ABSTRACT
The institutional arrangements associated with egalitarian outcomes have not been as much contested in the other Nordic countries as in Sweden. This is largely due to the fact that in Finland, Norway and Denmark the institutions are typically more modest in conception and operation. As one Finnish editorialist put it: if you take only two instead of three steps forward, you less frequently have to take a step backward. The explanation for this modesty lies mainly in Labour's not having been in as strong a political position as in Sweden. But the differences have been in policy styles and applications rather than in underlying institutional arrangements. Relative to other Western democracies, there is a basic commonality in these four societies, one which allows us to identify the features, events and choices which account for the main differences.
