belief it was Sweden that showed the middle way and was the world laboratory, the progress machine or the prototype of modern society.(34) Denmark would at best be mentioned as an interesting case to study but without enjoying the same notion of the success story epitomised by Sweden.
The Danish have neither appreciated, nor really accepted Swedish notoriety. One manifestation of such an attitude in the late 1970s was that Danes themselves were likely to use the term Danish model while talking about specifically Nordic solutions as for organisation of society and economy in the Scandinavian countries(35). For the Danish autostereotype the construction of the Danish model was an important element. Only in this way could they make up for the estimation enjoyed by their internationally renowned 'big brother' Sweden. This coincided with a renewed emphasis on the national feelings which started together with the Danish entry into the EEC. At that time Danes badly needed new constructs of their own identity, which would allow them to feel secure in this supranational organisation. This was no longer a question of the military security but there was widespread concern about whether such a small country would be able to defend her language, customs and political culture from being deluged by the European unification processes.(36) Constructing the concept of the Danish model as a variant or even as the main component of its conceptual, generally appraised, Scandinavian predecessor was meant to guarantee the survival of the venerated idiosyncratic features of this small country.
One of the means applied in this process of construction was taking a retrospective view on the roots of the Scandinavian success story. In this way it was possible to point at the original Danish contribution which not only were variants but could claim to have created the uniqueness of the Scandinavian way. Consequently, there was a number of scholars who, with regard to economics and social solutions, focused on the native Danish component of the Scandinavian solutions.(37) Bent Rold Andersen claimed that only Denmark came closest to the 'pure Scandinavian model' (with the exception of unemployment funds).(38) This renewed emphasis on the national idiosyncrasies from the 1970s does not seem to have faded away. On the contrary, the debate on the Danish membership of the European Union in the late 1980s and in the 1990s witnessed an increased effort to show the remarkableness of the native Danish solutions. The closer the full, not only economic but also political, integration was, the more pronounced among the Danish public were the worries that Denmark would loose its unmatched character. In the beginning of the 1990s Jesper Due and his colleagues gave a very detailed description of the Danish collective bargaining system, but they hardly acknowledged the application of similar institutional solutions in close vicinity of Danish borders. The book might suggest that Danes alone take a patent on institutionalisation of collective bargaining.(39) An utmost belief in the singularity of the Danish solutions was provided by Jørn Henrik Petersen from Odense University who published a collection of essays on the Danish welfare state. According to him the Danish model is the most original in Scandinavia while Sweden has copied and followed it but diverged greatly from the Danish genuine plan.(40) Among the most recent publications on the Danish side only Søren Kolstrup in his Ph.D. dissertation on the roots of the Danish welfare state was less direct in his assessment of how the Danish model influenced the Nordic solutions. He paid tribute to the Danes, who in many respects had been pioneers, but he also did not fail to notice that by 1935 the Swedish had not only made up for the underdevelopment in institutionalisation of the social policy, but also rightfully had been branded as dominating the Nordic developments.(41)
All these Danish efforts which were meant, on the one hand, to strengthen the national identity and, on the other hand, to attract attention to the Danish way and correct the 'Swedenised' image of Scandinavia, only slowly started to bear fruits. Additionally, in the 1990s the crisis of the Swedish welfare state has been the factor which has automatically caused a greater interest in Denmark on the part of the foreign observers. What is more, after a successful implementation of an 'individualised labour market reform' and slashing unemployment figures Denmark has recently become an object of interest also in the EU. Erfolgsmodell Dänemark has become an example of an innovative approach possibly to be emulated by its southern neighbours.(42) Eventually the Danish autostereotype seems now to be winning over the earlier foreign images of Scandinavia.
