Between North and Europe : A case study of Nordic cooperation during the pandemic
Hokkala, Nina (2026)
2026
Politiikan tutkimuksen maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in Politics
Johtamisen ja talouden tiedekunta - Faculty of Management and Business
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2026-03-27
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202603273566
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202603273566
Tiivistelmä
The thesis looks into what the COVID‑19 pandemic reveals about the character of regional order and institutions of the Nordic regional international society. The main argument is that the choice of policy instruments and cooperation practices between the Nordic countries reflects the underlying institutional architecture. The thesis uses the pandemic as a lens to reveal that Nordic cooperation operates within, and is constrained by, a wider European and EU framework.
The study adopts an English School perspective, focusing on Nordic regional international society and the primary and secondary institutions within it. The starting point is an established framework of the Scandinavian international society by Laust Schouenborg. In this thesis, secondary institutions and their respective organizational subunits are systematically incorporated in this framework and treated as key to understanding a possible change from Schouenborg’s earlier notions about the regional international society in question. In doing so, the thesis advances English School debates by showing how secondary institutions and their subunits can be analytically integrated into the study of institutional evolution within a regional international society. The institutional change is mostly based on Tonny Brems Knudsen and Kalevi Holsti’s theorizations.
Methodologically, the study uses Ludvig Norman’s Interpretive Process Tracing (IPT) to uncover the structures of Nordic international society. IPT connects specific incidents and their causal mechanisms to constitutive background structures, in this case, the international society. The empirical analysis takes a look at five areas of pandemic cooperation, including border closures, medical equipment, commuting, vaccines, and fiscal coordination, and the aim is to uncover the current state of the Nordic international society. Nordic international society persists as a community of welfare states, but its core institutional capacities are now decisively anchored in EU secondary institutions.
The thesis is embedded in the “Crisis Management and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Leadership, Expertise and Best Practices” (CMC-19) research project on Nordic crisis management, and it draws on its comparative findings.
The study adopts an English School perspective, focusing on Nordic regional international society and the primary and secondary institutions within it. The starting point is an established framework of the Scandinavian international society by Laust Schouenborg. In this thesis, secondary institutions and their respective organizational subunits are systematically incorporated in this framework and treated as key to understanding a possible change from Schouenborg’s earlier notions about the regional international society in question. In doing so, the thesis advances English School debates by showing how secondary institutions and their subunits can be analytically integrated into the study of institutional evolution within a regional international society. The institutional change is mostly based on Tonny Brems Knudsen and Kalevi Holsti’s theorizations.
Methodologically, the study uses Ludvig Norman’s Interpretive Process Tracing (IPT) to uncover the structures of Nordic international society. IPT connects specific incidents and their causal mechanisms to constitutive background structures, in this case, the international society. The empirical analysis takes a look at five areas of pandemic cooperation, including border closures, medical equipment, commuting, vaccines, and fiscal coordination, and the aim is to uncover the current state of the Nordic international society. Nordic international society persists as a community of welfare states, but its core institutional capacities are now decisively anchored in EU secondary institutions.
The thesis is embedded in the “Crisis Management and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Leadership, Expertise and Best Practices” (CMC-19) research project on Nordic crisis management, and it draws on its comparative findings.