Analyzing Quran burnings in a framework of political moralism and political realism

This paper explores how the methodological debate in political theory about political realism and political moralism can be reconstructed as an analytical framework that can be applied to specific cases. The realism/moralism distinction, which is often debated at a high level of abstraction, is re-examined through the lens of the concrete case of Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark in 2023, which led to significant political and security crises. By analyzing the Danish government's response to these events, this paper reconstructs realism and moralism as analytical categories and explores how they as such can be employed to understand and explain the political dynamics in the case. The paper aims to operationalize the realism/moralism distinction in concrete methodological terms, and to show its practical relevance as such in political analysis. The operationalization and application furthermore reflect back on the understanding of realism as a category of reasons and suggests that realist reasons, as reconstructed here, stand in a close relation to political power.