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The Nordic agrarian parties, or Nordic Centre parties, are agrarian political parties that belong to a political tradition particular to the Nordic countries. Positioning themselves in the centre of the political spectrum, but fulfilling roles distinctive to Nordic countries, they remain hard to classify by conventional political ideology. These parties are non-socialist and typically combine a commitment to small businesses, political decentralisation, environmentalism and, at times, scepticism towards the European Union. The parties have divergent views on the free market. Internationally, they are most commonly aligned to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and the Liberal International. Historically a farmers' party, a declining farmer population after the Second World War made them broaden their scope to other issues and sections of society. At this time, they renamed themselves, three of them to Centre Party, with Finnish Centre Party being the last to do so, in 1965.〔Arter (1999), p. 78〕 Now, the main agrarian parties are the Centre Party in Sweden, ''Venstre'' in Denmark, Centre Party in Finland, Centre Party in Norway and Progressive Party in Iceland. ==History== Compared to continental Europe, the peasants in the Nordic countries historically had an unparalleled degree of political influence, being not only independent but also represented as the fourth estate in the national diets, like in the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates. The agrarian movement thus precedes the labour movement by centuries in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. The first of the parties, ''Venstre'' in Denmark, was formed as a liberal, anti-tax farmers' party in 1870. The rest of the parties emerged in the early 20th century, spurred by the introduction of universal suffrage and proportional representation across the region.〔Arter (1999), p. 76〕 Finland's Agrarian League was the first to be created in 1906, followed by the Agrarian Party in Norway in 1915. Sweden's Agrarian Party, founded in 1921, emerged from the existing Lantmanna Party, and its splinter groups.〔 As the Scandinavian farming population declined, the parties moved towards becoming catch-all centrist parties by capturing some of the urban electorate.〔Cotta et al (2007), p. 226〕 The Swedish Agrarian Party renamed itself to the Centre Party in 1958. The Norwegian and Finnish parties adopted the same name in 1959 and 1965 respectively.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nordic agrarian parties」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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