Jacob Christensen

Instead of adding another comment I will point interested readers to two worthwhile comments (use Google Translate if necessary):

Jacob Mchangana, Karen M. Larsen.

While I agree with Mchangana but not Larsen, Politiken and Tøger Seidenfaden will have to address the point made by Larsen.

No, I’m not personally offended by the drawing, but feel free. Grind an axe with Tøger.

One of the writers over at dansk-politik.dk wondered about the chances for a snap election sometime during 2010. Now, as we all know elections in Denmark come like a thief in the night (or whatever the correct English term is), so the correct answer to the question “when is the next election?” is “in three weeks or later”.

But when do Danish prime ministers reshuffle their governments in time for an election?

The problem is that for many years, Danish parliaments never lasted anything like a full term. If we take 1953 as our point of departure, only the 1953-1957, 1957-1960, 1960-1964, 1968-1971, 1984-1987, 1990-1994, 1994-1998, 1998-2001 and 2001-2005 parliaments can serve as good cases.

So, here goes:

• May 1956 – minor reshuffle, defence minister Rasmus “Jet” Hansen resigned due to illness.
• March 1960 – minor reshuffle, triggered by the change of prime minister after H.C. Hansen’s death.
• August 1963 – minor reshuffle, Erling Dinesen took over the labour ministry.
• March 1971 – minor reshuffle, finance minister Poul Møller resigned due to illness
• August 1986 – minor reshuffle, transport minister Arne Melchior forced to resign after a media campaign. Schlüter had made a bigger reshuffle in March 1986.
• January 1994 – mid-sized reshuffle. The infamous restart of the first Nyrup Rasmussen government which ended in complete chaos.
• October 1997 – minor reshuffle, Thorkil Simonsen is brought into the government. Still symbolically important as Nyrup Rasmussen wanted to raise the government’s profile in immigration policy.
• December 2000 – mid-sized reshuffle. As it is, the reshuffles came fast and furiously during the last Nyrup Rasmussen government.
• August 2004 – mid-sized reshuffle triggered by the appointment of Mariann Fischer Boel as European commissioner.

The most bizarre reshuffle in modern times – besides the botched January 1994 reshuffle which was a masterpiece of absurd political theatre – has to be the one carried out by Anders Fogh Rasmussen in September 2007, two months before he called the last general election. In many ways 2007 was a crazy year in Danish politics but the reshuffle might serve as a reminder that Fogh wasn’t always in full control of events.

Anyway – unless something totally surprising happens, I expect the next election to come sometime during 2011. Most likely in September.

Updates and corrections are in italics.

Well, I had to complain about something, didn’t I? But the truth is that the real McCoy will only be revealed tomorrow – in a way the reshuffle was only the primer.

1. In terms of the distribution of portfolios, we have two changes: The Liberals exchange Social Affairs with the Conservatives in favour of Health, and the Conservatives get Science and Higher Education (which could be seen as an exchange for losing Climate and Energy last November). Otherwise, the parties have held on to their portfolios. And the distribution between the two parties is very much what we would expect in terms of their share of portfolios and their distribution.¹

Update: Two changes? I’m counting like the Spanish Inquisition here: The Liberals got Transport from the Conservatives which would be the direct swap for Science and Higher Education. The Conservatives usually hold Transport in a coalition government – exceptions were 1968-1971 (Ove Guldberg, Liberal) and 1982-1988 (Arne Melchior and later Frode Nør Christensen, CD).

2. Did Søren Gade jump or was he pushed? Did he trigger the reshuffle or was it a convenient moment for everybody to have him leave the government? Everybody agree that Gade was a dead man in the Defence Ministry and I think the timing made it possible for Lars Løkke to relieve him of his duties without it becoming too embarrassing. Taking a complete time-out is not unknown in Swedish politics, so Gade might still make a return to national politics in 2011.

3. If we look at the ministers who left/were sacked, Kristian Jensen is the only real surprise. As somebody noted, the Liberals have lost their Nos. 2 and 3 in the government. (Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard – in Danish – discusses KJ here).

4. The Conservatives sent two ministers back to the parliamentary group and recruited two outsiders. Indications of a group which is not exactly filled with talent. I, too, think Lene Espersen is taking a chance in bringing Charlotte Sahl-Madsen into government. On the other hand, Science and Higher Education is not exactly a portfolio which makes or breaks a government.

5. Hans Christian Schkidt and Henrik Høegh as new Liberal ministers? So much for the green Liberal politics.

6. I am among those who were sceptical about the rumours of Lene Espersen wanting to take over the Foreign Office. The FO is not as big as it used to be and there will be quite a lot of travelling, even if Espersen in all likelihood will not be following Carl Bildt’s lead. On the other hand, she had been painted into a corner by Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Bendt Bendtsen with the Business portfolio. The only way out of the predicament was up. I am not convinced by the argument that Foreign Ministers are popular and that this will spill over on the Conservatives at the next election.

7. When all is said and done, then this is probably the biggest reshuffle in terms of persons that we have seen in Denmark.