Nonetheless, when taking a longer historical perspective into account for most of the post-World War Two period it was the Swedish social and political system that has served for many as the archetype of the Scandinavian model and Scandinavian progressiveness. Sweden has been distinguished as the country where not only the welfare state has been the most comprehensive, but also where the opposition between socialism and capitalism has effectively been bridged. Sweden was the country to refer to when one looked for Scandinavian examples. Even today when reading economic reports and browsing through daily international newspapers, the reader will surely find economic indicators of the Swedish performance compared to the OECD countries or the rest of the world. Other Scandinavian countries are seldom presented and Sweden is most often regarded as an indicator of Scandinavian developments, even though for a few years the Swedish figures have hardly been representative of the Scandinavian region. In the past this practice could be explained by the fact that it must have been more convenient to observe economic and social tendencies in the country which was more populous and where the size of industrial structures was easily comparable with that of some other larger European countries. At present the earlier notion of 'the most representative Scandinavian country' in many regards seems to remain intact even though the economic performance is no longer representative of the whole region. What is more, not only the English speaking world is trapped by this Swedish notoriety but the same pattern is often propagated by other Europeans too.(43)
Moreover, apart from the image of Sweden as an economic and social wonderland, the question of ideology in the bi-polar world of the Cold War made this country more spectacular to observe than any other of her Scandinavian neighbours. By the end of the 1940s, shortly before the Iron Curtain was effectively drawn, from the American vantage point the whole of Scandinavia was portrayed as being in danger of 'Soviet pressure to bring these small neighbours into Russian orbit'.(44) Later on it was no longer Denmark or Norway, which became members of NATO, but Sweden that was often looked upon as a country heading along the road to socialism, i.e. being 'but one step from a communist grave'.(45) Sweden was definitely worth observing, albeit with apprehension. With respect to ideology nobody ever spoke of a Norwegian model or a Danish model.(46) Bourgeois socialism, democratic socialism and eventually economic democracy became the veritable Swedish export products within the Socialist International.(47)
As a result, also in popular belief Sweden became the most interesting case to study in Scandinavia after World War Two. It is worth noting though that mainly economic and social issues were taken into account as elements of the success story and indicators of the ingenuous solutions. This phenomenon was, in a way, a replication of the constructs conceived in the American New Deal debate in the late 1930s. However, the Swedish Sonderweg which originally had been constructed on the grounds of the social and economic success, after the war was also enhanced by the political and cultural dimension. The inhabitants of the middle way turned into the peacemakers, Swedish girls became symbols of an easygoing sexual lifestyle and the Scandinavian design came to be represented by the mass produced IKEA furniture.
Denmark Versus Sweden as a Typical Example of the Scandinavian Progressiveness
The powerful influence of American scholars after World War Two resulted in generalisation of typologies, e.g. they launched the Anglo-American model playing down the differences between Britain and the United States. Consequently, such an attitude also led to simplification and categorisation of Scandinavia. The Scandinavian/Swedish model, which as a term started entering the political and social science vocabulary by the end of the 1960s(22), without much consideration was earlier often placed together in one basket with the Benelux states. It is easier to understand why this happened if one keeps in mind that from American perspective it was rather Western Europe on the whole that presented a more tangible analytical unit. In this respect, Scandinavia, with its small and homogeneous population, and with territory lying at European periphery was likely to be overlooked in the classifications made according to very general criteria. Gradually the foreign image of a homogenous Scandinavian region entered the consciousness of its inhabitants. From the national, Danish or Swedish point of view the diversity, which had been an acknowledged fact, was likely to be forgotten if only the countries could avoid the obscure small state image.
The 1960s are usually regarded as the period which brought about changes in this attitude. Small was not yet beautiful but it was at least appreciated. At that time the older, mainly of Anglo-American origin, popular notion of the Scandinavian progressiveness was reformulated again as a success story of small Nordic democracies. Supported by the economic data it seemed credible enough to be told and spread. This was being done both in Scandinavia and abroad where Sweden came to be regarded as the most exemplary and progressive among the Nordic siblings.
