Introduction: the Nordic welfare state as a state of civilisation

The aim of this book is to contribute to a more profound understanding of the functioning of the Nordic welfare states from a relational perspective. This perspective opens up an opportunity to understand these societies as states of civilisation . Even if there is a noteworthy connection to the present ongoing discussion on the relational welfare state and relational welfare in Great Britain (Cooke and Muir, 2012), the relational character of the Nordic welfare states has a much longer and more conclusive history. The challenges of the Nordic welfare states cannot be approached only as technical or instrumental issues, but must be seen as questioning the deep social, cultural and political foundations of these societies. The answers to these challenges must be articulated in a similar fashion.Thenature and functioning of the Nordic welfare states have been a popular research topic in several disciplines, which have also formulated their research agendas and questions, made their analyses and articulated their answers along disciplinary lines. In this fashion our piecemeal understanding of these regimes has greatly increased, but the ensuing picture of them has necessarily been slightly patchwork. Even though such disciplinary studies have produced an enormous amount of information on different aspects and practices of these entities, a more fundamental dynamic may still be lacking from this picture. As are crucial issues between, across and beyond different disciplines the factors and processes which mediate the working of the whole, an interdisciplinary approach is needed to make more sense of these complex dynamics. An interdisciplinary approach to wholeness is in this book to better make sense of the Nordic welfare states as states of civilisation . The Nordic welfare state could be conceived as a formative field affording combinations of possibilities and potentialities