(This is the paper I wrote for AP European Hisotry class last semester.)
The Political, Economic, and Social History of Scandinavia
Korean Minjok Leadership Academy
International Program
Lee, Chung HyunTerm Paper, AP European History Class, June 2011
Table of Contents
Ⅰ. Introduction
Ⅱ. Purpose of study and Organization
Ⅱ.1 ThesisⅡ.2 Organization
Ⅲ. Scandinavia’s Brief History
Ⅲ.1 Literature and Movies
Ⅳ Political aspects
Ⅳ.1 No wars for a long period of time
Ⅳ.2 Socialist Society in a Free Market Economy
Ⅴ Economical aspects
Ⅴ.1 Tax System
Ⅴ.2 Scandinavian Welfare System
Ⅴ.3 Successful multinational companies
Ⅵ Social Aspects
Ⅵ.1 Pan-Scandinavianism
Ⅵ.2 High Status of Women
Ⅵ.3 Homogenous Population
Ⅶ Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Ⅰ. Introduction
Everybody has a desire to become happier. They long for better food, house, quality of education and self-esteem, in thoughts of better life. Many organizations have attempted to measure the happiness of the people in countries through diverse measures. Many people suggested different solutions for the argument that happiness itself could never be measured nor expressed numerically by not only considering the GDP but also the health status, education level, social connections and many other factors that relate to human lives of certain countries. Among the flood of statistics, one interesting fact that we need to focus on is that all the Scandinavian countries always rank the highest in any surveys or researches measuring satisfaction and happiness.
Ⅱ. Purpose of study and Organization
Ⅱ.1 Thesis
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, happiness is ‘a state of well being and content’ .(1) Cambridge Dictionary defines happiness as a ‘the feeling of being happy’ (2) as where the definition of happy is ‘feeling, showing or causing pleasure or satisfaction.’(3) It may depend on individuals in what situations they feel happy, but to infer from the various definitions suggested by the dictionaries, happiness is obtained when needs or desires are met, in other words, satisfied. There seems to be a clear connection between satisfaction and happiness.
Human desires are never-ending. Psychologist Abraham Maslow(4) divided the endless human desires into five hierarchies each being –starting from the bottom- physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization.(5) In order for the higher needs to be satisfied, the ones in the bottom needs to be met before hand. On the process of pursuing happiness, a country’s role is to secure the first two levels in order to make its citizens happy; the rest is up to the individuals whether they succeed on reaching the top of the pyramid or not. If you put it the other way, the country must be able to provide physiological and psychological safety for its citizens in order to secure their happiness.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)(6) recently released a well-being initiative which considers the people of a country’s health status, work and life balance, education and skills, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environmental quality, personal security, subjective well-being and the sustainability along with it’s GDP.(7) They drew a life satisfaction graph of all the countries in the OECD based on the will-being initiatives. In the graph below, all the Scandinavian countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland have higher satisfaction rate than the OECD average with Denmark ranking the first.
With Scandinavian people’s satisfaction on life so high, we can infer that the Scandinavian countries have succeeded in providing a stable environment which enabled
people to pursue higher level of desire. But why is it specifically Scandinavia? How is it different from other regions in the world? I thought this had to do with their unique history. So, in this paper, I try to seek the relation Scandinavia’s political, social and economical history with their high satisfaction shown these days.
Ⅱ.2 Organization
In this paper, I’m going to first introduce what Scandinavia is by looking into evidences in literature and movies. Scandinavia portrayed in literature and movies easily shows the readers how Scandinavia was like at that time, since they reflect its society. Next, I would move on to political, economical and social aspects found in history which relates to or results in the high satisfaction rate in the recent Scandinavian world. Last, I would show evidences as well showing how high status of life Scandinavian these days and prove that the aspects that I pointed out were actually some factors which influenced Scandinavia’s happiness.