The alleged progressiveness seemed easiest to prove by means of the social sciences. As a result, for example, in Sweden social history started to develop as a special sub-discipline of the national history writing.(23) Also in the other Scandinavian countries social sciences such as sociology, political science and statistics as well as economics were seen as patterns for the social history to follow.(24) Foreign images of the Scandinavian progressiveness were eagerly confirmed and developed by the Scandinavian scholars. In the post-war period they were likely to become attracted to the institutionally reformulated image of the Scandinavian progress. They followed its development very diligently and even argued about which Nordic country was more successful in realising the Scandinavian model framework in practice.
Thanks to the scholars and scientists, both Scandinavian and foreign, the newly invented term Scandinavian model had its raison d'être. Developing theoretical models describing economic, social and political reality was a comparatively new phenomenon after World War Two. Indeed, the theories of modernisation and the world-system theories in sociology which were meant to explain patterns of social change in the third world countries were only developing rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. These theories mostly resulted in analysis which could easily adopt a success story of European periphery as a model for the world's periphery.(25) It was generally believed that sooner or later all countries were bound to follow the standard 'Western' route to modernisation. Progressive Scandinavia was supposed to show the way. However, the Scandinavian model was not only a theoretically defined analytical unit. Scandinavia was not only seen as an ideal type in the Weberian sense but there was a wide-spread belief that Scandinavia actually was progressive and as such it could provide solutions for the world.
Undoubtedly, after World War Two it was the Swedish who, among the Scandinavians, enjoyed the world's greatest attention. Not only the scientific projections but also politics and economic results influenced the perception. What made Sweden in many scholars' eyes the most interesting case to study in Scandinavia was the country's effective corporativist tradition which enabled it to control capitalism, and practically continuous development despite the atrocities of World War Two in the rest of Europe. In Denmark there was a certain break in the government's activity, not to mention social legislation, and the 'real' welfare state development is claimed to have started only after the Second World War.(26) In many respects the war also had a bearing on other aspects which made Sweden more attractive to study. Its increased economic capacity in the post-war period was seen as a result of Sweden's peculiar neutrality. The war let the Swedes grow rich while the Danish economy to a great extent shared the fate of other countries in continental Europe.(27)
However, there is little wonder that Sweden got so popular after World War Two. The image of her success and progress was not created from one day to another. Already by the end of the 1930s the country was presented in magazine articles, in newspapers, as well as in academic works as the epitome of excellency and modernity.(28) Especially in economics the assumed ingenuity of the Swedish solutions à la New Deal overshadowed the Scandinavian perspective. For example, in September 1938 the American magazine Fortune gave probably the most characteristic account of what was being said about Sweden those days.
From Sweden comes news of a rare fiscal miracle, an unprecedented boom; and a new technique of outmanoeuvring the depressions. This smart and prosperous little country has discovered how to put through social reforms without troubling business confidence. Administered by Socialists, kind to capitalists, present-day Sweden is a lesson in New Dealism without tears - and almost without debts. [...] Sometimes the inhabitants themselves complain that nothing happens in Sweden - the country is too happy. The headlines reflect neither imperial ambitions nor labour fratricide. In the last five years, for instance, nothing has happened, except that Sweden has created the greatest boom in her history, the greatest boom in any peaceful country to-day. Industrial production is 50 per cent above the 1929 peak with mills, mines, forests, and factories producing at almost 100 per cent capacity. Unemployment is reduced to a minimum and the national income can buy 25 per cent more than ever before. The government has emerged from five years of extensive agricultural subsidies and public works with a healthy budget and a startling method of handling depressions. [...] The incredible fact to be noted by Americans of every stripe is that Sweden has gone in for a far reaching New Dealism without scaring, overtaxing, or otherwise discouraging private enterprise and investment. [...] Sweden's experiment is worth reporting, not only because Sweden is half the distance again ahead of the 1929 milestone at a time when the U.S. is still struggling to get back there, nor because Sweden is at the same time ready and waiting for the next depression, but because she has achieved those two miracles without the sacrifice of essential democracy.(29)
