What does Finland do right?

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

For a while, I've noticed that Finland, as well as its neighboring Scandinavian countries, tops the world on a variety of things, such as education, corruption, and child poverty.  Is there anything behind its success, such as an economic or political model that other developed nations haven't tried yet, or did they just get the luck of the draw?

[Franzl]

The universal welfare state.

And basically everything else follows. Society is based on the concept of equality. This is accepted by an overwhelming majority of the population, precisely because state programs aren't seen as "hand-outs", but rather something that everyone benefits from.

[politicus]

They also invest more in education than most countries. School teachers are university trained and have high status in society + there is a "can do" attitude in Finnish culture. 

[Linus Van Pelt]

The interesting thing about Finnish education is that up until the 1980's, despite a long-standing welfare state and homogeneous society, the education system didn't perform all that well on international tests and there were large socio-economic achievement gaps. So the current very high achievement levels and low socio-economic gaps didn't actually just seep in from the broader egalitarian society but were the result of some conscious curricular and administrative reforms in the 80's. And these were broadly in the opposite direction from those advocated by the currently fashionable kind of reformist of both parties in the US: there is minimal standardized testing; curriculum design is decentralized with teachers involved in designing their own courses; quantitative comparisons among schools are not published; and the teachers' union is powerful.

[dead0man]

It's not easy to become a teacher in Finland.  Literally any jackass can become a teacher in the US.  Make becoming a teacher more difficult and you will get better teachers, better pay and better results.  We'll never be able to reach averages states like Finland and Sweden pull, but they'll never put men on the moon by themselves.

[DC Al Fine]

It's not easy to become a teacher in Finland.  Literally any jackass can become a teacher in the US.  Make becoming a teacher more difficult and you will get better teachers, better pay and better results.  We'll never be able to reach averages states like Finland and Sweden pull, but they'll never put men on the moon by themselves.

This. Education is viewed as a "soft" subject in the USA, filled with mediocrities. For example compare, LSAT/GMAT/MCAT scores of the various majors, education is usually near the bottom.

[politicus]

It's not easy to become a teacher in Finland.  Literally any jackass can become a teacher in the US.  Make becoming a teacher more difficult and you will get better teachers, better pay and better results.  We'll never be able to reach averages states like Finland and Sweden pull, but they'll never put men on the moon by themselves.

This. Education is viewed as a "soft" subject in the USA, filled with mediocrities. For example compare, LSAT/GMAT/MCAT scores of the various majors, education is usually near the bottom.

1. Its absurd that teaching is a low status job in a knowledge based economy and raising the status of teachers is extremely central to achieving better education, but it is a chicken and egg problem.

If you want to attract more capable students with better grades into teaching you will need to offer better wages and work conditions, but as long as you got mediocre and bad teachers out on the schools the public wont accept pay raises for teachers and they wont suddenly start to respect teaching as a profession. In principle it should be possible to reward good teachers and not bad ones, but in reality this isn't always easy.

2. There is no contradiction between excellence at the top and a high average level. Its a false dichotomy. The US could put a man on the moon because you are a large country with enormous ressources, if Finland or Sweden had a similar size they could do the same.

3. Raising the status of teachers is not the only reason to Finlands success.

- They also give teachers much more responsibility and drop the "accountability" and control stuff that wastes so much time in most countries education systems instead relying on the teachers professional ethic.
 
- They are not obsessed with testing, but leave it to the teachers to conduct their own tests often tailored to the individual student or group of students.

- Teachers produce/mix their own teaching materials. Not the "one size fits all" centralised systems.

So basically attract good people to teaching, pay them a decent wage and allow them to teach in their own way without controlling them all the time, just rely on their professional ethic.

It sounds simple, but countries like Denmark have many of the same elements without getting nearly the same results, so its also a matter of how you implement such a system.

[TDAS04]

It became the first in Europe to grant female suffrage in 1906 (it managed to do that although it was part of the Russian empire), and that adds to their tradition of equality.