Ⅲ. Scandinavia’s Brief History
Ⅲ.1 Literature and Movies
The movie ‘Pelle the Conqueror’ based on the novel ‘Pelle the conqueror’ by Martin Andersen Nexø, is about Swedish immigrant family to Denmark in the late 19th century. (8) In this movie, the old man and a young boy from Sweden are both exposed to extreme poverty and is forced to work in the farm in Sweden. However, they are not the only ones who left Sweden to seek better lives- there were actually a ship full of immigrants.(9) We can infer that Sweden wasn’t affluent at that time, nor did it have good social system to handle all the workers. Also, Denmark was in a bad economic condition- no better than Sweden- as portrayed in the movie.
The movie ‘Titanic’ directed by James Cameron based on the luxurious cruise ship RMS Titanic which left England and was headed for New York in 1912. In the movie, Jack wins a ticket for RMS Titanic in a pocker game against Sweds. (10) Actually, the gambling place is full of Danish, Swedish, etc., mostly Scandinavians, which refers that Scandinavians were poor that the only way they could afford to ride on the cruise ship was winning a ticket through gambling. The passenger information who boarded Titanic also supports this. There were 6 Scandinavians in the first- class which was 1.82% of the whole first class passenger, 20 Scandinavians in the second-class which was 7.01% of the total second-class passenger. However, there were 284 Scandinavian passenger in the third-class, which is 40% of the whole third-class passengers.(11) The percentages clearly states that Scandinavians couldn’t afford the first-class, which indirectly reflects the economic status of Scandinavia as a whole. Also, we can see that a lot of Scandinavians longed new life in America, which was thought of as a land with opportunities.
‘When Stone Was Still a Bird’ written by Marjaleena Lembcke is about a Finnish family with a kid named Pecca. The story basically takes place in the 1950s in Finland. In the story, the family decides to immigrate to Canada and the reason the father gives to the family is that “I work hard but end up only paying off the debt. The laborer in this country can never receive a just price for their labor. So this is the reason why I would like to move to a country where I get can get my labor paid…. Our country has too many unemployed people. That is the reason why we can’t choose what kind of job we want to have. Also, this is the reason why our wages are low.”(12) We can infer from the father’s statement that the workers weren’t satisfied with the economic system of Finland that time- it wasn’t due to their personal reasons but was due to unstable economic structure. Also, the part “Aunt’s family immigrated also, and is living well in Canada, free from economic constraints.” Shows that immigration was a wide- spread trend in Finland at that time, and that mostly the reason was to have a better work place and earn more money.(13)
Simply applying how Scandinavian society is reflected in the literature, we can infer that Scandinavia suffered extreme poverty during the 19th century, and until up to 1950s as well. It is now clear that it was due to a large development which made Scandinavian countries desirable to live. Then, what are the factors which influenced the changes?
Ⅳ Political aspects
Ⅳ.1 No wars for a long period of Time
It is an irony of history that Scandinavia was so infamous for producing bloodthirstyberserkers in the age of the Vikings, in Europe's medieval era. For Scandinavia had become by the middle of the 1800s without question Europe's least volatile and least militaristic section. Scandinavian countries developed a culture of neutrality toward countries outside of the region, to go along with a culture of partnership within the region. It is reasonable that this absence (for the most part) from European power politics allowed and still allows all the Scandinavian governments more energy and resources to focus on bettering the lives of their people.
Sweden and Norway were at one time joined in a single state, and their separation was peaceful. The same is true for Denmark and Norway. Iceland, like Greenland and the Faroe Islands are now, was a Danish possession, and the independence came without battling. Sweden is the country of Scandinavia that had the most involvement in European interstate warring in history, being, alongside Denmark, a key player in the Thirty Years' War and after that fighting Russia twice for supremacy in northeastern Europe, losing both times (the second time, Russia won the rights to Finland). But it stayed out of affairs after that. In 1905, Prime Minister Bostrom went so far as to state in a speech, with respect to the country’s foreign ministerial agenda, Sweden had “no policy in any real sense apart from protecting its neutrality”. Scandinavian countries were able to refrain from participating in one of European history's most significant turning points, the First World War, as active fighters or victims of invasion, by quickly proclaiming neutrality on August 1, 1914. This was possible because Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were in similar situations, thus being able to cooperate well.
