The Politics of School Choice in Scandinavia: Why so Stark Differences?

ABSTRACT Since the 1980s, Scandinavian countries have pursued performance‐oriented education, yet only Sweden and Denmark adopted school choice reforms—while Norway stood apart by not introducing it. Sweden pioneered school choice reform in 1992, which included provisions for a universal voucher system and free schools. Denmark followed suit with the 2005 Free School Choice Act, allowing choice within the public‐school sector in addition to private options. Norway, by contrast, retained the student allocation system based on the “nærskoleprincippet” (close‐to‐school‐principle), established in the 1960s, making choice near impossible unless families move to a different school district or attend one of the country's few private schools. Why did such similar countries diverge so sharply? Using a Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD) comparison, this article demonstrates that sustained bipartisan support for school choice and weakening opposition from vested interests, especially the teachers' unions, enabled choice reform in Denmark and Sweden. In Norway, however, the lack of bipartisan support and entrenched union opposition blocked the prospect of reform from the outset. Building on these findings, the article advances a new comparative mid‐range theory of school choice politics that not only explains this Scandinavian divergence but also offers a framework for rethinking the role of political coalitions and vested interests in the comparative politics of education.