The Nordic Countries in Nordic and More Encompassing International Organizations
| Author | Kjell Skjelsbæk |
| Published date | 01 March 1974 |
| Date | 01 March 1974 |
| DOI | 10.1177/001083677400900101 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The
Nordic
Countries
in
Nordic
and
More
Encompassing
International
Organizations*
KJELL
SKJELSBÆK
International
Peace
Research
Institute,
Oslo
Skjelsbæk,
K.
The
Nordic
Countries
in
Nordic
and
More
Encompassing
International
Organizations.
Cooperation
and
Conflict,
IX,
1974,
1-8.
The
Nordic
countries,
with
the
partial
exception
of
Iceland,
are
very
active
in
both
intergovernmental
and
international
nongovernmental
organizations.
In
addition,
they
tend
to
be
members
of
the
same
international
organizations,
only
a
fraction
of
which
are
exclusively
Nordic.
All
the
Nordic
countries
cooperate
mostly
with
Western
Euro-
pean
countries
outside
the
Nordic
region.
In
1970,
there
were
only
four
intergovern-
mental
and
forty-five
international
nongovernmental
organizations
with
exclusively
Nordic
membership.
Iceland
was
a
full
member
of
twenty-six
of
these
INGOs.
The
growth
rate
of
the
Nordic
organizational
network
is
slow,
but
one
must
allow
for
the
possibility
that
Nordic
cooperation
frequently
takes
an
uninstitutionalized
form
which
does
not
meet
the
strict
criteria
of
the
Yearbook
of
International
Organizations
from
which
the
present
data
are
collected.
Kjell
Skjelsbœk,
International
Peace
Research
Institute,
Oslo.
The
purpose
of
this
study
is
to
provide
a
simple,
empirical
description
of,
first,
the
similarities
in
the
involvement
of
the
Nordic
countries
in
international
organi-
zations
in
general,
and,
second,
the
nature
and
growth
of
exclusively
Nordic
inter-
national
organizations.
Although
the
arti-
cle
is
by
and
large
untheoretical,
it
should
be
pointed
out
that
the
choice
of
focus
is
not
random.
The
similarities
between
countries
in
terms
of
culture,
political
system,
religion,
foreign
policy
orientation,
etc.
are
usually
considered
important
in-
tegrative
factors
in
theories
of
interna-
tional
integration.
Moreover.
a
large
amount
of
interaction,
particularly
insti-
tutionalized
interaction,
is
also
regarded
as
conducive
to
unification.
There
would
thus
seem
to
be
some
sense
in
analyzing
the
existing
data
on
international
organi-
zations
to
get
an
impression
of
how
the
Nordic
countries
are
linked
to
each
other
and
to
other
nations
and
regions
through
the
network
of
international
organizations.
1.
THE
INVOLVEMENT
OF
NORDIC
COUNTRIES
IN
IGOs
AND
INGOs
Four
of
the
five
Nordic
countries
are
among
the
most
active
nations
in
the
world
in
intcrgovernmental
and
inter-
national
nongovernmental
organizations
(IGOs
and
INGOs).
The
activity
of
the
Nordic
countries
in
the
UN
is
well
known.
They
pay
relatively
much
in
voluntary
contributions
to
the
organization
and
have
a
disproportionate
share
of
the
number
of
elected
positions
and
of
the
staff.
But
their
participation
is
above
average
also
outside
the
UN
system.
The
simplest
in-
dicator
of
the
number
of
organizations
in
which
a
country
is
a
member
or
repre-
sented,
and
the
position
of
the
Nordic
countries
on
the
ranking-list
of
member-
ships
in
IGOs
in
1964
can
be
seen
in
Table
1.
The
total
number
of
IGOs
at
that
time
was
179
(information
about
memberships
is
missing
for
two
of
those),
and
the
three
Scandinavian
countries
are
members
of
almost
40
per
cent
of
these.
Only
one
of
the
179
IGOs
restricts
its
membership
to
the
Nordic
countries;
it
is
the
Nordic
Council.
Table
2,
which
shows
the
in-
volvements
in
INGOs,
gives
basically
the
same
picture.
*
This
study
was
originally
presented
to
the
Conference
on
Nordic
Cooperation
at
Troll-
vasshytta,
Oslo,
on
11-13
December
1972.
The
article
can
be
identified
as
PRIO-publi-
cation
no.
22-26
from
the
International
Peace
Research
Institute,
Oslo.
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