ABSTRACT
The democratic Welfare State in the rich countries of the Western world is protectionist and nationalistic”, the Swedish economist and social engineer Gunnar Myrdal concluded in the late 1950s. Since the 1930s he had been active and influential in developing and advocating such a welfare state in Sweden. The critique of nationalism has also been an important topic in debates on the transformations called globalisation since the end of the twentieth century. However, the dominant way of using the concept in public debates, as was also the case in the 1950s, differs from Myrdal’s use. Competitiveness and security are certainly not new concerns, even in connection with social policies. Arising from the nineteenth-century discussion of the “social question” or “labour question”, they have been part of social policy considerations. In the nineteenth century historical progress and transnational interdependence became integral ideational ingredients in the construction of a modernising nation-state society.
