Nordic Integration and Cooperation — Illusion and Reality

In: Cooperation and conflict: journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, Band 19, Heft 4, S. 251-262

Abstract

Andrén, N. Nordic Integration and Cooperation — Illusion and Reality. Cooperation and Conflict, XIX, 1984, 251-262. In 1967 the author contributed an article to this journal on Nordic Integration. The aim was twofold: on the one hand to provide a definition broad enough to encompass a variety of integration forces or tendencies and exact enough to permit sufficient precision in the analysis, and on the other hand to measure the character of the growing Nordic cooperation. In the present paper, 'Nordic integration' is 'revisited', as an illusion, a reality and, perhaps, as a model. The integrative forces are still restricted by national interests and wider, extra-Nordic commitments, severally or collectively. New movements, most recently the transnational cravings for non-nuclear zones and the peace movements, seem unlikely to add a new security dimension to Nordic integration. European development is of decisive importance for the Nordic system, for which closer security cooperation at present is neither desired nor obtain able but cannot be excluded in all future scenarios. Meanwhile the Nordic system is attracting some marginal but increasing attention in the search for alternative models for European security.