The Peaceful Revolts: 1968 in the Nordic Welfare States
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Original version
Thue FW, Brandt T, Hansen E, Matthíasdóttir: The Peaceful Revolts: 1968 in the Nordic Welfare States. In: Dhondt P, Boran. Student Revolt, City, and Society in EuropeFrom the Middle Ages to the Present, 2017. RoutledgeAbstract
The student revolts of 1968 in the Nordic countries were peaceful in comparison with what
happened in places like Berlin, Par
is or Rome. Students in the Nordic countries also protested
and revolted against the authoritarian traditions of higher education, but only rarely did they
take to the streets like their German and French counterparts. As this chapter argues, the
relative
peacefulness of the Nordic 1968 must be understood within a wider political context.
The growth within higher education went hand in hand with the development of the welfare
state. Students' demands for reform converged with university policy development,
especially
in terms of democratization in higher education. Still, by drawing on examples from
Copenhagen, Oslo, Reykjavik and Trondheim, the chapter shows that there were many
tensions and paradoxes related to the various ways these peaceful revolts were
played out in
the Nordic countries. A long
-
term effect of the student movement of the 1960s was, ironically,
that it helped pave the way for the 'freedom revolution' of the 1980s and 1990s.