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Cultural Traditions and the Scandinavian Social Policy

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Article  in  Social Policy & Administration · November 2005

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2005.00466.x

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S P & A  0144 – 5596
V. 39, No. 7, D  2005, . 723– 739

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 -  Ltd. 

Cultural Traditions and the Scandinavian

Original
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Blackwell
Oxford,
Social
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Blackwell
Policy
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& Administration
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Social Policy Model

Ka Lin

Abstract
This article assesses the extent to which cultural interpretation may be useful in understanding
social policy models. By surveying cultural traditions, the study explores the context in which the
Scandinavian social policy model was developed. The study investigates the institutional legacies
of Scandinavian agrarian societies and identifies certain cultural traits, making observations as to
their implications for the social policy model. The study does not intend to establish any “causal
relation” between specific historical phenomena and the modern welfare states, but regards cultural
traditions as forming the “contextual basis” for the operation of a welfare state system. Hence
this is not merely a case study of Scandinavia, but a methodological undertaking that could play
a significant role in broadening the scope of the study of social policy.

Keywords
Analytic narrative; Cultural study; Scandinavia; Social policy; Welfare regime

Introduction
The study of social policy has so far lacked a cultural dimension (e.g. Baldock
: ; Chamberlayne et al. ). Researchers into social policy (unlike
cultural historians; Rothman and Wheeler ) have been concerned rather
with the immediate causes of policy outcomes than with the accumulations
of cultural heritage underpinning them—and maybe ensuring their sustain-
ability. Nevertheless, scholars in search of contextual explanation (especially
in comparative studies) have been drawn to cultural accounts. For them (e.g.
Rose and Shiratori ; Lin ), many cross-system differences are only to
be explained by consideration of cultural issues. Thus many comparative
studies conducted into such areas as family policy, gender and elder care
policy, in particular, have ventured into a consideration of cultural issues (e.g.
Millar and Warman ; Lin and Rantalaiho ; Lockhart ). Yet
such work seems too fragmented and particular for the establishment of any

Address for correspondence: Ka Lin, Department of Sociology, Nanjing University,  Hankou

Road, , Nanjing, People’s Republic of China. Email: Ka_Lin_@yahoo.com.cn

© 2005 The Author(s)

