Nordic Studies

Nordic high-trust societies are underpinned by prosociality, a term denoting cooperation and working for the good of others. State-funded voluntarism provides opportunities for altruism that appears to contribute to the Nordics’ exceptional level of well-being. Altruists are rewarded by a warm, lasting affect that enhances personal well-being, thus motivating further prosociality. Humanity’s evolutionary past coded into us a desire to strengthen our community by helping those in need—a biocultural drive that is corrupted when authoritarian regimes enforce unselfish behavior on disempowered populations. Such coercive altruism has a line of adverse long-term consequences for communal functionality and individual flourishing. Our study examines how sociocultural context influences people’s prosocial strategies, and how sharing insights and practices from democratic and authoritarian traditions can lead to new, revitalized forms of altruism. Our in-depth interviews (n = 32) of Nordic an...

Nonostante la sua brevità, Sensitiva amorosa rappresenta un tassello fondamentale all’interno della letteratura del Nord Europa: è infatti il primo romanzo propriamente decadente di quella letteratura, un catalogo di relazioni e amori raccontati da diversi punti di vista e con diverse sfumature.
Alla sua uscita, nel 1887, suscitò grande scandalo e divenne un caso negli ambienti letterari scandinavi, dividendo la critica e i lettori tra chi ne esaltava il valore rivoluzionario e il messaggio dirompente e chi invece, non comprendendolo appieno, lo condannò perché offendeva la pubblica decenza.
Ola Hansson è stato il primo in Scandinavia a usare un linguaggio pregno di nuovi significati attinti dalla letteratura continentale, rimodernando il lessico classico svedese, e fu pure il primo a introdurre la componente psicologica nel romanzo ottocentesco nordico, rompendo con la tradizione stilistica fino ad allora in voga.

Nordic governments frequently broadcast their ambition to do more together on the international stage. The five Nordic states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway) also share many basic goals as foreign policy actors, including a steadfast and vocal commitment to safeguarding the ‘rules-based international order.’ Why then, do we not see more organized Nordic foreign policy collaboration, for example in the form of a joint ‘grand strategy’ on core foreign policy issues, or in relation to great powers and international organizations? In this article, we draw on Charles Tilly’s concept of ‘repertoires’ to address the discrepancy between ambitions and developments in Nordic foreign policy cooperation, highlighting how the bundles of policy instruments—repertoires—that each Nordic state has developed over time take on an identity-defining quality. We argue that the Nordic states have invested in and become attached to their foreign policy differences, niches, and ‘brands.’ On t...

This paper reviews Finnish economic history during the ‘long’ twentieth century with a special emphasis on policies for equity and growth. We argue that Finland developed from a poor, vulnerable, and conflict-prone country to a modern economy in part through policies geared at both growth and equity, such as land reform and compulsory schooling. The state participated in economic activity both indirectly and directly in the post-war period, implementing many social policy reforms that facilitated the functioning of the labour market and led to greater equity. Centralised collective bargaining was just one of the many means through which central government intervened in the economy. Both the long-run growth record and the equality of different kinds of economic outcomes are fairly positive. This suggests that facilitating economic growth through such policies that further more equitable outcomes may at least in the case of Finland have met with some success.

This conference highlights the migration of artists and ideas to Denmark over the past 200+ years to examine their collective influence on the history of the visual arts. The day will feature talks from artists and scholars showing that migration is not a new phenomenon to Denmark, but rather has strong and established traditions still visible within Denmark’s museums, artistic practices, and communities today.

In the 1990s, three Scandinavian news media companies, Bonnier, Kinnevik, and Schibsted, internationalized their newspapers. Despite doing this during the same period, competing in the same industry and institutional environment, being exposed to the same opportunities by the opening of the Eastern European markets, and all belonging to a smaller language area, they differed in their internationalization models as well as in their outcomes. Despite initial successes, Bonnier and Kinnevik eventually discontinued their newspapers in the new markets, in many cases following significant losses, while Schibsted fared better. The main explanation for using different internationalization models was differences in business models, basically striving to do business internationally in a similar way as domestically. That is, they did not choose a specific internationalization model but sought to simply expand their business models internationally. Consequently, this article finds that when res...