Finns also believe strongly in honesty. Some may see that as a downside when they appear quiet and reserved, but they don't see a need for superficial compliments or conversation; they are still mostly nice people.  Their honesty minimizes corruption.

[opebo]

Many of them are terribly shy and somewhat drunken, however.  Lots of single male Finnish tourists over here....

[TNF]

What does Finland do right? Social democracy.

[LastVoter]

Many of them are terribly shy and somewhat drunken, however.  Lots of single male Finnish tourists over here....

Is it income or obesity of a country that is a stronger way to predict the nationalities of Thailand visitors?

[ingemann]

For a while, I've noticed that Finland, as well as its neighboring Scandinavian countries, tops the world on a variety of things, such as education, corruption, and child poverty.  Is there anything behind its success, such as an economic or political model that other developed nations haven't tried yet, or did they just get the luck of the draw?

You knoow that's a rather interesting question. But honestly there's a lot of factors which has caused it.

First no it was not luck (except for the fact that we didn't end up communist). In fact the reason that Scandinavia do so well was our lousy luck. Scandinavia and the Baltic have historical beenone of the poorest and least developed areas. The poverty was rampant and famine was common (Norway was worst off and Denmark best, with famines being rare in Denmark). This meant that Scandinavia suffered from having to import a lot of agricultural products or in the Danish case tree and coal to deal with the cold and getting fuel to cooking and manufactoring. In a mercantile society this meant that Scandinavia needed gold and silver to buy these products.
This forced the Scandinavians to produce a efficient society with low waste. Later social democratism hit a society which valued efficiency, and the rest is history.

[politicus]

For a while, I've noticed that Finland, as well as its neighboring Scandinavian countries, tops the world on a variety of things, such as education, corruption, and child poverty.  Is there anything behind its success, such as an economic or political model that other developed nations haven't tried yet, or did they just get the luck of the draw?

Scott as you can see your highly interesting question is not generating much quality debate. Linus and I tried to answer the education system part, whitout really getting to the bottom of it, and Franzl gave the obvious structural answer. But its far more complicated than that.

Its really two different things.

1. The Nordic universal welfare model, which has been historically successful at solving many societal ills, but is also under pressure in a globalized economy and can not be copied in its whole in other cultures - not even other Western countries.

This is the least interesting element IMO, since you are probably already familiar with the basic elements of this model.

2. Why, and to what extent, Finland does better than other Nordic countries in a range of fields. Education being the most famous.

This is a more complicated, but also far more interesting question. Since it may show part of the answer to how the Nordic model can survive and develop in today's world.

If we are to qualify the debate I think you need to be more specific about what areas you are interested in and we will have to look at them separately.

But I don't know how deep your interest in this is. Anyway, its too broad and complex an issue to debate in very general terms.

[Franzl]

One thing that would interest me: How did gender equality become so advanced in Scandinavia even compared to other Western democracies? Same general societal structure that focuses on equal rights for all...or something more specific?

[Silent Hunter]

You forgot to mention Angry Birds.

[batmacumba]

One thing that would interest me: How did gender equality become so advanced in Scandinavia even compared to other Western democracies? Same general societal structure that focuses on equal rights for all...or something more specific?

I won't search for quotations, but most authors I've read related It with late christianization/early protestantism.


Being zealous with things, instead of being self-fulfilled with your own accomplishments helps. And all the Finns I've met (well, all them two...) fitted in the the rare category of people who care most for the results of what they were doing than with the glories of having it done.
On the educational level, I think everyone had the right perception: they pay well, very well their teachers, give them infrastructure and stimulates them to improve they're knowledge. Exactly the opposite of what everyone's doing.

[Famous Mortimer]

You can afford to have curriculums decided at the local level when you're a unfiromly progressive, liberal, intelligent country.

Local control would be a disaster for America. It would mean half the country would learn creationism.

[politicus]

You can afford to have curriculums decided at the local level when you're a unfiromly progressive, liberal, intelligent country.

Local control would be a disaster for America. It would mean half the country would learn creationism.

