The Nordic Voter: Myths of Exceptionalism

THE NORDIC VOTER is the first book-length comparative analysis of voting behavior in the five Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. In this book, leading scholars of the national teams of election studies presents a detailed account of voter turnout, party identification, satisfaction with democracy, preferential voting, government support and party choice in the Nordic countries. The five nation study is based on a comparative data set prepared uniquely for this book project that allow for a comprehensive analysis of the diversity in voting behaviour within the Nordic countries as well as the discrepancies between Nordic and non-Nordic countries.

The book challenges a widespread practice to group the Nordic countries together in comparative analyses. The general claim, substantiated by a unique and extensive empirical analysis of voter behaviour, is that the dissimilarities between the Nordic countries are in fact so large - both in terms of institutional settings and micro level voting behaviour - that it is not justified to make general claims of a Nordic voter. In other words, the old story of 'remarkable similarities' will be substituted with numerous examples of 'remarkable dissimilarities' between the Nordic countries.