Мы предлагаем расширение структурной аналогии, проводимой Д. Иганом между проблемой тревоги у М. Хайдеггера и проблемой следования правилу у Л. Витгенштейна на случай проблемы петлевых предложений, рассматриваемой Витгенштейном в работе «О достоверности». На наш взгляд, философия позднего Витгенштейна содержит понятие аутентичности: аутентичными являются языковые игры как новые корректные применения витгенштейновских правил, которые ими управляют. Мы трактуем аналогию между Хайдеггером и Витгенштейном с точки зрения контекстуального реализма. Также мы указываем и на существенные различия в подходах этих философов

Ключевые слова: Хайдеггер; Витгенштейн; тревога; боязнь; эпистемическая тревога; эпистемическое головокружение; реальность; проблема следования правилу; петлевые предложения; скептицизм


We propose a generalization of David Egan's structural analogy between Heidegger's Angst problem and Wittgenstein's rule-following problem to the case of the problem of hinge propositions, considered by Wittgenstein in his work On certainty. In our view, Wittgenstein's later philosophy contains the notion of authenticity: the language games as new correct uses of Wittgensteinian rules are authentic. We treat the analogy between Heidegger and Wittgenstein from the point of view of a contextual realism. We also indicate that there are substantial differences in the approaches of the two philosophers.

The article analyses references made to the notion of truth and falsehood in Swedish and Polish parliamentary talk. The results show that despite the mainstreaming of post-structuralism in contemporary society, the notion of truth – the central question of Western philosophy – is still present the parliamentary talk and in the ways in which MPs deliberate and engage in arguments. As the article argues, the MPs deploy discursive strategies exploiting mostly the classical or early modern objective theories of truth. Seeing truth as the ultimate value makes it expedient as a persuasive device and part of epideictic oratory. Apart from the similarities found in the Swedish and Polish parliamentary talk, the article shows differences mainly in how directly an accusation of lying can be voiced in the two parliaments.

One thing is certain, the Icelandic Organizing Committee did a good thing in deciding on the topic for the 20 th NordMedia conference this year: Nordic Media Research – Doing the Right Thing?. That was a very timely and opportune choice. In many of the presentations during this conference, both in the plenary sessions and in the divisions, we have seen how the thematic question of the conference has served as motivation for self-reflection. Are we doing the right thing in our different sub-fields of the larger field of media studies? Self-reflexivity and self-scrutiny of our own methods and approaches are important, and perhaps more today than ever. The new media technology has definitely opened up the field of media and com munication research in new ways. Digital media technology changes the media, as we used to know them as research objects, and this has interesting and important effects on our multifaceted research field. Alongside the convergence of previously distinct media te...

Establishment of community mental health services in SwedenCare and support for people with psychiatric disabilities has been subject to significant changes during recent decades. Institution-based forms of care have been replaced by policies focused on inclusion and participation in society, and by a new field of community-oriented services. The formal responsibility for supporting the target group has largely shifted from mental health care to municipal social services. This article characterizes this new field of expertise, and discusses a number of current themes that seem to influence the extent to which policy-level objectives can be achieved. One theme is the establishment of a knowledge base regarding community-based services, in which local development work and academic research have sometimes enriched each other. Individual support towards employment is used as one example of a model developed through a combination of service innovation and research. Another theme concerns...

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical based understanding of the Romanian context of teacher work, which provides an opportunity to identify characteristics considered to affect teaching activities and gives a basis for planning and conducting other research on teachers working conditions. The paper is based on authors' research which is a secondary analysis of Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013 database. The database contains the survey responses of teachers of lower secondary education (ISCED 2) and the principals of their schools. During the investigation cross/tables, cluster analysis, linear and logistical analyses were used. Based on our research results, we can see that the factors attributed both to the individuals and to the elements of pedagogical culture show a strong correlation with the characteristics of the teaching and the satisfaction with the teaching. Considering the factors attributed to the individuals, professional develo...

The importance of marketing techniques in political campaigning has increased as communicating politics has become more complex in a highly fragmented media environment. With different media logics interacting in a hybrid media system, political marketing methods through social media have drawn considerable attention and even been seen to pose a threat to democratic processes. This paper looks at the extent and nature of the use of marketing techniques in the 2018 municipal elections in Iceland, by using a mixed methods approach. The findings of a candidate survey and interviews with campaign managers suggest that the methods used are by and large a technical extension of previous methods and not qualitatively different from traditional electioneering. Both social media and traditional media are important marketing vehicles, but the importance of social media clearly on the rise. However, in larger communities in the capital region there tends to be a higher degree of professionalis...

In this chapter we seek to develop the notion of ‘the Nordic’ as brand further. We propose to see ‘the
Nordic’ as a complex umbrella brand strategy that is based on materializations and performances of
Nordicness, even if the different brands under the general umbrella does not explicitly use the term
‘Nordic’ in the brand name or other central denotations of the product or service. ‘Nordicness’ can refer to
aesthetics, images, myths, social concepts such as ‘hygge’ or even socioeconomic concepts such as ‘Nordic
welfare’ and the surrounding ideologies and values (Linnet 2011; 2015; Østergaard et al. 2014).

