Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T05:20:35.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Denmark: The Rise of Fascism and the Decline of the Nordic Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2018

Jasna Balorda
Jasna Balorda*
Affiliation:
Liverpool Hope University, School of Social Sciences E-mail: Balordj@hope.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Contrary to its conventional image as a social-democratic paragon, the Danish welfare state has, in recent decades, been undergoing significant changes as a response to the intrusion into the social sphere by self-regulating markets and a final departure from Keynesian politics of universalism and solidarity. This article examines the evident decline of the Nordic model as a result of neoliberal globalisation and establishes an association between the erosion of the welfare state and the emergence of fascist political sentiment in Denmark. An analysis of the Danish People's party and its growing public support among the disenfranchised working class communities in Denmark demonstrates how those overlooked by the free market and unrepresented by the liberal left become increasingly more receptive to the proposed social agendas of the far right campaigns.

Keywords

DenmarkfascismDPPneoliberalismwelfare state
Type
Themed Section: European Social Policy and Society after Brexit: Neoliberalism, Populism, and Social Quality
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 133 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aerschot, P. (2016) Activation Policies and the Protection of Individual Rights: A Critical Assessment of the Situation in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Alves, S. (2015) ‘Welfare state changes and outcomes – the cases of Portugal and Denmark from a comparative perspective, Social Policy and Administration, 49, 1, 1–23.Google Scholar
Andersen, T. (2004) ‘Challenges to the Scandinavian welfare model’, European Journal of Political Economy, 20, 743–54.Google Scholar
Anttonen, A. and Sipilä, J. (2012) ‘Universalism in the British and Scandinavian social policy debates’, in Anttonen, A., Häikiö, L. and Stefánsson, K. (eds.), Welfare State, Universalism and Diversity, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 16–41.Google Scholar
Astrup, S. (2015) ‘Sådan ser Dansk Folkeparti-vælgeren ud. Politikken’, https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/folketingsvalg2015/art5580388/S%C3%A5dan-ser-Dansk-Folkeparti-v%C3%A6lgeren-ud [accessed 21.12.2017].Google Scholar
Balibar, E. and Wallerstein, I. (1991) Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bengtsson, M. (2014) ‘Towards standby-ability: Swedish and Danish activation policies in flux’, International Journal of Social Welfare, 23, Suppl 1, S54–70.Google Scholar
Berend, I. T. (2016) An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bredgaard, T. and Daemmrich, A. (2012) ‘The welfare state as an investment strategy: Denmark's flexicurity policies’, in Bardhan, A., Jaffee, D., and Kroll, C. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Offshoring and Global Employment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 159–79.Google Scholar
Bygbjerg, S. (2014) ‘Overblik: Mogens Camres 10 mest kontroversielle udtalelser’, DR, https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/overblik-mogens-camres-10-mest-kontroversielle-udtalelser [accessed 10.02.2018].Google Scholar
Careja, R., Elmelund-Præstekær, C., Klitgaard, M. and Larsen, E. (2016) ‘Direct and indirect welfare chauvinism as party strategies: an analysis of the Danish People's Party’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 39, 04, 435–57.Google Scholar
Christoffersen, H. and Paldam, M. (2004) ‘Privatization in Denmark, 1980–2002’, CESifo Working Paper Series, 1127, 1–31.Google Scholar
Costa, J. and Liouville, J. (2013) Local and Regional Democracy in Denmark, The Congress of Local and regional Authorities, Council of Europe.Google Scholar
Cox, R. (2004) ‘The path-dependency of an idea: why Scandinavian welfare states remain distinct’, Social Policy Administration, 38, 2, 204–19.Google Scholar
Danmarkshistorien.dk. (2018) Dansk Folkeparti: Principprogram, 1997, http://danmarkshistorien.dk/leksikon-og-kilder/vis/materiale/dansk-folkeparti-principprogram-1997/ [accessed 17.04.2018].Google Scholar
Danskfolkeparti.dk. (2017) Danskfolkeparti Official Website, https://danskfolkeparti.dk/ [accessed 12.12.2017].Google Scholar
Dean, H. (2007) ‘The ethics of welfare-to-work’, Policy and Politics, 35, 4, 573–90.Google Scholar
Eagleton, T. (1976) ‘What is fascism’, New Blackfriars, 57, 670, 100–6.Google Scholar
Eco, U. (1995) ‘Eternal fascism’, The New York Review of Books, 12–15.Google Scholar
Eatewell, R. (1996) ‘On defining the ‘fascist minimum’: the centrality of ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 1, 3, 303–19.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) (2015) Migrants in Europe's Age of Austerity, http://www.eapn.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/EAPN-2015-EAPN-migration-report-899.pdf [accessed 15.12.2017].Google Scholar
Ferrera, M. (2005) The Boundaries of Welfare: European Integration and the New Spatial Politics of Social Protection, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C. (2002) ‘The Danish welfare state under bourgeois reign: the dilemma of popular entrenchment and economic constraints’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 22, 3, 243–60.Google Scholar
Griffin, R. (1996) ‘Staging the nation's rebirth: the politics and aesthetics of performance in the context of fascist studies’, in Berghaus, G. (ed.), Fascism and Theatre: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, 1925–1945, Providence: Berghahn Books, 11–29.Google Scholar
