The purpose of this paper is to examine, by comparative analysis, the role played by the state in resolving labor disputes in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and to suggest reasons that may explain why these roles have assumed different forms in these four countries. Three forms of state action in the settlement of disputes are considered: implementation decisions in cases involving disputes about rights; mediation in cases in which interests are in dispute; and forcible intervention in cases in which it appears that public safety is threatened. These three forms are regarded as dependent variables that vary from country to country depending on two sorts of independent variables: first, historical factors of a political and economic nature (background variables) and second, organizational-structural factors and parliamentary power factors (intermediate variables). The economic background variables have to do with the character of the industrialization process: the date it began, the pace at which it unfolded, and the kind of economic structure (and in consequence the organizational structure) it brought into being. The political variables have to do first of all with the point in time the political system became democratic and the way this was accomplished; but more special and unique factors are also considered, such as national “traumas” like civil war (Finland) and general strike (Sweden), together with special features of the countries' political cultures.
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Nils Elvander (1974) studied this question.