ABSTRACT
The analysis in this chapter combines two conceptual frameworks. A sociology of science framework distinguishes three different ways of doing social science. Social science is part of what we will call a science public sphere. A sociology of knowledge framework inserts that scientific sphere into a typology of public spheres, contrasting it with political and cultural public spheres. Using these frameworks, the chapter reviews research on the Nordic countries as five varieties of capitalism, seen as attempts to find a sufficient number of common features – across the most important institutional fields through a specified historical period – to constitute a ‘Nordic model.’ Research on this question developed since the 1960s, before the ‘Nordic model’ was launched as a boundary term in the political public sphere. The research question addressed is what the circulation of this boundary term from politics into social science did to research on the Nordic model. It is found that it led to the dominance of a group of new wave researchers, who took it for granted that there were enough common traits to assume – without further investigation – that a Nordic model existed. This is contrasted with the earlier pioneers and followers that did not make such an assumption.
