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  • 9 - The Pragmatarian Style

  • Edited by Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée, Universitetet i Oslo, Kristian Bjørkdahl, Universitetet i Oslo
  • Book:
    Do-Gooders at the End of Aid
    Published online:
    07 July 2021
    Print publication:
    22 July 2021, pp 194-221
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  • Summary

    Through an exploration of the international career of Norway’s former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, this chapter examines the emergence of a style of internationalism that we might call “pragmatarianism.” As a political style it can be compared to the domestic political styles of Hofstadter’s (1964) account of the paranoid style in US domestic politics. The pragmatarian style, by contrast, belongs more properly on the political (social democratic) left. In place of treason as the favored enemy motif, one finds instead the moral vacillation and ignorance of mankind at large: waiting to be fixed by the technocrats and the doyens of market signaling. The chapter explores the emergence, achievements, and tensions within this political style through an examination of Brundtland’s leadership of the World Commission on Environment and Development (1983–1987) and the World Health Organisation (1998–2003). It concludes with some reflections on the relationship between pragmatism and utopianism in the ongoing development of the Nordic humanitarian brand more broadly.