Gill, S. (1997) Globalisation, Democratization and Multilateralism, New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Harold, J. (2004) The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kay, A. (2005) ‘A critique of the use of path dependency in policy studies’, Public Administration, 83, 3, 533–778.Google Scholar
Kenworthy, L. (2003) ‘Do affluent countries face an incomes-jobs trade-off?’, Comparative Political Studies, 36, 10, 1180–120.Google Scholar
Kiess, J., Norman, L., Temple, L. and Uba, K. (2017) ‘Path dependency and convergence of three worlds of welfare policy during the Great Recession: UK, Germany and Sweden’, Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 33, 1, 1–17.Google Scholar
Kuisma, M. and Nygard, M. (2015) ‘The European Union and the Nordic models of welfare - path dependency or policy harmonisation?’, in Grøn, C. H., Nedergaard, P. and WIvel, A. (eds.), The Nordic Countries and the European Union: Still the Other European Community? London: Routledge, 158–72.Google Scholar
Kvist, J. and Saari, J. (2007) ‘The Europeanisation of social protection: domestic impacts and national responses’, in Kvist, J. and Saari, J. (eds.), Europeanisation and Social Protection, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Kvist, J. and Greve, B. (2011) ‘Has the Nordic Welfare Model been transformed?’, Social Policy and Administration, 45, 2, 146–60.Google Scholar
Landersøn, R. and Heckman, J. (2017) ‘The Scandinavian fantasy: the sources of intergenerational mobility in Denmark and the US’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 119, 1, 178–230.Google Scholar
Larsen, R. (2014) ‘Søren Krarup (f. 1937)’, Humanisme.dk, https://www.humanisme.dk/hate-speech/soeren_krarup.php [accessed 01.03.2018].Google Scholar
Lødemel, I. and Moreira, A. (eds) (2014) Activation or Workfare? Governance and the Neo-Liberal Convergence, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mailand, M. (2014) ‘Austerity measures and municipalities: the case of Denmark’, Transfer, 20, 3, 1–17.Google Scholar
Marginson, P. and Meardi, G. (2009) ‘Multinational companies and collective bargaining’, European Observatory of Working Life, https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/multinational-companies-and-collective-bargaining [accessed 10.04.2018].Google Scholar
Marx, K. (1980) Capital. Vol. 3, New York: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McCluskey, M. (2003) ‘Efficiency and social citizenship: challenging the neoliberal attack on the welfare state’, Indiana Law Journal, 78, 2, 784–876.Google Scholar
Murray, C. and Herrnestein, R. (1994) The Bell Curve, New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Obinger, H., Starke, P., Moser, J., Bogedan, C., Gindulis, E. and Leibfried, S. (2010) Transformations of the Welfare State: Small States, Big Lessons, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oland, T. (2015) ‘Universalism and the Danish welfare state: ‘immigrant juvenile delinquency’ and the effects of the making of appropriate behaviour through care and control’, in From the Thirty Years’ Crisis to Multi-Polarity: The Evolution of the Geopolitical Economy of the 21th Century World, Winnipeg: University of Copenhagen, 1–19.Google Scholar
Payne, S. G. (1980) Fascism: Comparison and Definition, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Paxton, R. (2005) The Anatomy of Fascism, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Refslund, B. (2012) ‘Offshoring Danish jobs to Germany: regional effects and challenges to workers' organisation in the slaughterhouse industry’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, 6, 2, 113–29.Google Scholar
Refslund, B. and Andersen, J. G. (2014) ‘Offshoring of jobs and internationalisation of production: empirical investigations of labour market and welfare state effects in Denmark and the Nordic countries’, CCSW Working Paper, 84, 1–75.Google Scholar
Renton, D. (1999) Fascism: Theory and Practice, London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Rydgren, J. (2007) ‘The sociology of the radical right’, Annual Review Sociology, 33, 241–62.Google Scholar
Ryner, J. M. (2007) ‘The Nordic model: does it exist? Can it survive?’, New Political Economy, 12, 1, 61–70.Google Scholar
Ryner, J. M. (1999) ‘Neoliberal globalization and the crisis of Swedish social democracy’, Economic and Industrial Democracy, 20, 1, 39–79.Google Scholar
Schori Liang, C. (2016) Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shannon, T. (1996) An Introduction to the World Systems Perspective, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sternhell, Z., Sznajder, M. and Ashéri, M. (1994) The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. (2014) ‘Leaders and followers: perspectives on the Nordic model and the economics of innovation’, NBER Working Paper Series, http://www.nber.org/papers/w20493.pdf [accessed 01.03.2018].Google Scholar
Tönnies, F. (1955) Community and Association (Gemeinschaft und gesellschaft), London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. (1974) ‘Dependence in an interdependent world: the limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world economy’, African Studies Review, 17, 1, 1–26.Google Scholar
Weale, A. (1990) ‘Equality, social solidarity, and the welfare state’, Ethics, 100, 3, 473–88.Google Scholar
Widfeldt, A. (2014) Extreme Right Parties in Scandinavia, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wren, K. (2001) ‘Cultural racism: something rotten in the state of Denmark?’, Social and Cultural Geography, 2, 2, 141–62.Google Scholar
Wolff, R. (2016) How Capitalism and Racism Support Each Other, Truthorg, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35804-how-capitalism-and-racism-support-each-other [accessed on 15.12.2017].Google Scholar