Amid the grinding recession in Europe, the Nordic model is having a new lease of life: the countries of northern Europe are faring better than the southern tier. In our cover story Alyson JK Bailes, a diplomat turned professor who has lived and worked in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland, shares her decades of experience.
The Nordic model
It is an invariable rule of revolutions, from the collapse of communism in Russia to the overthrow of the Tunisian dictatorship, that someone declares they want their liberated country to follow the Swedish or Nordic model of development. By this they mean an affluent and egalitarian utopia.