The Striking Similarities between Northern Norway and Northern Sweden

• Published in: Arctic Review on Law and Politics
• Main Author: Stein, Jonas
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cappelen Damm Akademisk 2019
• Subjects: VDP::Social science: 200::Political science and organizational theory: 240; VDP::Samfunnsvitenskap: 200::Statsvitenskap og organisasjonsteori: 240; regional policy; Arctic; Northern Norway; university; municipalities; Norway; Tromsø; Arctic review on law and politics; Nord-Norge; Nord-Sverige; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10037/15109; https://doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v10.1247

Source at https://doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v10.1247 . Contrary to the view held by many actors, this paper, by using a quantitative and longitudinal analysis in a comparative perspective, show that demographic development in Northern Norway and Northern Sweden is much more similar than many think. Over the last 60 years, there has been a small negative trend in the relative percentage of the national population that lives in the two regions, with “knowledge cities”, and especially the two university cities Tromsø and Umeå, as the exception. Despite Broxian social theories of regional development in Northern Norway and the implementation of a generous set of regional policies, there seems to be no cause to claim that Northern Norway has followed a unique path of development compared to Northern Sweden, neither in general nor in smaller and more rural communities. Norwegian abstract Artikkelen er en komparativ studie av befolkningsutviklingen i Nord-Norge og Nord-Sverige i perioden 1951-2015. Gjennom å bruke most similar system design sammenlignes de to likeste regionene som er like på veldig mange områder, men har tre viktige forskjeller. 1) En svært ekspansiv regionalpolitikk er ført i Nord-Norge siden 1970-tallet 2) Sverige ble medlem i EU, og Norge ikke 3) Sverige gjennomførte en stor kommunereform på 1970-tallet. Norge gjorde det ikke. Artikkelen viser at på tross av disse tre forskjellene er befolkningsutviklingene slående lik i de to regionene.