Journal Compilation © 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd,  Garsington Road, Oxford OX DQ , UK and
 Main Street, Malden, MA , USA
general foundation for the “cultural study of welfare regimes”. After all, since
such regimes operate as whole systems, cultural explanations for them should
be set at the system level also.
This article develops into a cultural study by way of deciphering cultural
traditions. By its nature, “culture” is an information-holding system with
functions similar to a base of cellular DNA; it can be seen “as a process (the
‘passing on’ of what has been learned before to succeeding generations)
and as a particular class of things (e.g., ‘shared knowledge’)” (see D’Andrade
: , ). Hence “cultural tradition”—that brings the past to the present
and which grasps the present in the context of the past—amounts to a vehicle
of cultural expression. Studies of cultural tradition may further be processed
along two lines: ideational and institutional (see Lin ). The “idea
tradition” refers to the symbolic system, whereas the “institutional tradition”
refers to order, institutional context and its perimeters. This study will work
with these two aspects of cultural tradition.
The study covers Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland: members of
the “social democratic regime” in Esping-Andersen’s () regime typology.
Despite the difference in welfare schemes, programmes and financial condi-
tions between each of these states, their similarities in terms of the policy-
making model, policy preference, ideological perceptions, and the structure
of the redistributive mechanisms are clearly visible. All of these countries
have made great efforts to develop universal-type social policies, deviating
from the group of “income transfer states” of continental Europe. A strong
left political inclination has created a “third way” model of class bargaining,
and a comprehensive system of public services for citizens (Esping-Andersen
; Kangas and Palme ; Kosonen ; Kvist ). This common
ground has allowed researchers to claim that the Scandinavian countries
share a common welfare regime model.
Furthermore, given the existence of so many common cultural features
among these countries, a cultural model of the “Norden” is recognizable (see
Sørensen and Stråth ). Historically, these countries had a high degree of
homogeneity in terms of ethnicity and religion, with Lutheran hegemony
(see Christiansen and Petersen : ). Geographical proximity enabled
these societies to interact closely, and their similar ecological environments
led people to live in similar ways. Even so, the most fundamental reason
underlying this cultural model is a political one: Finland was a part of
Sweden until ; Norway was a part of Denmark between  and ,
and afterwards it was unified with Sweden until  (see Nordstrom ).
A further, particular political and historical event should not be forgotten:
from  to , Norway, Denmark and Sweden were administered by the
same monarchy under the Kalmar Union (Ostergård ; Nordstrom ).
The close historical and political interaction between these states enabled
them to develop their political and administrative frameworks through a
process of mutual learning, and therefore, to adopt similar political institu-
tions and legislations. Many common traits in jurisprudence, social customs,
social organization and religion were thus formulated.1
Granted the recognition of both a social policy model and a cultural model
pertaining to this region, we may question how precisely the two models may
 ©  The Author(s)
be linked. The answers to this question will open the gate to the cultural
interpretation of the social policy model. We may go via two basic avenues
to reach this end, either through the extension of social policy studies into
the area of cultural-historical studies or vice versa. Baldwin’s () work on
the power of peasants in agrarian society and Kuhnle’s () work on the
state apparatus and bureaucrats in the early stage of modern social policy
development are examples of the first approach. But few works have been
produced using the second approach, that is by extending cultural-historical
studies to social policy studies. The Scandinavian historians working on
social policy issues are mostly concerned with policy-making motivations,
process and power relations (see e.g. Christiansen and Petersen ); hardly
any work has been done concerning its cultural-historical background. This
study will proceed via the second avenue, with the time period of research
set to the years prior to the mid-nineteenth century. The purpose of this
work is not merely to tell (historical) stories but to inspect their cultural
meanings.
Oriented towards a cultural-historical analysis, this study uses the method
of analytical narrative that is currently widely applied in the fields of histor-
ical and social studies (Lorenz ). In this method, narratives are regarded
as “the consolidating component in a theatrical model of meaning construc-
tion and historical process” (Kane : ). The method “combines ana-
lytic tools that are commonly employed in economics and political science
with the narrative form, which is more commonly employed in history” (see
Bates et al. : ). Since in this method analysis and narrative are no
longer competing approaches but rather connected to each other (Lorenz
: ), the use of this method offers new possibilities for bringing histor-
ical, cultural and social studies together (see Bates et al. ).
The narrative in this case is not constructed on the basis of the particular
historical facts but rather presents an institutional view of the old social
system. Thus the institutions of state and assembly are discussed in relation
to the traditions of statism and democracy; the institutional relations between
peasants and nobles are surveyed with reference to social stratification (as the
institutional structure) and the structure of social power; and the institutions
of families, villages and parishes are investigated as they disclose the nature
of civil society and the “institutional order” at the grassroots level. Using this
step-by-step approach, the article offers a general overview of the institu-
tional traditions of Scandinavian societies, and provides some answers to
questions on the peculiarities of Scandinavian culture.
However, no cultural study could be complete without venturing an assess-
ment of the cultural meaning of the historical events exposed (During ).
Therefore, this study will move beyond the historical facts to the values and
ideas behind the idea traditions. The institutional order is hardly to be sep-
arated from its normative equivalent. Indeed, if we adopted a cognitive view,
we would see the institution as a system of “grammatical rules” of the polit-
ical world (see Rothstein and Steinmo ; Lockhart ; Chamberlayne
et al. ; Mulé ). Thus, although this study does not deploy a semiotic,
a constructionalist or a phenomenalist analysis, it does extend from narrat-
ive to the ideas, norms and ideology underpinning idea traditions. In this
©  The Author(s) 
way, the study deciphers the essence of Scandinavian culture in both its
institutional and value dimensions.

Political Institutions and the State

I start this cultural-historical study with an investigation into the political institu-
tions of the state and democracy. In “old” institutionalism, the king and the
state were the central features of institutional analysis, and their significance
does not diminish in the “new” institutionalism (see Goodin ). This is
particularly the case in their application to the area of social policy.