Today, with regular warfare in Europe no longer a fact of life, Scandinavia could be said to retain its spirit of separateness and neutrality. Denmark, Norway, and Iceland have joined most of the rest of Europe in NATO, but Finland and Sweden have chosen to stay out of the military organization. As for the European Union, the chief offspring of postwar European politics, Norway is not a member at all, Iceland is just a "candidate," and Sweden and Denmark are members that have declined to use the Euro as their currency.
Ⅳ.2 Socialist Society in a Free Market Economy
In most of the Scandinavian countries, both socialism and capitalism can be found easily. Having elements of both has been more beneficial for Scandinavian countries, since it has provided capacity for cooperation between two different systems and in society generally speaking. Actually, at present, at least in Scandinavia, socialism has come to depend on capitalism for its very existence. For the contemporary Social Democratic movement seeks to reform capitalism to align it with the ethical ideals of social justice, as opposed to doing away with the capitalist mode of production (with all its trappings) and enshrining one diametrically opposed to it. In Sweden, the Social Democratic movement started along with the labor movement. It was greatly influenced by Denmark. The Social Democratic Party was founded in 1889, supported by working men, and the great economic discontent people had. From 1920, Social Democratic party was in power in Sweden. In Denmark, the Left Wing party led by Erik Eriksen and the United National party coexisted from 1950 to 1953. After, Socialdeomkratiet took the office led by Hans Hedtoft and remained in power until 1968. In Norway, Norske Arbeidepartiet(the Labor Party) was in power until 1968, which underwent some reforms. In Finland, the Social Democratic party took control since 1966, cooperating with other parties. Iceland formed a united cabinet including Socialists and Social Democrats with Ólafur Thors of Independent party as a prime minister.
Unlike Socialists, Social Democrats adopted the Free Market economy, because their final goal was in realizing its ideas in the actual world. Since then, there has been a continuos rivalry between the Social democratic party and the others. However, continuous attempt to compromise and unite in order for effective policies are being made these days.
Ⅴ Economical aspects
Ⅴ.1 Tax System
Scandinavian countries are known for their high rate of tax collection. According to OECD statistics, Scandinavian countries have the highest tax rate on personal income, profit and goods and services. Along with the highest tax rates, the Scandinavian countries had the highest rate of public spending on family benefits and public pensions, which infers that the large amount of taxes collected by the government are mostly used for public welfare.
In Sweden 1947, the Minister of Finance, Ernst Wigforss suggested to apply gradual advance tax rates on income taxes. Due to the inflation and the increase in the income, Sweden became one of the countries with highest direct tax rates in Europe. All the increased income from taxes were used to support the lower-class; to increase the pension, to provide house, to support children, free meal service in schools and free text books. These tax policies helped decrease the economic gap between each class.
In Denmark, the project of building welfare states in 1960s was followed by a progressive taxation, where larger burden fell on the higher earners and the welfare services were thus to be in a certain way ‘free of charge’. Since then, Denmark had been spending half of their income from taxes on public expenditure.
In the 1970s Scandinavian countries did experience severe economic difficulties. However, they still increased the spending on public welfare with the collected taxes.(14) It is not only their high rate of tax that we need to focus on, it is how the government spend their collected taxes.
Ⅴ.2 Scandinavian Welfare System
There are two types of welfare regimes. Residual welfare sates that provide only a basic safety need for the poorest citizens, and Institutional welfare states with much greater social ambitions and provides public services for all the citizens. However, Scandinavia has created a unique model for welfare systems, which made it impossible for it’s system to be categorized into other divisions.
