Nordic Cooperation and High Politics

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Abstract
The 1972 decision of the Norwegian people to reject admission to the European Community has raised some fresh questions about the Nordic countries and Nordic integration. Was the Norwegian decision a protest vote on mainly domestic grounds? Or was it a rejection of the whole structure, system, and ideology of the European Community—as having grown too bureaucratic, too self-centered, and too concerned about economic gains and trade and growth rates rather than about human values? Yet, if the Community was no longer an attractive alternative, what were Norway's other alternatives? The ocean-oriented, outgoing Norwegians could hardly have turned isolationists. Should we read the Norwegian referendum as a “yes” to Nordic cooperation rather than as a “no” to continental Europe? Whatever tipped the scales in Norway's 1972 referendum, the so-called Nordic alternative seems bound to become more prominent in Scandinavia, since Norway has reached a Swedish-modelled trade agreement with the European Community as a substitute for membership.

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