Narrative: the statist-democratic tradition

A cultural study of Scandinavian political institutions should begin with the
ancient local assemblies. These could be found in Denmark and Sweden by
at least the ninth century (see Sigurdur : –). All men with the right
to carry weapons had a right to participate in these assemblies (Allardt et al.
), which had significant functions in politics. At the national level, the
assemblies enacted legislation and selected (or deposed) kings. They also
arbitrated disputes and condemned lawbreakers. The long-term impact of
this institutional designation was the establishment of a prototype for Nordic
democracy and the setting of norms of institutional justice for a system
encouraging people’s political participation. To be sure, we should recognize
the distance between this ancient “participatory democracy” and the modern
democratic system referring to a comprehensive range of rights. Never-
theless, in a broad sense (see Burnheim ), we may view this participatory
democracy as a special form of democracy, itself more democratic than
aristocratic democracy.
Because of this institutional legacy, the king’s power was firmly restricted
by the assemblies during the Middle Ages. Kings had to take their oaths
before the assembly, so as to abide by customary laws and not to infringe on
the rights of their subjects. These duties were recorded on the papers which
formulated the famous Nordic Charters (see Sigurdur ). Although the
power of assemblies was reduced at a later date in response to the ascend-
ancy of the kings’ power, the institution of assemblies did not completely
collapse until the arrival of the modern state.2
In Sweden, the ancient assembly evolved into the estate assembly in the
fifteenth century and consisted of four chambers: the nobles, clerics, burghers
and farmers (see Smith : ; Sørensen and Stråth : ). Often the
kings summoned the estate assembly with the intention of raising taxation
(especially in preparation for ongoing wars), but when they did so, the social
classes in the assemblies also took this opportunity to bargain for their own
interests. The Danish assembly seemed a more likely political instrument for
the king to use when making binding decisions with nobles (see Smith ;
Helle : ) but, even so, the Danish assemblies still carried weight (at
least in name) in legislation-making and judicial affairs.
Due to the strength of the nobility, this statist tradition was not forged into
a formal institution before the Reformation. In those early days, the nobility
 ©  The Author(s)
controlled the State Council that administered the kingdom for the longest
period (Sigurdur : – ; also see Schück ), although in Denmark
the kings had occasionally achieved victory in their struggle with nobles
through political suppression (Helle : ). The kings had support from
churches—the papal policy being to support monarchy—making the mon-
archy the secular institution exercising Rome’s influence (Derry : ).
However, the Reformation reshaped state–church relations, as the Lutheran
Church became the state church with the king as its leader. The political
consequence of this latter change was significant. Absolutism was established
in Denmark by  (Løgstrup ); the old Danish aristocracy was broken
down through the king’s land redistribution—but new nobles who affiliated
with kings were created. The Reformation also gave Norwegian nobles close
associations with the Danish royal family as head of the kingdom (Helle
: –). Meanwhile, in Sweden (and Finland) the system of the elected
king was transformed into the hereditary system (see Løgstrup : ;
Runblom et al. : ; Smith : ), though the nobility retained a high
degree of autonomy even after the Reformation.
Within just this context was a “statist-democratic tradition” (see Trägårdh
: –) founded in Scandinavia. With regard to statism, both priests
and civil servants were appointed by kings and, by nature, the local clergy-
men acted as the representatives of both God and kings (see Løgstrup :
; Thorkidsen : ). Through this institutional formation, the state
and the church “have formed different parts of the same body” (Stenius :
). Nevertheless, the establishment of this statist tradition did not destroy
the old democratic tradition. In Sweden (including Finland), absolutism was
based on a coalition made between king and peasants that was founded with
the purpose of dominating the noble aristocracy. In Denmark (including
Norway), a coalition of king and burghers (see Sørensen and Stråth : )
enforced the institution of statism. Meanwhile, Scandinavian kings also took
a positive view of people’s engagement in voluntary associations, regarding
them as a useful instrument in connecting with the people.