Scandinavian welfare states are characterized as very redistributive, and have high degree of social equality. Welfare in Scandinavia are mostly provided by the public sector, leaving little room for private or individuals. All the social programs-old age pensions, helath care, child-care, education, child allowances and health insurance- are not targeted at the poort but the entire population, and this is financed principally out of general taxation.
The welfare system was first programmed by the social democratic parties that dominated Scandinavian politics during the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1910s, the labor movement spread throughout Europe, and there were two types of people; the people who supported Socialism who were called the Social Democrats, and the people who supported the Parliamentary Democracy. Eventually, the Social Democrats dominated most of the Scandinavian country. However, it isn’t the sole achievement of the working class, since it made many alliances with different social classes, especially the farmers. The welfare state was thus constructed following the negotiations of ‘Red-Green’ coalitions(15) in the 1930s, which allowed the social democrats to form majority governments and introduce comprehensive social reform legislation.
Lutheranism was also influential in the formation of the welfare states. All the early social schemes had self-help in premise, and aimed to gain individual-independence and self-reliance. Willingness to work was a premise for people to receive benefits from these policies, and with such goals, the social welfare systems were more sustainable and efficient than any other models around the world. Also, since the capacity of the state for local action was at its maximum through the Lutheran parish network, which helped the social welfare system easy to apply to lives of people. To add, the development of centralized state was early enough which enabled the state to play a big role in promoting such system.
Here are some specific examples. The concept of the welfare state was part of the Danish Social Democrats. According to their policy, the public sector did not only have the responsibility to alleviate immediate needs but every citizen would enjoy stable and decent standard of living and have access to health care and education. In Sweden, after Hjalmar Barnding being the leader of the party, the Social Democratic party eliminated revolution and concentrated on moderation and compromise, which supported more realistic policies. They opened the middle way with the goal of capitalist economy ‘trygghet(guarantee of safe life)’ assimilated to socialistic view on distribution. In Iceland, social services and welfare states started developing since the beginning of the 20th century. However, it wasn’t until 1930s that comprehensive legislation on social services was enacted on Iceland by the Government of Working Class. It underwent sever changes in health care and insurances.
Gini coefficients(16), which measures the inequality of a distribution, is relatively low in all Scandinavian countries-Denmark 24.7, Sweden 23, Finland 26.9, Iceland 25, Norway 25.8- which shows that the welfare system, which uses money collected as taxes for the welfare of the whole citizens, is quite successful.
Ⅴ.3 Successful multinational companies
Scandinavia’s successful econmy is due to the multinational companies which originated from the region. For example, Statoil(17) in Norway, which has been the most important player in Norwegian oil industry, and has contributed strongly to make Norway into a modern industrial nation. The Norwegian state benefits immensely from Statoil; it is the largest shareholder in Statoil and also imposes high taxes on the profits up to 70%.(18) Volvo(19) Eriksson(20), IKEA(21), SKF(22) and Tetra Pak(23) which originated from Sweden are all international companies which effects the Sweden economy a lot. The world’s leading mobile phone supplier, Nokia(24), is from Finland, which had led Finland industry for 15-20 years. Rivio(25), which is the creator of the famous application for smart phones, Angry Bird, is also from Finland, making the country known for their communication technologies and soft ware. Lego(26), one of the biggest toy manufacturers, and Maersk(27), the world-wide oil and gas company are from Denmark.
These companies didn’t only provide the government with immense taxes which enabled the government to react to societal problems with more flexibility, but also effected the brand powers each countries held. With most of the companies ranking the top in the world brands and qualities(28), the image of the Scandinavian companies are taken as stable and trustworthy. Actually, the rankings released by ‘Future Brand’ on the country brands actually shows that the Scandinavian countries are in the top 25 countries with highest values.(29) This is one of the reasons why the successful multinational companies are important factors of the economic success of Scandinavian countries
.
