Towards a Nordic Model (1916–1940)

Abstract

A century after the outbreak of the Great War, consciousness of its profound and lasting societal effects has largely faded. However, as A.J.P. Taylor once noted, ‘Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman.’¹ Four years later a very different relationship between the state and its citizens had emerged, as governments in practically all the belligerent European states had established an unprecedented level of control over the populations within their borders. And perhaps even more significantly, the war had widened the scope of acceptance for state intervention, in order to regulate behaviour and resolve collective tasks. This development, which also entailed the integration of the labour movement into national politics, was mirrored in the formally neutral countries of Scandinavia. Furthermore, it would provide an important backdrop for the mixed economy and the embryonic welfare state that were to grow over the next few decades, thus paving the way for the breakthrough of social democracy in the interwar period.