Conclusions

This chapter draws together the major arguments and insights presented in the preceding chapters. Drawing on Adam Smith’s and Karl Polanyi, they consider ideas about the role of the state in democratic societies, arguing that democratic government is the only institution that can truly manage public and semi-public goods, including natural resources, education, health, money and individual security, in the legitimate interest of all, while ensuring freedom, equity and justice. The cases of the two neighbouring countries, Scotland and Norway, have been used to analyse and understand the very different trajectories the two countries have taken over the past two centuries. Norway’s political independence, gained in 1814, combined with a general approaches to politics, institutions, natural resources and property rights, industrialization, that all emphasize or support decentralisation, have given Norway an advantage over Scotland in achieving democratic governance. Scotland’s longstanding subordinate status within the British Empire, which largely disenfranchised the Scots and left them without the necessary government support in the areas of industry and oil and gas, local governance and decentralized development, health care, housing and urban poverty, have contributed to Scotland’s disadvantage. When the book was completed, the results of the referendum on independence were unknown. However, the editors did consider that the referendum might fail, and noted that Scotland would in this event still enter a constitutional stage much like Norway did in 1814. At the time, few considered the issue of Brexit, and its consequences for Scotland. For both of these reasons, the future of Scottish politics remains a key issue, underpinning the importance of this book.

Agrarian Change in Scotland and Norway: Agricultural Production, Structures, Politics and Policies since 1800

This Chapter addresses differences in agrarian structures, politics and policies between Norway and Scotland. It identifies four key processes: (1) agrarian improvers acceleration of the first agrarian revolution in Scotland through forced enclosures and the dispossession of the peasantry (2) the impact of the free trade period and war time food shortages in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (3) the elaboration of agrarian policy and state interventions in the interwar period, and (4) the consequences of the second agrarian revolution following the Second World War, including the Mansholt plan and subsequent EU policies. These processes help explain the emergence of a dual agrarian structure in Scotland as opposed to the smaller farm size and greater pluriactivity in Norway. Neither history corresponds either to Marxian theories of agrarian change or to those of ‘Modernisation’, but reflects a series of critical junctures and context-specific politics and contests between interests.

Reflections on the Making of Norway

This chapter discusses the development of Norway - like Scotland, a small, peripheral country - into an economically efficient and relatively egalitarian nation. A comparison is drawn between the subsistence economy in Rural North Norway and the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and the effects of industrialisation and consequent urbanisation in both countries. It considers the effects of land ownership in Scotland where the pre-industrial subsistence system was largely destroyed, and contrasts it with the relative attractiveness of subsistence farming in Norway and the opportunities for farm ownership and pluriactivity available to the rural populace, which was denied to their Scottish counterparts. Various important factors which contributed to the existence of equable pay levels for rural and urban employment in Norway are also touched upon in the Chapter.

Norway and the United Kingdom/Scotland after the Second World War

This chapter examines events following, the Second World War, and argues that Norway and the United Kingdom have not had as close a relationship as the official rhetoric suggests. Although the countries do share common interests, Petersen argues that they lack “real-life alliance politics and relations”, using as material the details of state visit by Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen and his wife Werna to Britain in 1956. The major issues discussed in the press at the time dealt largely with simple matters of protocol, and the visit did not even include discussion of the imminent Suez conflict, in which many Norwegian owned cargo ships were involved. Like Scotland, Norway was a small client state and although World War II presented the countries with a common enemy, and Norway’s king governed in exile from London during the Nazi occupation of his country, Petersen argues that the difference in size, power and influence between the British Empire and Norway overshadowed bilateral relations between Britain and Norway, as well as those between Scotland and Norway.

Education in Norway and Scotland: Developing and Re-forming the Systems

This chapter reviews the development of educational policy and practice in Scotland and Norway. The chapter mainly focuses on the public education systems, and the authors examine the historical development of public education in each country, factors that have encouraged democratic access to schools, the development of Early Childhood Education and Care programs, and interactions between schools and their communities. The Chapter encompasses the history of school education and education legislation, the role of the Church in education, an analysis of the democratisation of access to schooling and introduction of democratic systems within schools as a part of the wider democratisation of society; the development of early years education and care, and the relationship between schools and their communities and wider area. The authors highlight the importance of decentralisation of education in Norway, including decisions about appropriate curriculum, to local governing bodies. This has built close linkages between schools and communities with an emphasis on place-based learning.

