The Two Musterknaben and the Naughty Boy: Sweden, Finland and Denmark in the Process of European Integration

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Abstract
The Swedish and Finnish value priorities and modes of adaptation in the current process of European integration are analysed — Denmark being a comparative background cloth. The Danish Maastricht referendum and its European aftermath leading to the Edinburgh agreement in late 1992 are used as the focal points that can elucidate not only Denmark's general postures, but also those of the other two countries. The referendum outcome forced the Danish decision-makers to make issue-neutral autonomy Denmark's no. 1 priority (at the cost of a certain status marginalization in the EC, presumably). Sweden and Finland, by contrast, cannot afford such a provocative posture (from the standpoint of EC integration); given their narrow action spaces as would-be members, some more modest, issue-specific values are given highest priority. Inspired by these cases and certain more general reasonings, a model of national adaptation to unipolar (regional) integration is formulated. It emphasizes the causal power of the polarity structure and its constellations for the explanation of non-essential powers' modes of adaptation. Not only should it put the cases at stake into a broader perspective, but it should also be useful for the future study of some fresh cases of national adaptation during the present European polarity structure.