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This volume seeks to examine the nature of contemporary Nordic public policies from the vantage point of how they are “exceptional” as well as demonstrating features of their “inner diversity.” We use these terms to capture their dual nature. On the one hand, they present a distinct character that sets them apart from other public policy formulations found elsewhere in the world. They reflect a unique Nordic orientation in their creation and in the way they are implemented. On the other hand, they are not exactly uniform in character. Despite this shared Nordic heritage, one can discern specific differences in how each country of the region advances its own policy preferences and agendas. The essays contained within this book collectively seek to address both halves of the question before us. How do Nordic public policies of the contemporary era reflect both shared traditions and preferences as well as distinctive national differences and priorities? Together both elements help to provide us with an enhanced understanding of the public policy choices made within the Nordic region today.

This chapter scrutinizes ways in which ideas about societal security and total defence contribute to elements of exceptionalism in Nordic security policies. It also traces the geopolitical and historical roots of a transformative policy shift within the region during the early 2020s which followed the unprecedented alignment of Sweden and Finland with NATO. In so doing, the chapter discusses aspects of both inner diversity and regional exceptionalism within Nordic security choices. Whereas many of the intricate and traditional security relationships have continued between the five Nordic states, this chapter contends that new and shared perceived threats have led to a rapid recalibration of their national defence strategies. Whether in response to strategic change in the Arctic or aggressive warfare in East Central Europe, the Nordics are being driven toward both expanded cooperation among themselves and into closer alignment with NATO. Ultimately, however, small but significant differences in their understanding of security remain among them even amidst such accelerated global changes.

This article addresses the critical issue of societal resilience in the face of disinformation, particularly in highly digitized democratic societies. Recognizing the escalating impact of disinformation as a significant threat to societal security, the study conducts a scoping review of the literature from 2018 to 2022 to explore the current understanding and approaches to countering this challenge. The core contribution of the article is the development of a preliminary typological framework that addresses key elements and issue areas relevant to societal resilience to disinformation. This framework spans multiple dimensions, including legal/regulatory, educational, political/governance, psychological/social-psychological, and technological domains. By synthesizing existing knowledge and filling identified gaps, the framework aims to serve as a foundational tool for empirical analyses and the enhancement of resilience strategies. One of the innovative aspects of the proposed framework is its potential to be transformed into a computable and customizable tool. This tool would measure the maturity level of various countermeasures against disinformation, thereby providing a practical methodology for planning and implementing effective democratic responses to disinformation. The article emphasizes the importance of this framework as both a conceptual and practical guide. It offers valuable insights for a wide range of civil society actors, including policymakers, educators, and technologists, in their efforts to protect information integrity and bolster societal resilience. By laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding of societal resilienceto disinformation, the article contributes to the broader discourse on informationprotection and provides actionable guidance for addressing the evolving challengesposed by disinformation in democratic societies.

Given a rapidly evolving disinformation environment, many initiatives are currently being developed to counter the harmful impacts of disinformation. The aim of this study is to explore how an SMS intervention, as a hitherto untested modality for raising awareness of disinformation with promising potential and wide reach, could boost media literacy among adults. We probe the effects on a national sample of adult Swedish respondents (N = 2536). An initial survey is followed by a five-week text messaging intervention and concluded with a second survey. Respondents’ objective ability to identify false information, and their subjective perceptions of attitude and behavioral change are analyzed. Our findings suggest that knowledge on disinformation can be enhanced, and that self-reported verification of news can be increased. Participants’ test scores on discerning true and false news headlines could also improve. Our results lay the groundwork for future research aimed at determining causal effects.

The aim of this study is to explore civic literacy as an approach to counter disinformationin democracies. From group interviews, we elicit, categorize, and analyze diverse perspectives ondisinformation in Sweden, previously upheld as a country with high civic literacy levels. We focuson people’s understandings of disinformation, their assessment of their own abilities to discern disinformation, and their ideas about how increased resilience to disinformation could be achieved. Ourfindings, based on input from 73 interviewees across Sweden, suggest that shared basic knowledgeon disinformation is lacking. Moreover, there is a related weak understanding of what constitutesauthentic information. Those with low awareness operate on a logic of beliefs, implying that measuresto improve factuality and objectivity could not even be aspired for. Still, there are also constituentsshowing advanced understandings. The majority of respondents call for new measures to strengthencitizen knowledge and skills and generate many proposals to that end. Our results indicate thatcitizen competence needs to increase considerably to keep up with the rapidly evolving disinformation environment. A concerted drive to boost citizen knowledge and skills, tailored to differentconstituencies, is needed for the democratic system to work as intended.

When established in 2012, the Arctic Centre of Umeå University (Arcum) became the first cohesive center for Arctic research in Sweden. Since then, strategic networking on all levels has grown. Today, Arcum’s local network includes more than 250 researchers from all faculty areas. Nationally and internationally, Arcum collaborates with a large number of universities and research facilities and associates with organizations and networks such as University of the Arctic (UArctic), International Arctic Social Science Association (IASSA), International Congress of Circumpolar Health (ICCH) and China Nordic Arctic Research Centre (CNARC). Arcum strives towards multidisciplinarity and a broad definition of Arctic research. For example, a bibliometric analysis of the period 2012 – 2020 illustrates the progress in Arctic profiling and how Arcum’s local network has produced close to 1,600 peer-reviewed papers. The majority of these are related to science and medicine, but a fair share also representing the social sciences and humanities, mirroring an increasing interest in the human dimension of Arctic existence. We conclude that strategic networking has been an efficient tool for strengthening the Arctic profile and related research at Umeå University. The recent organizational reform and reorientation towards spin-offs and graduate research is likely to enhance this successful trend.