Access, Nature, Culture and the Great Outdoors – Norway and Scotland

Scotland and Norway differ markedly in their approach to right of access to the outdoors, as well as in the history and practice of outdoor recreation. Historically vast tracts of Scotland’s wilderness areas have been owned privately; by contrast Norway has 43 national parks. The proportion of people using the outdoors in either country differs hugely both in the definition of, and participation in, outdoor sporting activities; a contrast is drawn between childrens’ experience of the outdoors in both countries and the thinking behind the differing levels of engagement. Comparisons are made between outdoor activity associations enabling access to the outdoors, and the chapter also looks at notions of rural life, accessibility, affordability, and the relative levels of confidence the populace in each country has in their access rights, touching upon cabin culture and the use of allotments. Idealised notions of rural life, health, sporting activity and outdoor pursuits are enshrined in the national identity of Norwegians – not so in Scotland. The conclusion is that Scots are uncertain of their rights in relation to the land, have less access to and ownership of land than the average Norwegian, and this is reflected in their lifestyle choices.

Introduction

This chapter outlines the book’s main purpose – to answer the question of how the development of two small counties in the north of Europe, whose histories were intertwined from c.AD 795, and whose economic, social, cultural and political structures had certain similarities in the early and late medieval periods, nevertheless diverged sharply in the development of these structures from the eighteenth century on. In answering this question, the authors seek to move closer to an understanding of the political, social and economic conditions that make an ‘alternative’ development possible. In this way, they intend to inform debates about the political and economic future of post-Brexit Scotland, and contribute to debates about present and future policy choices in Norway, as well as those about future relationships between Scotland and the Nordic Union.

The Nordic Welfare Model in Norway and Scotland

The idea of the Nordic model has been discussed as part of debates on Scottish independence for over four decades and featured prominently in the 2014 independence campaign. This chapter examines the idealized Scottish portrayal of Nordic and especially Norwegian society and the welfare state. The chapter summarises the main developments in the historical evolution of the Norwegian welfare state in a Nordic context and examines how the image of Norway and the Nordic countries have been used rhetorically in recent political discourse in Scotland. The authors note how constructions of these images are profoundly shaped by Scottish autostereotypes or self-images. For both sides in the independence debate, Norden and Norway are pliable entities that can be used either to support or to undermine specific visions of the future of Scotland.

The Development of Industry and North Sea Oil in Scotland and Norway

This Chapter discusses the many important differences between the nature and processes of Industrialisation in Scotland and Norway from the 18th Century up to the present day. The dissferences discussed particularly concern the timing of the shift from ‘proto-industrialisation’ to ’modern industrialisation’ based on the factory system; the relationship between agrarian, rural, urban and industrial development, especially concerning the peasantry, migration streams and urbanisation; working-class divisions and alliances; attitudes and policies concerning foreign interest and capital in relation to basic resources; the source of energy for modern industry and its impacts on the location of industrial development; the importance of domestic and overseas markets and industrial protection; different ideas on the role of the State and protectionism; and the differential impact of neo-liberal policies after 1970. It is argued that because of these deep-rooted differences and Scotland’s constitutional position within the UK, the experience of the development and exploitation of North Sea oil and gas in the two countries after about 1970 is also quite different, as are its social and economic consequences. Among other points, the Chapter discusses how Norway’s strong local government tradition (Ch.5) leveraged Norway’s wealth-sharing scheme from its oil and gas boom, and the importance of Norway’s Concession Laws of 1906-09 restricting the activities of foreign capital in natural resources, which set the stage and deepened Norway’s public goods culture. In contrast, Scotland’s oil revenues routinely bled off to elites and investors.

Religion in Scotland and Norway

Religion has played a key part in the development of both Scotland and Norway, in terms of local governance and the organisation of social structure and hierarchies, identity and popular history, yet both countries are now largely secularised. This chapter explores religious denominations and affiliations: Norway’s history of compulsory affiliation with the Lutheran Church, and Scotland’s religious pluralism, where political affiliations often served to reduce religious tensions. The markedly different relationship between Church and State; Scotland’s Reformation being a largely populist movement with conflict and open protest continuing for two centuries contrasting with Norway where few tensions arose and religion and state remained closely interwoven. Monarchical and political union had an impact on religious practise in both countries, with differing levels of ideological and administrative control being negotiated by Church authorities over education systems and welfare in local communities. The chapter touches upon the route of both countries out of and beyond Protestantism towards increasing secularisation, facilitated by the continuing renegotiation of the relationship between Church and State in both countries and the lessening of Church influence on areas such as education.