2018, Vol.22, No.

Journal of the Scandinavian Society of Korea 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.21

pISSN : 1229-8646
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jssk

IF Metall and Tekniföretagen in the Swedish manufacturing industry, after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, proposed a tripartite crisis agreement with the government in violation of the Saltsjöbaden agreement’s principle of autonomous labor relations. Despite the conservative government's refusal, IF Metall and Tekniföretagen signed a crisis agreement in March 2009, contributing to overcoming the economic crisis by reducing working hours and sharing the expenses accompanied. It is the purpose of this study to analyze and explain the content and dynamics of the crisis agreements. This study identifies at least four points from the analysis of the 2009 crisis agreement and the 2014 crisis agreement. First, the 2009 crisis agreement contributed to the successful overcoming of the economic crisis, and it was IF metall’s strategic choice to secure employment security in exchange of wage cuts. Second, the 2009 crisis agreement confirmed the necessity of a new policy to support financially the reduction of working hours in times of economic crisis. The conservative government which refused to participate in the 2009 crisis agreement had to spend financial resources in the form of unemployment benefits instead of supporting the reduction of working hours, owing to the high unemployment rate. Third, by participating in the 2014 crisis agreement, the conservative government acknowledging indirectly that it was a mistake to refuse to participate in the 2009 crisis agreement. Fourth, the fact that IF Metall and Tekniföretagen, regardless of government’s participation or not, pursued crisis agreements twice in 2009 and in 2014 verifies that they did not go against the Saltsjöbaden agreement’s principle of autonomous labor relations.

Focusing on the dynamics between international environments and national policy-making systems, this article analyzes key features of the Finnish foreign policy having sought for a neutrality and peace diplomacy over the 20th century. Adopting a historical, dynamic and comprehensive perspective, the study argues to evaluate two main characteristics of the Finnish foreign policy in balance: (1) as a passive survival and adaptation strategy of a small country between superpowers and (2) as an active strategy to break the status quo through a diplomatic paradigm shift since the 1970s. For the analysis, it pays attentions not only to the well-studied Paasikivi-Kekkonen Doctrine (Paasikiven-Kekkosen linja) but also to a turn in foreign policy during the late period of Kekkonen’s presidency, and furthermore to the ex-President Mauno Koivisto’s leadership and foreign policy line during a transitional era between 1982 and 1994. The study also examines continual Constitutional reforms in Finland since the late 1980s and their influences on the foreign policy-making system. The conclusion reflects extensive implications of the evolving foreign policy model of Finland on the context of the Korean Peninsula looking forward to a transformational process into an alternative security and cooperation order.

The purpose of this study is to describe in detail the current discourse on mother language education being discussed in the Swedish National Assembly by analyzing the motions proposed by different Swedish parties from 2014 to 2018. To this ends, all the relevant motions including the word ‘modersmål’ during the period were collected on the Swedish National Assembly website. The results of the analysis show that most of the parties (with the only exception of Sweden Democrats) clearly recognize the importance of mother tongue education at least on a theoretical level. However, different parties showed different opinions concerning why mother tongue education is necessary (or unnecessary) depending on their political stance and from this, the author extracted four main types of discourses. Based on these results, this study further discusses the future direction of mother tongue education in Sweden and the implications on Korean mother tongue education policy.