I get your point about creationism, but 19% of the Finns voted for the right wing populist True Finns in the last election, so they are not all "progressives", but there is a consensus about certain aspects of society, especially the proper role of religion, which doesn't exist in the US.

[politicus]

Ethelbert, would you agree that Finland is a more succesful country than the other Nordic states? (perhaps excluding oil rich Norway) and if so, what are the factors that makes the Nordic model work better in Finland?

[Gustaf]

The Nordic countries are not, in my view, easy to rank compared to each other. They all have vices and virtues.

Denmark is generally more continental and thus liberal in certain ways. For example the attitudes to public sex, prostitution and drugs is much more lax in Denmark. With this comes also a somewhat more sexist society, at least such is my impression.

Norway has its oil which sets it apart.

Finland has very low immigration rates historically which makes it much more homogenous than Sweden or Denmark. They also have persistently high unemployment, something rarely mentioned. Their education system is undoubtedly very good. Politically Finland is very consensus-oriented. You may like this for its pragmatism, but there is also an old-boys aspect to Finnish politics (not in the gender sense here, but merely as a form of smoke-filled rooms way of doing politics).

This is not really answering the question just pointing out that the Nordic countries do display some differences.

I think there is considerable path-dependency involved, if one takes a game theoretical approach to it.

[politicus]

The fact that Finland at the same time has relatively high structural unemployment and an ageing population is definitely something that speaks against Finland as a model society.

You are right that there are clear differences between the four countries (Iceland was a special case even before the crash), but seen from the outside it still makes sense to talk about one Nordic model since our societies share so many characteristica.
 
We also use our societies to define what we are not to an even greater degree than its normal among neighbouring countries. Enlarging differences in the process and I think thats especially true regarding Denmark/Sweden. Your post reflects that tradition.

Most Danes would disagree that Denmark is more sexist than Sweden instead claiming Sweden is just more PC and even has more stereotypical gender roles than us.

Denmark is definetly more homogeneous than (urban) Sweden with less and more recent immigration and less acceptance of multiculturalism = stronger pressure to assimilate.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just want to say this thread is very interesting to read. I'm very interested in the Nordic model, its historical construction, its variations and its precised workings, so thank you all for these interesting analyses.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Politically Finland is very consensus-oriented. You may like this for its pragmatism, but there is also an old-boys aspect to Finnish politics (not in the gender sense here, but merely as a form of smoke-filled rooms way of doing politics).

Someone argued in a journal article - written not long after the True Finns whateversky breakthrough - that this is so much the case that Finland is not (or at least was not) really a democracy, as such.

[The Lord Marbury]

I would not say that our system much more consensus-oriented than Austria, Switzerland or Benelux. Obviously the most undemocratic aspect is that it is taboo to speculate about possible coalitions before elections.

I actually that's the part of Finnish politics I like the most. I simply hate the way we have it here in Sweden where bloc politics are really starting to cement themselves in the political discussion. A shame because I prefer to actually vote for a party, not a coalition. And I also think it's bad for parliamentary democracy because the whole point is that parties go to into an election solely on their own platform and ideas and on election day the pieces fall as they may, with coalitions being negotiated afterwards based on the number of votes each party got. Having all that talk about coalitions and possible party constellations influence the voters so that they might not vote with their first choice is just bad for the democratic process in a way.

[ingemann]

Politically Finland is very consensus-oriented. You may like this for its pragmatism, but there is also an old-boys aspect to Finnish politics (not in the gender sense here, but merely as a form of smoke-filled rooms way of doing politics).

Someone argued in a journal article - written not long after the True Finns whateversky breakthrough - that this is so much the case that Finland is not (or at least was not) really a democracy, as such.

You know it's a idea often adopted by some political analyst that countries whose democracy and political environment function in different ways to their own are not really democracies. I just see it as the Ivory Tower version of xenophobia. Different countries have different needs, and while Finland was forced into their broad consensus based coalition by the fact that USSR was breathing down their neck, don't make them less democratic than UK, where a political party can rule like a absolut king (ands not the the enlighten kind) even with the lack of the majority of voters behind them.