Ⅵ Social Aspects
Ⅵ.1 Pan-Scandinavianism
Pan-Scandinavianism, also called Scandinavianism is an partially successful movement in the 19th century for Scandinavian unity. This was possible because the Scandinavian countries used united languages, experienced same history, shared common religion, Lutheranism, and had same culture such as Old Norse mythology; in other words, they were easy to unite.(30) Students and writers were the first to publicize such idea. They got together frequently, drank punch and other alcohols and were looking forward the unifications of the Nordic countries. Panscandinavianism is known as an impetus that enabled philogical and arcaheological discoveries of the late 19th century, which pointed to an early unity.
Crisis came when the war broke out between Denmark and the territorially expanding Prussia first in 1848 and then in 1864. In the first conflict, 4,5000 Swedes and Norwegians supported Denmark, but in the next battle, there weren’t much assistance.(31) The Swedish-Norwegian king didn’t want to irritate Prussia so they kept silence. The Prime minister refused to offer any official help for Denmark. In the WWⅡ Scandinavian countries weren’t much of a help to each other, because they were all concerned about their own in defending German army, so the Pan-Scandinavianism isn’t considered a 100% successful movement.
Even though it didn’t succeed, the influence it brought to Scandinavia was significant. Not to mention the academic discoveries, but it provided a chance for the Scandinavians to consider themselves as a whole, not as separate countries. This gradually softened their aggressiveness towards each other, which led to lesser wars. Also, since the inter-relations with neighboring countries were stable, governments of each country were able to concentrate on their citizens’ well-being. Also, Pan-Scandinavianism was the basic spirit on which the Nordic Council was created during the WWⅡ. Nordic Council was a much more successful organization which introduced a common labor market and free movement across borders without passport for the countries’ citizens in 1952.(32) Such accomplishments are the factors which makes Pan-Scandinavianism a partially successful movement.
Ⅵ.2 High Status of Women
Scandinavia is often referred as a ‘Paradise for Women’. High life-satisfaction of women must be a great factor which influenced high life satisfaction for people in the Scandinavian countries. If women were suppressed and prohibited from participating in the society, the discontent would easily overwhelm any kind of social success the males gain.
However, women are respected as same or more than men, even from their childhood. Female school life expectancy is 2 or 3 years longer than the average in all Scandinavian countries.(33) Traditionally, women were prohibited from going to school or receiving public education, the social conception was that it was unnecessary for the women to get educated, since they would never serve as a public workforce. However, the extended school life expectancy shows that the general prejudice had relinquished a lot in the societies.
Statistics from OECD show that not only has women started working and participating in the society, but is actually achieving the same status that men hold, in the Scandinavian countries. The wage differences between genders are relatively low in Scandinavian countries and the rate of employed workers are almost the same.
Until 1846 in Sweden, when the liberalists first acknowledged the women’s right to equally engage in a job as the men, women were discriminated and thought as subordinates to the husband’s life like in other parts of Europe. The status of the women in Sweden alleviated during the industrialism and capitalism movement. At that time, relaxation of social mores was taking place, especially in urban areas which demanded a lot of work forces, which allowed women to have jobs in public fields such as the post office and the telephone company. This was the beginning of women participating in the economy.
In 19th century in Iceland, influenced by the left-wing movement, people got to care more about the rights of the secluded, mainly women. The Scandinavain expression of this movement is Henrik Ibsen’s ‘The Doll’s house’ In 1894 the Icelandic Women’s Society was established to support several petitions and protests the women held against the male dominated society. In the 1910s the liberation movement had in principle given Icelandic women human rights equal with men, but it didn’t come into effect. There were continual challenges made by women in Icelandic society until the radical wave of 1960s and late 70s reached Iceland. Icelandic women formed a group which was translated as ‘red stockings’ and had great feminist influence in the process of legislation.
