Cultural Differences Between The Nordic Countries

I sometimes get a sense of people outside of this region thinking that it is is a monolith of a sort. That is, of course, natural because the further away from look at something, the more it looks like a monolith.

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But the fact is that the five Nordic countries, Sweden, Finland, Denmark (Greenland is part of the state of Denmark but not actually even in Europe but North America), Norway and Iceland are geographically quite diverse. Iceland is in the middle of the North Atlantic and the Scandic mountain range divides the Scandinavian peninsula. Denmark is mostly on a cape jutting out of the Central European landmass and the southern half of Finland is on a cape separated from Sweden by the Gulf of Bothnia.

The Nordic countries were politically united in the 15th century under the Kalmar union led by the king of Denmark. Sweden broke off from the union led by king Gustavus I in 1523. That was preceded by a bloodbath in Stockholm organized by the new king of Denmark Kristian II who had high ranking anti-unionist Swedes executed in 1520.

There has never been a strong enough a sentiment in the Nordic countries in favour of a political union encompassing all of them. One look at the map will make it easy to understand why it would be difficult for a military union to work.

Today, Finland, Sweden and Denmark are member states of the European Union while Finland is the only country in the currency union. Iceland, Norway and Denmark are members of Nato while Sweden and Finland are officially neutral.

The sizes of the countries are not very different. The population of Sweden is 10 million, Finland and Denmark have populations of about 5.6 million, Norway has 5.1 million inhabitants whereas Iceland has only a population of 0.3 million.

Political differences aren't the only consequences of the diverse geography. All of the Nordic countries have had Evangelical-Lutheran Christianity as their majority religion for the last 500 years, which probably explains most of the cultural similarities. But there are other factors.

I'm a Finn and I have had some dealings with people from the other Nordic countries, mainly Swedes. A friend of mine lived in Norway for six years and I've heard quite a few stories from him about Norway. My understanding of what the cultures are like also based on everything I've read in the media and literature.

Finland was an integral part of the Swedish realm for 650 years until 1809 when Sweden lost its eastern half to the Russian Empire in the War of Finland. The 19th century was a time of national awakening everywhere in Europe and Finland developed most of its national institutions as an autonomous grand duchy in the Russian Empire between 1809 and 1917: own military, customs, senate (no longer called that after the constitution of 1919), postal service etc. But as a result of the 650-year period of being an integral part of Sweden (only the language differed), the cultural differences between any two countries out of the five are the smallest between Sweden and Finland.

When it comes to the differences, my observations are the following:

• In both Sweden and Finland, there is a tendency to plan ahead carefully. In Sweden, there is a strong tendency to discuss everything with all parties concerned before implementing plans. Finns may get impatient with the discussions. In contrast, in Norway or Iceland, the general approach is more spontaneous. According to my friend who lived in Norway, he heard people often say they'd take it (the future) as it comes. I've heard people say similar things about Iceland. Iceland was first settled by Norwegians over a 1000 years ago. I chalk this difference up to the Norwegians and Icelanders living by the ocean. The weather is unstable, rapidly changing and at times fierce. It probably made sense not to plan too rigidly. It must be said, though, that the Norwegian sovereign oil fund is extremely well managed. Fishing was traditionally the main livelihood. The ocean is a major unpredictable element missing from the eastern part of the region.

• In Sweden, it is customary to be agreeable and polite. There is a greater tendency to avoid conflict and publicly airing disagreement than in Finland, although Finland has that tendency, too. Swedes often address others by their first name. To my Finnish ear, it sounds as if the Swedes do this constantly and to an extent I would't do it myself. I don't repeat other people's names except to get their attention if they're not looking at me when I address them. All Nordics tend to be quite informal in general as power distance tends to be small. There is a clearly stronger sense of political correctness in Sweden (and possibly Norway and Iceland) than in Finland or Denmark. This is a major difference between Denmark and Sweden. In Denmark, it is much less inappropriate to be direct about disagreements.

• Denmark has more a permissive attitude about cannabis and alcohol than all the other Nordic countries. All the rest have state alcohol retail monopolies for liquors and wines. In Denmark, the model is similar to Germany and other continental European countries. Medicinal use of cannabis is legal in Denmark and while recreational use is illegal in the whole country, it has been unofficially tolerated in a Copenhagen district of Freetown Christiania.

• In Finland, the economic meltdown and the collapse of the banking sector in the early 1990s resulted in a heavy burden to the tax payer and a lot of bankruptcies for businesses and long-standing debts for individuals (there is no such thing as a personal bankruptcy in Finland). In Iceland, some of the reckless bankers ended up in prison. The Icelanders have the oldest still existing democracy in the world, a 1000 year old literary tradition and plenty of healthy national pride. They basically told the British and French bankers to shove it after the 2008 crisis. They recovered quickly.