ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Nordic civil society emerged as a consequence of transnational as well as national religious and other movements from the mid-1800s. There was a parallel movement of expansion of civil society from below and incorporation from above. The national movements were drawing their inspiration from similar movements in other Nordic countries and from outside the Nordic region. Based on outlines of the respective development paths and current scholarship, it is possible to identify characteristics that constitute a Nordic model of civil society, both in a historical and comparative perspective. Although the Nordic societies were not moved forward by Calvinists, many of the elements Max Weber associates with “ascetic Protestantism” fit rather well with the Nordic development. While the Calvinists were in opposition to the state, the Nordic revivalists, e.g. the Hauge movement in Norway or the Grundtvigians in Denmark, developed a more collaborative attitude to state and local government officials. Weber’s work on world religions and the Protestant ethic, as well as his distinction between sect and church, is a contribution to the analysis of civil society in the Nordic region as well. The concerns Weber had about bureaucratic dysfunctions in Lutheran states were much less warranted in the case of the Nordic countries due to the historically strong tradition of an impartial bureaucracy in state affairs, in combination with the tradition for state-friendly revivalism and associative governance.
