Social Democratic populism in the interwar period in Denmark

Beskrivelse

The most widespread image of Denmark’s political history is consensual piecemeal development. The Constitution of 1848 is often presented as an agreement between the people and the Monarch, and apart from a setback in 1866 (following the defeat to Prussia in 1864) the constitutional history is seen as a stepwise movement towards the realisation of a true welfare state version of representative liberal democracy which is (more or less) accepted by all political forces. The Social Democratic party obviously holds a central place in this history, being the main force behind the introduction of the welfare state. The development of the party is often described as a movement from a working-class party to a “true people’s party” (Korsgaard 2008). The meaning of a “true people’s party” is a party which establishes reasonable compromises between all (legitimate) interests to favour welfare for all.
From a Laclau/ Mouffian conceptualisation of populism as a political logic, the paper questions this interpretation of the transition from a workers to a people’s party in the interwar period in Denmark. Based on careful analysis of the two successfully campaigns of 1929 and 1935 and the party’s program “Denmark for the people” (1934), we show that rather than consensus the party based itself on very explicit antagonisms between the people and its enemies. In so doing it created a popular pole consisting of broader demands and identities than simply workers, but the popular pole was definitively not all-inclusive. It explicitly excluded the elite, capital and Lords, as well as what was presented as non-democratic forces, especially (USSR) communism and Nazism. The party’s struggle was also directed against the existing constitution, i.e. the House of Lords (‘Landstinget’), which was articulated as a conservative anti-democratic institution. The House of Lords was eventually abolished in 1953, but the intense struggles against it shows the history of the Danish constitution is far less consensual than often believed. Overall we conclude that contrary to the dominant interpretation, Danish Social Democracy articulated itself through populist logics, which did not indicate a threat to the constitution but was the very condition for the further democratisation of it.

Periode	7 okt. 2022
Begivenhedstitel	POPULISM AND CONSTITUTIONALISM: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES : Workshop
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Thessaloniki , GrækenlandVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International