Evaluating the narrative: culture in politics

Such institutional designs had profound influence on the ideas about statism
and democracy which seeped into Scandinavian tradition. Three themes
stand out in this respect: political obedience, secularization and corporatism.
The statist tradition is the fruit of the peasants’ positive image of the state as
protector instead of suppressor, which in turn endorses the cultural notions
of both trust in authorities (authoritarianism) and political obedience. For
instance, von Kreitor () affirms that “most Swedes are loyal, obliging and
reverently obedient”: they even follow regulations, ordinances and laws
which sound stupid, ridiculous or absurd; Sørensen () also observed that
Lutheran Pietism contributed to the formation of the Danish attitude of
obedience. One may recognize the functional incongruity of a culture of
obedience and the institution of democracy but, in Scandinavia, it is the
statist-democratic tradition which makes a combination of the two possible.
The statism that binds people to subordination to authority is mediated by
©  The Author(s) 
the democratic tradition that promotes the idea of individual autonomy and
prevents the state from overruling judgements. Once these two elements are
integrated into one tradition, they support an interventionist, but not a total-
ist, state. Thus, a legacy of the interventionist state becomes an element in
support of both the system of state welfare and democracy in modern times.
Meanwhile, in the ancient system of elected kingship, the power resource
of kings came from assemblies. This implies that by origin the nature of the
king’s power is secular. Meanwhile, Lutheranism preaches that daily work
has its own value, rather than advocating the pursuit of an unattainable
earthly paradise (Sørensen and Stråth : ); thus supporting a trend to
secularization. Within this context, scholars have called social democrats the
heirs of Scandinavian Lutheran secularism (see Sørensen and Stråth : ;
Alapuro : – ), promoting the idea of a People’s Home and seeking
to build a welfare state as a secular way of achieving an idealistic, “well-being
for all” model of society.
Significantly, the concept of “ruling by assembly” signals an ideal of solv-
ing conflict by negotiation rather than by political violence or according to
the king’s will. This legacy forces the institutional justification of a demo-
cratic model of politics, in which the various social classes enter into political
negotiation and settle through compromise. This legacy is also bound up
with the state’s administrative capacity. In the past, these states have had
limited capacity for exercising political control over civil society, especially in
the case of residents of remote areas. Even in the period of absolutist rule
established after the Reformation—as scholars (e.g. Løgstrup : ) have
argued in the case of Denmark—the kings did not have enough adminis-
trative strength to fulfil the role of autocrats as prescribed by Royal Law.
Accordingly, the authorities, not being able to impose great restrictions on
people’s social activities, rather allowed the growth of an active civil soci-
ety—which supported the operation of democratic ideas. Just as such insti-
tutional traditions and norms have been inherited, one way or another, in
modern times; so have Scandinavians accepted the corporatist idea with
ease, in their efforts at building a welfare state.

The Economic Institution and Social Classes

In addition to the political institutions, the organization of production is a key
issue in the sociological analysis of institutions. This study refers to economic
institutions in their impacts on shaping class relations and social stratification—
issues which are focal points of social policy study and regime analysis (see
Esping-Andersen ). A number of scholars have pointed out that the strength
of the agrarian class is the key to understanding the Scandinavian model (see
Baldwin ; Alestalo and Kuhnle ; Stenius : ). This study will
take this stream of analysis a stage further, from a historical perspective.

Narrative: peasants and social stratification

In agrarian Scandinavia, “farmers” referred to three categories of social
groupings: the freeholders who had taxable land (or the “taxable farmers”),
 ©  The Author(s)
and the tenants working (a) on Crown land or (b) on noble land (see
Tønnesson ). In the early Middle Ages, a high proportion of farmers were
freeholders in Sweden (including Finland) and Norway, but for most periods
in history, the majority of Scandinavian peasants were tenants (see Runblom
et al. : ; Helle : ; Moring ). This was especially the case in
Denmark, where the system of corvée labour prevented many tenants from
becoming freeholders,3 with the result that freeholders remained a minority
until the end of the eighteenth century (Osterud ; Kjargaard ).
However, it should be noted that, in practice, tenants working on Crown
lands held a very similar status to freeholders (see Helle ). Significantly,
aided by the enclosure movement in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, a
crofter system was developed in Norway and in Sweden (including Finland),
which made freehold the majority tenure after the mid-eighteenth century.
(In Denmark, this trend appeared even earlier; see Alestalo and Kuhnle :
.)4 The influence of this freehold tenure should never be underestimated,
since it shaped the morale of the Scandinavian peasants.
Just as they did elsewhere, landlords and nobility enjoyed certain socio-
economic advantages in Scandinavian agrarian societies. Nevertheless,
unlike their counterparts in central Europe— who had “extensive jurisdiction
of the vassal vis-à-vis his peasants through its fiefs system” (Runblom et al.
: ), Nordic nobles seem not to have enjoyed so many privileges in
political and social affairs. Indeed, the privileges stemming from property
and land were “only to a minor degree” (Tønnesson : ), and the
feudal rights of nobles to control peasants and village life were relatively
weak. Nobles may have had the right to appoint judges or to have birk and
patronage privileges (see : ), but they never had the power to execute
local administration by themselves directly.
To be sure, there were particular differences between Denmark and Sweden:

• Danish landowners had the right to use corporal punishment for migrant
villagers (Løgstrup ), whereas Swedish nobles/landlords could not
exercise such private jurisdiction over peasants (Runblom et al. : ).
• The Danish nobility had great economic strength— controlling most of the
land—but were weak politically, whereas Swedish nobles had political strength
vis-à-vis the king, yet economically the freeholders maintained great power.