Furthermore, both in Sweden and abroad Swedish singularity was underlined by the scholarly elaborated foundations of the Swedish economic solutions.(30) Later on emphasising singularity and importance of the Stockholm School of Economics in elaborating scientific foundations of the Scandinavian model would become one of the favourite Swedish topics when referring to the successful crisis solutions in the 1930s. Coinciding with it the moralistic overtones like 'Sweden is the best and socially most advanced place in the world' created a picture of a steady island on the wild ocean of international economic chaos and crises.(31) Already in the late 1930s it was believed that the country not only invented a successful pattern of dealing with the social problems but also had a patent on realising the goals of a socialist society, while nominally still remaining a capitalist country. Subsequently this notion allowed the Swedes to feel superior in the world polarised between two orthodoxies of the western liberal market economy on the one hand, and the infamous Soviet economic planning on the other. The Swedish originality, which was already portrayed as the middle way in the 1930s, seemed to live up to expectations. At the same time it was clear that 'Swedes know what [...] others find especially Swedish and this is incorporated in the construction of Swedish understanding of their singularity'.(32) As a result, a kind of national hubris was created among Swedes, which was built upon a myth of economic and political superiority. Sweden epitomised the notion of Scandinavian progressiveness while other Scandinavian countries were only seldom mentioned abroad as realising a variant of the Swedish model.(33) The notion of Swedish progressiveness, which already earlier developed in the English speaking world driven by sociological and politological functionalism, dominated the international perspective. According to popular belief it was Sweden that showed the middle way and was the world laboratory, the progress machine or the prototype of modern society.(34) Denmark would at best be mentioned as an interesting case to study but without enjoying the same notion of the success story epitomised by Sweden.
The Danish have neither appreciated, nor really accepted Swedish notoriety. One manifestation of such an attitude in the late 1970s was that Danes themselves were likely to use the term Danish model while talking about specifically Nordic solutions as for organisation of society and economy in the Scandinavian countries(35). For the Danish autostereotype the construction of the Danish model was an important element. Only in this way could they make up for the estimation enjoyed by their internationally renowned 'big brother' Sweden. This coincided with a renewed emphasis on the national feelings which started together with the Danish entry into the EEC. At that time Danes badly needed new constructs of their own identity, which would allow them to feel secure in this supranational organisation. This was no longer a question of the military security but there was widespread concern about whether such a small country would be able to defend her language, customs and political culture from being deluged by the European unification processes.(36) Constructing the concept of the Danish model as a variant or even as the main component of its conceptual, generally appraised, Scandinavian predecessor was meant to guarantee the survival of the venerated idiosyncratic features of this small country.
One of the means applied in this process of construction was taking a retrospective view on the roots of the Scandinavian success story. In this way it was possible to point at the original Danish contribution which not only were variants but could claim to have created the uniqueness of the Scandinavian way. Consequently, there was a number of scholars who, with regard to economics and social solutions, focused on the native Danish component of the Scandinavian solutions.(37) Bent Rold Andersen claimed that only Denmark came closest to the 'pure Scandinavian model' (with the exception of unemployment funds).(38) This renewed emphasis on the national idiosyncrasies from the 1970s does not seem to have faded away. On the contrary, the debate on the Danish membership of the European Union in the late 1980s and in the 1990s witnessed an increased effort to show the remarkableness of the native Danish solutions. The closer the full, not only economic but also political, integration was, the more pronounced among the Danish public were the worries that Denmark would loose its unmatched character. In the beginning of the 1990s Jesper Due and his colleagues gave a very detailed description of the Danish collective bargaining system, but they hardly acknowledged the application of similar institutional solutions in close vicinity of Danish borders. The book might suggest that Danes alone take a patent on institutionalisation of collective bargaining.