The Australian Review of Public Affairshas published in 2006 a very interesting article “Social democracy in northern Europe: Its relevance for Australia” written by Andrew Scott for The University of Melbourne and RMIT University. Dr Andrew Scott is an honorary Fellow of the Contemporary Europe Research Centre at The University of Melbourne, and is on leave from his position as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning at RMIT University. He is author of Running on Empty: ‘Modernising’ the British and Australian Labour Parties (Pluto Press), and many other publications about labour and social democratic parties. And his article proves that the Nordic models are also studied outside Europe.

ABSTRACT
Social democrats in English-speaking countries have frequently looked to Sweden
and its neighbours as offering a policy model that combines economic prosperity
with social equality. In recent decades this admiration has dissipated due to a sense
that comprehensive welfare provision in the Nordic nations is in retreat and that
policy options for small states have been reduced by ‘globalisation’. Yet there
remains strong evidence of economic and social achievement in various northern
European nations, maintained by policies which continue to be more recognisably
social democratic than elsewhere. This article examines Australian policy interest in
Scandinavia, especially the 1986 union mission that produced the report, Australia
Reconstructed. The article situates that mission in the history of interest in the Swedish
model in the wider English-speaking world, with the aim of exploring the extent to
which social democracy in the north of Europe remains intact and relevant.

And as a conclusion

Phillip Mendes has canvassed the idea that in Australia:

“a social democratic think-tank committed to relevant and accessible
research has the potential to influence welfare policy debates [and] it is
possible … to see such a think-tank organising prominent visitors from
the Scandinavian countries who can extol the virtues of extending, rather
than cutting, welfare programs (2003, p. 185).”
This would certainly make a refreshing change from the usual free market fare dished
up by visiting social policy commentators from the United States. According to three
scholars who specialise in the field:
“the Scandinavian model remains a potent indicator of the limitations of
the powers of globalisation …, the capabilities of individual nations to
pursue distinctive policy strategies, the capacity of the Left to oppose
and successfully counter international market forces, and the ability of
social democratic parties to adapt to the demands of a changing
international order (Moses et al. 2000, p. 18).”

For these reasons, social democracy in northern Europe remains of great relevance
to Australia today. It can and should be revisited as a policy option by Australian
Labor, with more genuine interest and perseverance than the Party showed when the
option was explored twenty years ago.

The full article in pdf