Nevertheless, generally speaking, there was only a weak feudal character to

this social order.
At the lower end of the productive system were the “cottars” and
“inmates”. Cottars were landless farmers with a roof over their heads,
whereas inmates (or “subtenants”) were homeless farmers dependent on
those who could offer them shelter—be it in the house or in the sauna (see
Christiansen ). But to define their social status, we should remember a
social custom: the children of farmsteads were accustomed to working as
servants on other farms from the age of  until they got married. Hence
many of these workers were temporarily “inmates” in the villages and they
also worked in towns, making up a large proportion of the town’s dwellers.
Their work received no cash payment but in some cases food and clothing
©  The Author(s) 
were potential rewards (see Sundin : ). However, the main benefits
gained from such years of service were that the young people learned the
necessary skills for their careers and they also got the chance to meet their
mates for marriage. After getting married, they too would become tenants
or freeholders through inheritance. (With regard to other social classes at the
lower level of society, the slave system vanished as early as the Middle Ages
and the serf system never popularly existed—see Tønnesson : .)

Evaluating the narrative: culture in ideal and ideology

The strength of “free farmers” in the social and productive system had a
great impact in cultivating ideas of freedom and equality. Freeholders, being
taxpayers, had a status of economic independence and, to a great extent,
leaseholders (especially those on Crown land) were also “freemen”. As
Løgstrup (: ) argued in respect of Denmark, leaseholders were freemen
who could marry whom they wished, and could inherit property and transfer
ownership of it to their heirs. The weak feudal nature of the productive
system underlined this “relative freedom of farmers” (Runblom et al. :
), which discouraged the growth of feudal relations embodied in the
master–servant tradition, as was popular in Central Europe. Meanwhile,
the lifestyle of Scandinavian peasants—scattered as they were over a large
area—had the advantage of keeping them independent of the nobles/
landlords. These conditions ensured the prevalence of ideas such as freedom
and individual autonomy, as represented by the free peasantry, which was
regarded as the core of the folk manifesting the general will (see Sørensen
and Stråth : ; Kettunen ).
The idea of social equality is another key notion rooted in social stratifica-
tion and based on the productive system. In agrarian Scandinavia, no crys-
tallized social hierarchy was present and there was no social class strong
enough to dominate all the rest (Helle : ). Cottars and inmates held
the same status as that of fishermen, forest or seasonal workers, and indus-
trial workers; servants, for the most part, consisted of a certain age group,
rather than a typically identical social class; and, at the top of this stratifica-
tion, the nobility did not have much privilege in their social and economic
life. The farmers were too inefficient to produce much surplus for the land-
lords’ exploitation—and riches never amounted to very much since the
Scandinavian countries were on the whole poor. Consequently, a sense of
class division was vague in people’s perception of society, whereas notions of
cultural homogeneity and social solidarity were strong. In modern times, this
context has helped these states to develop a universal social policy model that
would be impossible to establish in a society with harsh class divisions and/
or a social hierarchy that weakened the sense of social solidarity.
Moreover, the features of the production system affected the growth of notions
of what was “right”. In Scandinavia, the nature of peasants’ economic life
was basically self-regulated, not only for farmers but also for fishermen and
forest workers, etc. This was the economic basis for the growth of a sense of
individual autonomy and right. Thus, although the concept of basic rights
appeared as early as the Nordic Charters as a result of political bargaining
 ©  The Author(s)
between king and assemblies, these notions later became the morale of the
peasants. The weakness of the feudal structure associated with notions of
subordination allowed peasants to be less bound by notions of patriarchy,
paternalism and clientelism. The strength of peasants’ power permitted the
Scandinavian farmers to insert their ideas and norms into mainstream
thought in society: the same norms are now basic elements of the welfare
ideology omnipresent in modern welfare states.