(39) An utmost belief in the singularity of the Danish solutions was provided by Jørn Henrik Petersen from Odense University who published a collection of essays on the Danish welfare state. According to him the Danish model is the most original in Scandinavia while Sweden has copied and followed it but diverged greatly from the Danish genuine plan.(40) Among the most recent publications on the Danish side only Søren Kolstrup in his Ph.D. dissertation on the roots of the Danish welfare state was less direct in his assessment of how the Danish model influenced the Nordic solutions. He paid tribute to the Danes, who in many respects had been pioneers, but he also did not fail to notice that by 1935 the Swedish had not only made up for the underdevelopment in institutionalisation of the social policy, but also rightfully had been branded as dominating the Nordic developments.(41)
All these Danish efforts which were meant, on the one hand, to strengthen the national identity and, on the other hand, to attract attention to the Danish way and correct the 'Swedenised' image of Scandinavia, only slowly started to bear fruits. Additionally, in the 1990s the crisis of the Swedish welfare state has been the factor which has automatically caused a greater interest in Denmark on the part of the foreign observers. What is more, after a successful implementation of an 'individualised labour market reform' and slashing unemployment figures Denmark has recently become an object of interest also in the EU. Erfolgsmodell Dänemark has become an example of an innovative approach possibly to be emulated by its southern neighbours.(42) Eventually the Danish autostereotype seems now to be winning over the earlier foreign images of Scandinavia.
Nonetheless, when taking a longer historical perspective into account for most of the post-World War Two period it was the Swedish social and political system that has served for many as the archetype of the Scandinavian model and Scandinavian progressiveness. Sweden has been distinguished as the country where not only the welfare state has been the most comprehensive, but also where the opposition between socialism and capitalism has effectively been bridged. Sweden was the country to refer to when one looked for Scandinavian examples. Even today when reading economic reports and browsing through daily international newspapers, the reader will surely find economic indicators of the Swedish performance compared to the OECD countries or the rest of the world. Other Scandinavian countries are seldom presented and Sweden is most often regarded as an indicator of Scandinavian developments, even though for a few years the Swedish figures have hardly been representative of the Scandinavian region. In the past this practice could be explained by the fact that it must have been more convenient to observe economic and social tendencies in the country which was more populous and where the size of industrial structures was easily comparable with that of some other larger European countries. At present the earlier notion of 'the most representative Scandinavian country' in many regards seems to remain intact even though the economic performance is no longer representative of the whole region. What is more, not only the English speaking world is trapped by this Swedish notoriety but the same pattern is often propagated by other Europeans too.(43)
Moreover, apart from the image of Sweden as an economic and social wonderland, the question of ideology in the bi-polar world of the Cold War made this country more spectacular to observe than any other of her Scandinavian neighbours. By the end of the 1940s, shortly before the Iron Curtain was effectively drawn, from the American vantage point the whole of Scandinavia was portrayed as being in danger of 'Soviet pressure to bring these small neighbours into Russian orbit'.(44) Later on it was no longer Denmark or Norway, which became members of NATO, but Sweden that was often looked upon as a country heading along the road to socialism, i.e. being 'but one step from a communist grave'.(45) Sweden was definitely worth observing, albeit with apprehension. With respect to ideology nobody ever spoke of a Norwegian model or a Danish model.(46) Bourgeois socialism, democratic socialism and eventually economic democracy became the veritable Swedish export products within the Socialist International.(47)
As a result, also in popular belief Sweden became the most interesting case to study in Scandinavia after World War Two. It is worth noting though that mainly economic and social issues were taken into account as elements of the success story and indicators of the ingenuous solutions. This phenomenon was, in a way, a replication of the constructs conceived in the American New Deal debate in the late 1930s. However, the Swedish Sonderweg which originally had been constructed on the grounds of the social and economic success, after the war was also enhanced by the political and cultural dimension. The inhabitants of the middle way turned into the peacemakers, Swedish girls became symbols of an easygoing sexual lifestyle and the Scandinavian design came to be represented by the mass produced IKEA furniture.