Jacob Christensen

Elmine Wijnia gives you some arguments. The presentation takes 8 minutes to play.

HT: Mark Wubben.

Berlingske Tidende toyed with the idea of making a Danish version of the POTUS rankings and asked a number of social scientists, historians and journalists to give their view of the Danish heads of government. First the list and the some comments:

1. Thorvald Stauning, Social Democrat, 1924-1926 and 1929-1942: 7,94/10
2. H.C. Hansen, Social Democrat, 1955-1960: 7,51/10
3. Jens Otto Krag, Social Democrat, 1962-1968 and 1971-1972: 7,27/10
4. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Social Democrat, 1993-2001: 7,00/10
5. Poul Schl�ter, Conservative, 6,99, 1982-1993: 6,99/10
6. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Liberal, 2001-2009: 6,63/10
7. C.Th. Zahle, Social Liberal, 1909-1910 and 1913-1920: 6,53/10
8. Anker J�rgensen, Social Democrat, 1972-1973 and 1975-1982: 5,50/10
9. J.B.S. Estrup, Right, 1875-1894, 4,31/10

Some disjointed comments:

The selection excludes PMs who served to less than five years and less than two terms.

This means that a giant of Danish politics, J.C. Christensen (1905-1908) – perhaps the only Danish politician who merits mention along Estrup and Stauning – is excluded, as are other pivotal figures – in cronological order, these are: A.W. Moltke (1848-1852) who oversaw the transition from sovereign rule to constitutional democracy, C.C. Hall (1857-1859 and 1860-1863) a leading National-Liberal in the run-up to the disastrous Second Schleswig war, C.E. Frijs-Frijsenborg (1865-1870) a Conservative who chaired the post-1864 restauration, J.C. Christensen, Erik Scavenius (don’t mention that he was a Social Liberal! 1943(-1945)) and Erik Eriksen (1950-1953) the Liberal leader who finally sealed the Liberal-Conservative alliance. On the other hand, lemons like Niels Neergaard (Liberal, 1908-1909 and 1920-1924, in many ways one of Denmark’s great statesmen in terms of policy but a hopeless leader), Th. Madsen-Mygdal (Liberal, 1926-1929), Knud Kristensen (Liberal, 1945-1947) and Hilmar Baunsgaard (Social Liberal, 1968-1971) don’t make it to the list, either.

The criteria given, “ability to cooperate”, “economic control”, “foreign policy Fingerspitzengef�hl”, “personal charisma” and “ability to lead own party”, are somewhat opaque. We should recognise that a prime minister has to operate on a number of arenas both politically (international, parliamentary, electoral and organisational) as well as in terms of policy (foreign and economic policy are always important), but the operationalisations and criteria are a bit uncertain.

I would probably put H.C. Hansen lower on my list – I think there is a lot of 50s nostalgia about him going round – and Krag, Nyrup and Schl�ter higher. The latter three were more inventive in terms of policies than Hansen as I see it. The jury is still out on Fogh Rasmussen – in many ways he had an easier term in office politically and economically than Schl�ter. Maybe Schl�ter is so far back in history now, that it is about time to make a general academic assessment of his life and times?

It would be interesting to see the variations in the judgements given by the experts – I could imagine the verdict on Stauning being relatively unanimous with less agreement on PMs like Estrup, Schl�ter and J�rgensen.

Update: Jacob Br�nnum Scavenius Estrup now has his surname.

After pointing out that the three Prime Ministers Rasmussen were not at all related (and while we’re at it, the entertainer Simon Rosenbaum would like to point out that he is not at all related to Victor Borge), the back of my mind called me to remind me of this piece, published in Die Zeit back in 1993 as a caustic comment to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s new government:

Seit dem j�ngsten Regierungswechsel sieht es dort folgenderma�en aus: Die Verlobte des neuen Ministerpr�sidenten in Kopenhagen, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, ist die Vorsitzende einer seiner Koalitionsparteien,¹ der Finanzminister ist mit der Kulturministerin verheiratet.² Au�enminister ist der Sohn eines fr�heren Kulturministers und einer ehemaligen B�rgermeisterin der Hauptstadt,³ Papa des Verteidigungschefs ist der einstige Au�en- und sp�tere Wirtschaftsminister.⁴ Und schlie�lich d�rfte im Folketing, dem Parlament, die Familie Haekkerup wohl bald Fraktionsst�rke erreichen.⁵ Was machen Singles und Waisen in D�nemark? Sie begraben am besten ihre politische Ambition.

1. Actually this is not quite true: Lone Dybkj�r was never the leader of the Social Liberal Party but she was/is a promiment MP and MEP [↩]
2. Mogens Lykketoft and Jytte Hilden. They later divorced [↩]
3. Niels Helveg Petersen, son of former minister K. Helveg Petersen and mayor Lily Helveg Petersen. NHP’s son Morten is a member of the parliament since 1998, btw. Morten’s brother Rasmus is a parliamentary candidate as well [↩]
4. Hans H�kkerup, son of Per H�kkerup. HH’s mother, Grete H�kkerup was an MP as well [↩]
5. At the moment of writing, there are four H�kkerups in the Folketing, so yes: They could form their own litte parliamentary group [↩]

I’m trying to collect the electoral platforms for the European Parliament election of the Danish parties (here defined as organisations which present candidates for election, so the People’s Movement and the June Movement count as parties). In some cases the platform was relatively easy to find, in some cases I had so click around a bit to find the original platform, but it seems to me that neither the Liberal Party nor the Danish People’s Party offer a full edition of their platforms – so in these cases I have to do a lot of copying and pasting to make a reference copy. Hrmpf.

Here are the links on my Delicious account – I use the tag ep2009 to organise them.

By the way: I know one of the Danish candidates. But can you figure out who?