Social/Societal Institutions at the Grassroots Level

Beyond the political and economic institutions, we come to the social/soci-
etal institutions of families, villages and parishes in civil society. Seen from
the cultural perspective, the family is the most fundamental institution for
socializing individuals, and it is also the basic unit of human interaction,
which provides the prototype of social relations, social grouping and social
institutions. Villages and parishes, meanwhile, were the major forms of civil
society organization for agrarian people. These institutions are the basic
frame for structuring people’s everyday life, and they are the fundamental
instruments of cultural heritage. Studies of these institutions would touch a
number of cultural notions, such as reciprocity, social obligation, collective
value and solidarity, and their features also determine the strength of the
social network and the extent of social cohesion.

Narrative: the organizational features of family and local community

The family institution in agrarian societies was larger than that of the present
day. At that time, the Scandinavian family usually consisted of  –  persons
on average. A population survey conducted in Norway during the eighteenth
century discovered that the family size of farmsteads was around –  persons
and, for cottars’ families, about four persons5 (see Sogner : – ). The
situation in other Scandinavian countries was more or less the same, except
in Eastern Finland, where a joint family–household structure was main-
tained until the late nineteenth century (similar to its Russian neighbour; see
Moring ). With regard to their structure, these families do not seem to
have been as “extensive” as the clans. The family usually included a couple
and their children (and also parents, if living together), with other kin such
as uncles and aunts (sometime also adult sisters/brothers) living separately.
A basic reason for this would be the system of primogeniture, formally rec-
ognized by a Swedish law of , that imposed legal restrictions on the
division of a Crown farm (see Christiansen ). As this system allowed only
one child to be the heir, it restricted the scope for family extension. The
social custom that youths should work as servants outside of their homes also
played a role in limiting the potential extension of the family.
Given this general profile, the kin in Scandinavia were unable to be a
strong social power, compared with functioning families elsewhere. The idea
of lineage was not particularly emphasized, and the notion of protecting the
purity of the lineage did not seem to feature as a Scandinavian priority.
Pre-marital sex was popular and to be understood as a pre-stage of formal
©  The Author(s) 
marriage, as reflected in the birth registers of eighteenth-century Norway
(see Sogner : ): nearly half of all brides gave birth for the first time
before marriage or within eight months after the wedding (as opposed to the
normal period of pregnancy, nine months). It is interesting to see that ser-
vants were included in these population surveys as members of households.
This irresolute sense of lineage was a response to the weak patriarchal con-
text in Scandinavian societies. By the standard of Weber’s () view on
patriarchy as the rule of fathers who exercise power over family members by
virtue of kinship (see also MacInnes ), this power was certainly residual
in Scandinavia. The father’s control over the children on matters such as
mate selection and career choice was moderate. Fathers took leadership
within the family but beyond this they were not the representatives (or
managers) of any corporative force or clan.
The vulnerability of the family as an institution in Scandinavia also pro-
vided a weak dynamic for transforming the family-centred local network into
a civil force for social administration. Villages were, by their nature, not a
congregation of family groups or clans and the number of their residents was
normally small (see Albaek et al. ). For instance, in the early nineteenth
century, the average density of residents in Norway was less than  inhabi-
tants per square kilometre (see Osterud : ). This allowed villages only
very limited capacity for self-administration (and to some extent, they were
not even regarded as units of civil administration at all). The enclosure
movement of the eighteenth century further undermined the organizational
function of villages (see Alestalo and Kuhnle : ). Functionally,
therefore, Scandinavian villages simply could not act as basic units of civil
self-regulation since, according to Tønnesson (: ) for instance, the
“real village community was unknown in Norway”. Villages were not able to
defend themselves against outside intrusion or against state intervention;
rather, they looked for the state’s support.
Thus, it was the parish (later the municipality) administration which functioned
as the key institution for organizing local life. Parish ministers exerted their
role as local controllers and managed local welfare affairs. They suppressed
beggary, collected alms for distribution, allocated paupers to farmers’ houses
on a rotation basis, and educated the young people (e.g. Løgstrup : ;
Moring ). Occupying a position somewhere between the state and
peasants, they performed a dualist role in social administration. For peasants,
the parishes were the representatives of kings, to fulfil the king’s obligation of
caring for his subjects; for the state, the parishes were civil society agents, there
to negotiate with the state on behalf of local interests. Within such an institu-
tional order, the contrast between the “self-regulated” civil society and the state
becomes vague; the parishes rather cooperate with the state in adherence to
Lutheran teaching: respect God and respect the secular authorities.

