Promoting Nordicness through prizes: Regional soft power in speeches at the Nordic Council Prizes award ceremonies (1962–2012)

Recent geopolitical developments have placed Nordic cooperation on the agenda. As an important institution of Nordic cooperation, the Nordic Council has historically been outperformed by the EU and NATO in matters of hard power (e.g. economic and military cooperation), and has instead prioritized influence through soft power (e.g. cultural diplomacy). The article demonstrates how the Nordic Council, through what we call regional soft power, promotes cohesion through the awarding of prizes. The power, legitimacy, and reach of the organization reside in its ability to engage new recipients and connect the prizes to ideas about Nordicness. Analyzing transcribed speeches from prize-givers and recipients from fifty years of award ceremonies (1962–2012), our findings highlight history, language, and nature as important reference points for the idea of Nordicness. Over time, the award ceremony as a space for deeper political discourse diminishes in favor of ceremonial and performative expressions of unity. We argue that the use of culture for political purposes, through the repeated acts of giving and accepting prizes, functions as a mechanism of soft power. This exchange represents a symbolic unity within the Nordic region, which is intended to facilitate further cooperation and international influence.