Other Scandinavian countries experienced similar process, taking into consideration that Scandinavian countries were the first in the world to actually accept women as a equal and rational part of society. A lot of female work force emerged in the labor market during the World War Ⅱ, but unlike after the first World War, women didn’t return to their home. The number of working females started increasing in the 1950s.(34) In the situation which the number of women workers were increasing exponentially, there were more to be fixed than the legislations and laws. In 1960s, along with all the reformations the world was undergoing, more new and active feminist groups were formed in the Scandinavian countries. ‘Individ og samfund’ was formed in Denmark, ‘Kvinnefronten’ was formed in Norway, ‘Grupp8’ in Sweden and ‘Rödstrumpor’ in Iceland(35). These organizations worked hard to initiate equality in wages and gender ratios in public employments. Their effort was accepted by the government, and on example is the 1979 the Law of Gender Equality in Sweden.
Starting from 1960s, every Scandinavian country worked to improve the welfare system which enabled increased job opportunities for women. In 1980, 74% of Swedish females were employed, while all the Scandinavian countries marked above 60%. In 1985, 34% of the parliament was female and in Sweden the rate reached almost 50%. Female leaders such as Gro Harlem Brundtland(36), Pia Kjaersgarrd(37), Johanna Sigurdardottir(38), Marita Petersen (39), Elisabeth Rehn(40) are some examples or active female participation in economy and politics.
Ⅵ.3 Homogenous Population
The homogeneity of population also plays a major role in stable societies of Scandinavia. Most of the conflicts are caused by ethnical differences in ethnically diverse areas due to each different ideas, cultures and understandings.
Sweden’s population is 81% Swedish, 5% Finnish, and 13% others, 90.1% Danish, 9.9% others for Denmark population, 93% Icelandic and 7% other in Iceland, 94.4%of Norwegian, 3.6% of other European and 2% of others in Norway, and Finn 93.4%, Swede 5.6%, 1% others for Finland.(41) Also, majority of Scandinavians are Lutheran, which leaves little room for religious disputes.
This may be due to their isolate location, and bad weather which kept a lot of people from emigrating to the Scandinavian countries. Since there were little influx of different ethnicities, people living in the Scandinavian countries didn’t vary much, as the ancestors of living in the Faroe Islands are the Norse and Gaelic, ethnicities found in Scandinavia.
Living with people with similar ethnicity and religion wouldn’t be quarrelsome since most of them were affected by similar cultures and have similar concept of understanding the world. This means that there would be less conflicts and stress, which results in high life-satisfaction rates.
Ⅶ Conclusion
All five of the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, enjoy high quality of life and a closely related high satisfaction with life. But according to numerous data from the past the fact that they were not always like this is quite evident. I looked for political, social and economic aspects that would explain the change over about a century, from a fin de siècle of fairly widespread misery to a late twentieth century (carrying on into the present) of enviable prosperity, bringing with it happiness—according to numerous metrics higher in Scandinavia than in any other region. The fact that they refrained from wars for a long period of time is one of the factors which make Scandinavian countries successful because they didn’t have to undergo massive destruction other European countries underwent and were free from fears which made them stable. Their unique political structure was also one of the political aspects which made Scandinavian countries successful; socialist society in a free market economy. This unique structure was the combination of Socialism and Capitalism, actually the combination of the positive aspects. Also, this played the major role in forming Scandinavians’ unique view on social welfare system. Next, their tax system and welfare system are also noticeable, because the satisfaction of Scandinavian people mainly originate from their economic systems; tax system which collects money from the people who earn a lot and distribute it to the poor, and the welfare system which cares for every citizen instead of the extreme poor. Their successful multinational companies play big role economically, making Scandinavian companies reliable and trustworthy. Finally, the social aspects which effect Scandinavian countries today are Pan-Scandinavianism, high status of women and homogenous population. Pan-Scandinavianism was the mental basis for unification between Scandinavian countries, and high status women hold in society is also part of the reason why Scandinavian people are so satisfied with their lives. Their homogeneous population left less room for religion or racial disputes, stabilizing the society.