The Danish TV-series Borgen is a very unlikely international hit for the national public service broadcaster DR. Colloquially translated as 'the Castle,' the series revolves around the Danish parliament, including the politics and private lives of MPs, staff, and journalists. Although originally intended for Danish audiences only, crime fiction such as The Killing (Forbrydelsen) paved its way to global audiences and helped it to a surprisingly wide audience in the UK and many other places. In this chapter, we aim to understand the success of Nordic Noir from a 'myth-market perspective' The 'Nordic' can be seen as a mythic resource in branding 'Nordic Noir' as a cultural category (Mittell 2001; 2004).

Aestheticization is a pervasive force in consumer culture (Featherstone 2002); it is central to the invention and reinvention of symbolic resources that structure current market economies (Reckwitz 2017). A recent example with a complex nexus of consumption, identity, politics and nostalgia, is the reinvention of ‘Nordicness’ and ‘The Nordic Lifestyle’, with sub-fields such as (New) Nordic Cuisine, (New) Nordic Design and (New) Nordic Cinema (Leer 2016, Andersen et al. 2019, Skou and Munch 2016). This paper investigates the aestheticization of ‘The Nordic Way of Life’ as commodified and marketedin the form of the magazine Oak - The Nordic Journal.

The aim of the research is to identify the general linguistic, general cultural and ethnocultural features of the linguistic personality of the 19th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. The scientific novelty of the research consists in highlighting the features of the cognitive-discourse constructions of the Königsberg thinker’s linguistic personality in line with the study of the linguo-semiotic mechanisms of functioning of special terms, both in the space of a complete utterance and at the level of the universal foundation of a philosophical narrative. One of the key points of the work is the development of the concept of linguo-semiotic interpretation of the category “linguistic personality”, which is considered as a semiotic integrity and axiological construct functioning in the synergy of two formats: individual and universal identity. The basic element of identifying the signs of a linguistic personality of this type is the linguistic analysis of the discourse, which gen...

The article focuses on the media practice of using visual representations of polar bears to illustrate information about climate change. It starts with a short description about the iconic status that climate discourse attributes to these type of images. The article addresses the question about how this iconic status is defined and what the media specificity of the polar bear is as a part of “charismatic megafauna.” These iconic properties are placed in contexts related to communicating issues related to climate change, and as a consequence the article emphasises the subsequent disappointment that these kind of representations have brought about. To begin with the article focuses on a reconstruction of the images of polar bears that were created at a time when it became a species in danger of extinction. Subsequently, the article characterizes the representations of the species in relation to the effects of climate change. The analysis refers to the typology proposed by Dorothea Born, who suggested that three types of such representations are namely: “anthropomorphized bears,” “bear in context,” “bear in danger.” Finally, the focus turns to the victimising dimension of these representations. When seen from the perspective of the polar bear as a victim, there is a need to emphasize the role of the suffering body, which can be seen as a common denominator in the human-non-human condition of vulnerability.

The ‘greater Nordic space’ between Great Britain, Germany and Russia has over time varied with the balance of power. The Baltic States e.g. have been in and out of the space, rejoining by regaining sovereignty after the end of the Cold War. Russia’s actions in Ukraine and beyond during 2014 mark the end of the Post-Cold War period and its aspiration to peaceful integration. The small states of the greater Nordic space are now rediscovering their inescapable geopolitical nearness to Russia. Drawing on RSCT and Nordic-Baltic integration literature, the article contributes to understanding the Northern European part of the Euro-Russian Regional Security Complex. Theoretically, the article links RSCT and integration logics through the twin concepts of a ‘security region’ (given outside-in as one part of a negatively defined RSC), and a ‘political region’ (created inside-out under the shield provided by the security region). To link the two concepts, Heidegger’s idea of Geworfenheit, or ...

The ‘greater Nordic space’ between Great Britain, Germany and Russia has over time varied with the balance of power. The Baltic States e.g. have been in and out of the space, rejoining by regaining sovereignty after the end of the Cold War. Russia’s actions in Ukraine and beyond during 2014 mark the end of the Post-Cold War period and its aspiration to peaceful integration. The small states of the greater Nordic space are now rediscovering their inescapable geopolitical nearness to Russia. Drawing on RSCT and Nordic-Baltic integration literature, the article contributes to understanding the Northern European part of the Euro-Russian Regional Security Complex. Theoretically, the article links RSCT and integration logics through the twin concepts of a ‘security region’ (given outside-in as one part of a negatively defined RSC), and a ‘political region’ (created inside-out under the shield provided by the security region). To link the two concepts, Heidegger’s idea of Geworfenheit, or ...