Evaluating the narrative: culture in people’s everyday life

The profile of families, villages and parishes given above forms the basis for
exposing the institutional bases of welfare norms in their cultural-historical
contexts. In terms of family norms, the separation of abodes between kin meant
 ©  The Author(s)
that families lacked communal force, and their capacity to produce welfare was
limited. Such a background supported notions of individual autonomy rather
than familism. The duty of elder care was not so much based on notions of filial
piety as on the contract made between parents and heirs (for when the parents
retired from farming; see Sundin : ). When families met with difficulties,
they had to depend on public assistance organized by churches, to the extent
the primary safety net of welfare protection functioned poorly. This implies
that the need for public welfare was embodied in the institutional order,
as a feature of the civil society organization. This demand for public welfare
was further enlarged after industrialization, when families became smaller in
size and many young people moved to industrial towns to seek work.
Meanwhile, the weak context of patriarchy in the Scandinavian family
system inevitably affected women’s role in social and family life. The short-
age of manpower in Scandinavia required women to participate in manual
work, thereby formulating institutional norms that did not discourage
women from engaging in outdoor work (Manninen and Setälä ). As in
the case of the servant system, young girls were expected, just like the boys,
to work outside of the boundaries of the home. Politics and trade were
dominated by men, but it was possible for the widows of burghers to trade
after they had paid the guild fees and got permission from magistrates (see
Manninen ; Stadin ). This suggests that the gender division of
labour did not attribute so much superiority to men that they monopolized
family and productive activities. There was also a religious element support-
ing the notion of gender equality. Lutheranism promoted a norm of indi-
vidual equality and it did not assume that women were inferior to men in
the first instance. Altogether, this created a cultural climate wherein women
could develop a sense of independence from patriarchal power and resulted
later in a normative system capable of establishing a “women-friendly” society.
With regard to the welfare obligations of communal agents, since the
villages remained a weak collective force, it was the parishes which acted as
organizers of local welfare. However, because the Lutheran churches were
state churches, these parishes became in reality the state’s framework for
social administration in the locality. It was precisely the dual roles of state
agent and civil society agent which made the parish “a vital channel for
communication between King and peasants” (Mörner : ). Through
the efforts of this agent, a “state–society alliance” was formed. The tradition
of participatory democracy that had encouraged Scandinavians to be
actively involved in voluntary associations (see Aronsson ) also supported
the development of this alliance. However, once people were integrated into
the institution of public welfare as organized by the parishes, it simultane-
ously discouraged people’s welfare efforts in the form of civil–self manage-
ment. Just so was the prototype of the private–public interplay created: the
beginnings, in effect, of a social democratic order (see Lin ).

