Green states in a dirty world : 1975 and the performance of Nordic green modern

Abstract

This chapter examines the 1975 Nordic Council conference at Frostavallen in Sweden as a transnational media event which specifically sought to articulate a green modernity to the outside world. It argues that the Nordic countries used Frostavallen to perform and formulate a green modernity based around international cooperation and progressive solutions blending policy and technology. This performance allowed the Nordics to not only claim and legitimize environmental leadership to domestic and international audiences, but also place brand themselves as an environmentally progressive region. Facilitated by institutionalized Nordic cooperation, the conference can be regarded as the progenitor of contemporary Nordic environment and climate change campaigns, whereby the Nordic states communicate a uniform Nordic sustainable modernity to the world as a political strategy.