Notes
(1) Entry : Happiness , Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary Online http://www.merriam-webster.com/
(2) Entry : Happiness Cambridge Dictionaries Online http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/happiness?q=happiness
(3) Entry : Happy Cambridge Dictionaries Online http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/happy_1?q=happy
(4) Abraham Harold Maslow(1908-1970) was an American professor who founded humanistic psychology and created Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
(6) Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development was created to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world in 1961. 34 countries are members of the organization, and it’s head quarter is in Paris, France.
(7) The index allows citizens to compare well-being across 34 countries, based on 11 dimensions the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
(12) Lembcke, 1998. P53~55
(13) Lembcke, 1998. P55
(14) OECD Statistics, released in 2007
(15) The Red-Green coalition is a center-left coalition of Norwegian parties, formed by the Labour the Socialist Lesft Part and the Center party. Unlike many other Red-Green coalitions, the ‘Green’ here is the color of a centrist party rather than an actual Green Party. It was established in 2005, and earned majority in the 2009 election.
(16) The Gini coefficient is a measure of the inequality of a distribution, a value of 0 expressing total equality and a value of 1 maximal inequality. It is commonly used as a measure of inequality of income or wealth.
(17) Statoil, the Norwegian State Oil company, was formed in 1972. Two years after the formation that statfjor field was discovered in the North Sea, and the company commenced productions since 1979. In October 2007, it merged with Norsk Hydro’s oil and gas divison.
(19) AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial behicles. It was founded by AB SKF in 1927.
(20) Eriksson was founded by Roy Eriksson in October 1998. It is one of the world’s leading software company.
(21) IKEA is a privately held, international home products company. It is the world’s largest furniture retailer. It was founded by a 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad in 1943.
(22) SKF is the world’s biggest ball-bearing manager. It was founded by a Swedish engineer in 1907.
(23) Tetra Pak is a multinational food processing and packaging company of Swedish origin. It was founded in 1951.
(24) Nokia is the world’s leading mobile phone supplier and a leading supplier of mobile and fixed telecom networks including related customer services. It was formed originally in 1865 but moved specially to mobile industry starting from 1968.
(25) Rovio is a software company in Finland founded in 2003. It is the creator of the famous application for smart phones ‘the Angry Bird’.
(26) LEGO was founded in 1932 in Denmark. It is the largest manufacturer of toys.
(27) Maersk is an independent oil and gas company founded in 1940 in Denmark.
(30) Beon, 1998, 278-279
(31) Kent, 2008. P192~194
(33) OECD Statistics, released in 2007.
(34) Beon, 1998. P400
(35) Derry, 2008. P311-312
(36) Gro Harlem Brundtland was bron in 20 April 1939 and is a Norwegian Social Democratic politician, diplomat and physician, and an international leader in Sustainable Development and Public Health. She served three terms as a Prime Minister of Norway.
(37) Pia Kjaersgarrd was born in February 23 1947 and is a Danish Politician. She is a co-founder and current leader of the Danish People’s Party.
(38) Johanna Sigurdarodotiir was born in October 14, 1940 and is the current Prime Minister of Iceland. She was previously Iceland’s Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security.
(39) Marita Petersen was bron in 21 October 1940 and was the first and only female Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands.
(40) Märta Elisabeth Rehn was born in April 6 1935, and is a former Member of Parliament(MP) of the Swedish People’s party and the first female Minister of Defence in Finland.
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Movies
1. Titanic
2. Pelle the Conqueror
Web
(Accessed on May and June 2011)
(Accessed June 2011)
9. Wikipedia – Abraham Maslow. 1 June 2011. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow>
21. Wikipedia-Johanna Sigurdarodotiir. June 2011. <
23. Wikipedia-Marta Elisabeth Rehn. June 2011. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Rehn>
