ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses on historical scenes offering insights into the characteristics and processes of Nordic cooperation. Historians have also explored the importance of Nordic cooperation for the historical development of the Nordic model. In 1919, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been a forum for developing and demonstrating a Nordic pattern of international cooperation and a Nordic model of national society. The 'Nordic model' is advocated in the defence of particular national institutions and traditions in the Nordic countries but also in connection with aims concerning the direction of European integration and the best ways of making Europe competitive in the global economy. A crisis in the Nordic model, a feeling of responsibility towards the historic gains that had been made, was the starting point for the first series of initiatives taken by SAMAK in 1983, including commissions, committees and working groups charged to propose a viable way for the welfare state in an environment increasingly hostile to their goals.