Discussion
The study of institutional and idea traditions discloses the constitutive codes
of a culture, elements of which inhere in contemporary societies. These
©  The Author(s) 
elements are cultural remainders living in the “collective memory” of a
nation, that function both as the ideal for system development and as
“institutional components” in the construction of a new social system. Thus,
as Sahlins () argued, the old traditions have not simply disappeared
but they have been reshaped (and recreated) in the changed context of the
modern world.
In international comparisons, the Scandinavian social policy model is dis-
tinguished by high tax rates. Outside observers may be puzzled as to how
people can accept such a high rate of taxation with no strong resistance. The
inference of statism as previously discussed may offer some answers. This
statism is also associated with the particular type of economic relation
between the kings and the peasants. The farmer’s major obligation to the
king was to pay taxes, and the king acted more like a tax collector and
military commander than the moderator of people’s social life. Farmers had
freedom once the taxes were paid, and in this sense, tax became an institu-
tional tie linking individuals and the state. At the local level (for local/muni-
cipal tax), there was also a tradition of parishes collecting funds for poor relief
from local residents. This duty was supposed to be fulfilled by every local
resident, even the poor (e.g. the cottars; see Sogner : ). With these
institutional arrangements, the idea of a tax state (for both state and muni-
cipal taxes) was thus legitimized.
Scandinavian states are also well known for their high degree of system
integration and have thus been called institutional welfare states. Here we
should refer to the democratic tradition. Within this tradition, originating
from the ancient form of the participatory democracy, various social classes
interacted through political participation. Thus, it was collective actions that
provided the dynamic of institutional integration and created a social sphere
that was open rather than closed to the public. This democratic institution
was also supported by a set of norms including compromise, corporatism
and negotiation, to guide people in finding solutions through the democratic
procedure. From this point of view, we may see the deep roots of the institu-
tional welfare state planted in the Scandinavian democratic tradition.
The Scandinavian states are also “social citizen states” (Hernes ),
wherein individuals are entitled to social benefits (in the form of national
pensions, child benefits, care allowance, etc.) in the name of social rights.
Notions such as social justice, welfare rights and social citizenship are parti-
cularly popular among Scandinavians. To make cultural sense of these
phenomena, peasant concepts of equality and freedom should be the point
of reference. Peasants as “the figures of the free independent peasant”
(Kettunen : ), were powerful enough for their norms to permeate the
whole of society. The early development of secular education—furthered by
Lutheranism for the purpose of enabling parishioners and lay people to read
Luther’s basic tenets—had also contributed to the standing of the peasants
in this respect (Mörner : ). Hence Scandinavian peasants could be
considered “the mythical incarnation of education, freedom and equality”
(Sørensen and Stråth : ), not merely rude, ill-bred, and uneducated
farmers! Such were the foundations for the normative basis upon which the
citizenship-based universal welfare state was to be built.
 ©  The Author(s)
 Finally, on account of their comprehensive provision of social services, the
Scandinavian welfare states are also known as “social care states” (see e.g.
Kvist ). Comparative studies (see Kautto : ) show these states to
be spending a high percentage of GDP on welfare benefits in kind, in
support of a “service approach” with much “public service effort” made. A
cultural explanation for these phenomena can be found in the discussions
on family, village and gender. In Scandinavian tradition, families had only
limited capacity to care for their members, and in any case a cultural notion of
“intimacy at distance” undermined notions of reciprocal dependence among
family members. Meanwhile, villages were not good at self-regulation. Hence
the duty of organizing care provision was assigned to parishes, not neigh-
bourhood-based village communities. Women traditionally worked outside
the home—given the relatively equal gender division of labour—and this
detracted from the possibility of a “classical” male-breadwinner/female-
homemaker family model. These conditions reveal the limited care resources
available from private and civil society channels, and hence the heightened
functional demand for public services.

Conclusions
This article has presented a general profile of the formation and formulation,
as well as the implications of the cultural background of the Scandinavian
welfare states. At the same time and more generally, this has been an attempt
to develop a new method of cultural interpretation of social policy. Differing
from popular cultural studies of welfare which concentrate on individual
norms and values, public opinions, family or care relations and gender con-
tracts, it has deployed an institutional analysis. It regards the institutional
tradition as the most fundamental aspect of a cultural pattern and insists that
these elements, together with the idea traditions intrinsic to an institutional
frame and structure, constituted the basis for the construction of a welfare
state system. This institutional approach to cultural analysis has particular
points of convergence with the political or policy analysis of historical insti-
tutionalism, but as a form of cultural study it remains distinct from them.

Acknowledgements
This study is supported by the Academy of Finland and the Finnish Cultural
Foundation.

Notes
. Rodhe (: ) stated of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries: “A Swede
arriving in Denmark immediately feels at home in a Danish church and inversely.
He understands what is said both as regards form and contents. The divine
service in both countries is on the whole uniform, although Sweden has preserved
a richer liturgy.”
. These estate assemblies were replaced by a parliament in Norway by , in
Sweden by , and in Denmark and Finland in  and , respectively
(Derry ; Nordstrom ).

©  The Author(s) 

. In the Danish system, the tenant’s labour was a necessary component of the
manor economy (see Tønnesson : ). As Christiansen () gave us in the
example of Giesegaard (in south-west Copenhagen), most tenants had to till what
corresponded to a third of their own fields.
. The enclosure movement occurred in the Scandinavian countries during the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Denmark, constraints on the liberties of
the peasants were abolished in , and this stirred an agricultural enclosure
movement in the following decades. This also affected Sweden, forcing many
farmers to move to areas more distant from their previous villages. This reinforced
the peasants’ lifestyle of self-dependency, but undermined the corporative power
of village organization.
. The small size of cottars’ families is because they had no servants and their parents
were used not to live with them but with their elder brothers as the “heirs”.

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