Northern Europe and The Success Of Anti-Corruption Practices

According to Transparency International surveys the Scandinavian countries are perceived to be among the least corrupt countries in the world, and other Protestant-dominant European countries like the Netherlands are rated nearly as high.  Yet the ostensible historical explanations for the nineteenth-century “eradication” of corruption as a systemic characteristic in countries like Sweden (Rothstein) need to be further explored.  One way to do this is by a comparative approach that compares some these European countries historically with each other, particularly in respect to apparently quite successful efforts to combat corruption.  To this end, this panel offers three historical sketches of Northern European countries: Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, countries that, though sharing broad similarities also were often strikingly different in political culture.  Is it true that there was a sudden “big bang” in respect to the creation of effective support of certain public values in all three countries, or was reality more complicated and more gradual?  The cession will close with a broader reflection about the struggle against corruption in modern Europe.