Lars Mjøset

Nordic economic policies in the 1970s and 1980s

Although the Nordic countries are small, open economies, they were able to benefit considerably from the expansion of the world economy during the “Golden Age” of the 1950s and 1960s. They achieved industrial diversification and consolidated welfare-state reforms. Throughout this period, several economic policy routines were institutionalized. These routines may be analyzed as parts of a specific economic policy model, determined by the economic structure and the pattern of political mobilization. It seems more fruitful to distinguish five such models rather than to use the generalizing notion of a “Scandinavian model.” In the 1970s, the world economic crisis posed new challenges for the Nordic countries. In the first phase of the crisis, economic policies continued to operate in accordance with the established routines. But structural problems, new patterns of political mobilization, and new forms of external pressure forced governments to shift towards austerity policies in the late 1970s. The extent and the specificities of these shifts are compared and the degree to which the economic policy models have changed assessed. Such an analysis is a first step to answer some crucial questions now facing the Nordic countries: Was their flexible adjustment merely the result of favorable conditions during the 1960s—or is it a permanent trait? Are they now trapped between large industrial nations and dynamic newly industrializingcountries? If so, what will be the fate of their advanced welfare sectors?

A Case Study of a Case Study Strategies of Generalization and Specification in the Study of Israel as a Single Case

Debates on ‘case studies and generalization’ have been too strongly committed to dualisms (general/specific, explanation/understanding) that polarize social science into natural-science-inspired and humanities-inspired camps. One should be aware of a third option, a pragmatist (participationist) attitude. Rather than relying on parallels with external academic fields, this attitude thinks about research with reference to the conduct of social science only. This article discusses these three attitudes with reference to a single case study of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (asking why that conflict became one of the deepest and most persistent conflicts in recent history). The three attitudes imply different strategies of generalization and specification. The single case study of the Middle East conflict relies on a pragmatist strategy of generalization, and the rest of the methodological discussion shows how this strategy transcends the general/specific or explanation/ understanding dichotomies.

Stein Rokkan's Thick Comparisons

Among Nordic social scientists during the postwar period. Stein Rokkan made the clearly most important contribution to comparative historical sociology. This article distinguishes three phases of his work: a phase of early experiences in the 1950s, followed by two mature phases in the 1960s and 1970s. In both these phases Rokkan wanted to explain the diversity of European political systems, but in the second mature phase he developed a much broader framework to analyse the economic, territorial and cultural contexts of Europes political developments. The methodology of his conceptual maps and his model of Europe is discussed in some detail. It is argued that in his mature work. Rokkan increasingly departed both from variables-oriented sociology and mainstream positivist methodology. The notion of theory implied by his mature work corresponds best to the notion found among critics of variables-oriented sociology, and it converges with the notions of grounded theory and thick description as developed in interactionist schools of sociology.

The Integration of the Norwegian Oil Economy into the World Economy

Norway is a small nation state on the northernmost coastline of Western Europe, integrated in the Western world economy. For centuries Norways integration in the world economy had been based on exports of raw materials such as fish and timber, as well as shipping services. In the early 20th century, furnace-based metals (made possible by cheap hydropower) were added to this export basket. Just as the world economy entered an increasingly unstable phase in 1970s, another natural resource was discovered in Norway: petroleum – that is, oil and natural gas from the North Sea. This chapter analyses the challenges and possibilities inherent in the Norwegian strategy of developing an oil economy in a world economic situation influenced by new and stronger forms of international integration through the four decades between 1970 and 2010.

No fear of comparisons or context: on the foundations of historical sociology

Exploring the role of comparative history in macro‐social inquiry, Theda Skocpol suggested, in the early 1980s, that historical sociology aimed to derive causal regularities in history without assuming a ‘preconceived general model’. This triggered off a debate on the foundations of historical sociology. Starting from a sketch of the historical and theoretical background, this essay analyses the various positions that evolved in this debate. The analysis relies on an analytical framework that maps various understandings of theory in the social sciences. Three positions are discussed: standard, social‐philosophical and pragmatist conceptions of social science theory. We conclude that both standard scholars (the early functionalists and the later rational choice theorists) and social philosophers fail to overcome the fear of comparisons and context. Pragmatists, in contrast, have no such fear, since they avoid high‐level notions of theory and allow only internal analogies when they analyse historical developments.

Structural change and economic policy: the Norwegian model under pressure

During the 1950s and 1960s, a coherent system of economic policies was implemented in Norway. The article analyses the origins and functioning of this Norwegian model and shows how it broke down under the influence of both external and internal pressures from the mid-1970s onwards. By the early 1990s no new coherent system could be found, while financial deregulation had created huge problems in the banking system and unemployment persisted.

An Introduction to the Comparison of Capitalisms

Choosing Varieties of Capitalism as the title of their 2001 edited volume, Peter Hall and David Soskice monopolized a label that was much too broad for the project they were actually reporting. Their project was in line with a style of research, which may be called “bringing yet another factor back in”. That term stems from another pioneering edited volume emerging – like Hall and Soskices volume – from the Harvard circuit: Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpols (1985) Bringing the State Back In. Following that volume, a number of other factors were “brought back in”: classes, geopolitics, finance and so on.

An Early Approach to the Varieties of World Capitalism: Methodological and Substantive Lessons from the Senghaas/Menzel-Project

Recurrent “methodological disputes” have haunted the social sciences, again and again polarizing the case-oriented quest for specification against the natural science inspired quest for general, high-level theory. As a consequence, too much social science research is captured in either one of two vicious circles: ever more highly specified monographic case studies or preoccupation with periodically shifting general theories. The interaction of these two circles increases the risk of widespread amnesia: as social scientists are either bogged down in a stream of cases or flying high with the most recent grand (meta-)theories, social science forgets the actual empirical knowledge that is being meticulously created, maintained and revised in the daily handicraft carried out by a growing mass of researchers.

A Varieties Approach to the Varieties of Capitalism

The Cold War world of systems competition between socialism and capitalism is long gone. Today we have only varieties of capitalism. It is thus all the more important to develop the study of these varieties. The Varieties of Capitalism (VOC) school is content to demonstrate, by means of handy constrained optimisation models, that there is an alternative to the liberal market economy model (LME). LME and its opposite, the coordinated model (CME), are defined by different complementarities (Hall and Soskice 2001). While it is comforting that there is an alternative to liberal models, it is regrettable that the study of varieties has been reduced to the study of a crude dualism.

Peter Hedström and Peter Bearman (eds): The Oxford Handbook of Analytical SociologyHedströmPeterBearmanPeter (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, 772 pp.

The publication of this handbook – following Hedström’s Dissecting the Social (2005) – strengthens the ambition to consolidate the analytical sociology (AS) ‘framework’/‘research program’ as ‘the central template for a renewed sociology for the twenty-first century’ (p. 21). The renewal aims to roll back social philosophical sociology, putting the discipline thoroughly on a standard footing. ‘Rigour’ and ‘clarity’ are invoked (Hedström, 2005). The implicit understanding of these notions draws on the methods community with the natural sciences. AS considers itself the adequate sociology for an age of ‘powerful computers and simulation software’ (pp. 12, 263), thus reflecting a growing awareness of the limitations of linear models (cf. pp. 141 ff.).