The Kommentariat: Peter Mogensen, Niels Krause-Kjær, Kristian Madsen, Ask Rostrup, Jarl Cordua.

1. I know: Women’s rights and Nordic Cooperation. But these are Mickey Mouse-portfolios. [↩]

Even if the general rule “It ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings” still very much applies to industrial agreements in Denmark, there are a couple of things in the proposed agreement for industrial workers which merit attention.

Of most interest to me, there is the introduction of a system of severance payments which will guarantee laid-off workers a much higher compensation than the unemployment insurance. Even if there are some relatively tight employment conditions attached to the system and the severance pay will only be covering from one to three months of unemployment, it points to the fact that the cracks in the existing unemployment insurance are beginning to show – the replacement rate in the public unemployment insurance benefit is simply too low for most workers.

The severance pay follows a well-known pattern in Danish social policy: Unions have generally favoured universal benefits which would bridge the gap between workers and employees. When this failed, they have instead opted for collective bargaining with negotiated programmes in old-age pensions (from the late 1980s onward) and sickness benefits (from the 2000s). A second layer in unemployment benefits would be just another addition to the complicated system of social benefits.

What is slightly fascinating is that the employers – who have always resisted demands for their inclusion in the financing of unemployment benefits, especially for people who were laid off temporarily – have accepted the demand given the state of the labour market.

Oh, and my Swedish readers will note that the extended child leave is distributed with one week to each parent.

Some aspects of the present government crisis in the Netherlands are very fascinating to follow for a Scandinavian. The Dutch party system is somewhat different from the Danish which means that the Dutch Christian Democrats traditionally have enjoyed the advantages enjoyed by the Social Democrats in Denmark (and Sweden, for that matter) and the political cleavages also work in a slightly different way, even if religion probably plays a lesser role than it used to. Still, the ChristenUnie are an interesting addition to the party system which is hard to explain to Scandinavians. Grand coalitions like the one in office in the Netherlands are also unknown in Denmark and Sweden – the last time somebody tried a similar stunt in Denmark was in 1978 and it was a dismal failure.

The causes of the present crisis are not entirely beyond comprehension: The government crisis was triggered by disagreements over the Dutch engagement in Afghanistan and we have seen similar conflicts in Denmark and Sweden over Afghanistan, even if they have not led to major parliamentary impassées. That there are disagreements between the CDA and the PvdA over economic policy – well, the Liberals and the Conservatives don’t always move in the same directions up here.

But the time frame is curious. There is likely to be early elections in the Netherlands – actually, not that early, because the likely date is in … May or June. If this had been Denmark, we would have elections in three or possibly four weeks from now.¹

Similarly, the Dutch spend ages forming governments. Adding another three or four months to the calender before the next full cabinet is up and running would not be an unreasonable guess. In Denmark, we would be looking at two weeks of negotiations if things became really complicated. The last time we had a major cabinet crisis in Denmark was in 1988 and then it took a month – yes, a full month! – to form a government. The normal time frame is about a week of negotiations before the PM presents his new cabinet.

It looks like the Dutch are somewhat annoyed but not really concerned about the prospect of spending much of 2010 without a functioning government. A similar situation would be inconceivable in Denmark and have people fearing that we were close to a national constitutional crisis. Some of the difference has to do with differences in the constitutions (I know too little in detail about the Dutch constitution and electoral low to make any further guesses at the moment), some with differences in political norms.

Which system is the best? I find it hard to say, actually. There have been major upheavals in Dutch politics during the last decade, but over the years Denmark also has had its share of political mess. I suspect that the two countries make almost similar performances when it comes to welfare and the economy as well. But from a Danish point of view, the Dutch are a bit … strange.

1. For all practical purposes, early elections are out of the question in Sweden. The Norwegian constitution does not allow for early elections. [↩]

Via Scott McLemee who, bravely, avoided the lure of graduate school, we are lead to Thomas H. Benton (alias William Pannapacker) who takes a dim view of the entire affair:

Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon “the life of the mind.” That’s why most graduate programs resist reducing the numbers of admitted students or providing them with skills and networks that could enable them to do anything but join the ever-growing ranks of impoverished, demoralized, and damaged graduate students and adjuncts for whom most of academe denies any responsibility.

Topic for discussion: Consider similarities and differences between the humanities, social science and science.

PS: You may also want to follow SML’s advice and take a look at comment #75. Is there “a life of the mind” outside of academia. Yes or no?

Gene Kranz allegedly said: “Failure is not an option.” This also goes for the attitude of the Danish Liberals and Conservatives with regard to national commercial radio: Just because all previous attempts to run a national commercial radio network have failed, failed and failed again, there is no reason to think that running a commercial network in Denmark will end in failure. Well, is there?

From a political science perspective the interesting question is what, if anything, politicians and bureaucrats have learnt from previous failures. And why (not).

The first thing we can note is that the Liberals and Conservatives want that commercial radio channel. Why? Well, hmm.. yes… Okay: They want a competing channel so that that Socialist-Leftist-Communist behemoth called DR (these days DR is an acronym for … nothing) can be blasted into oblivion one channel at a time. Maybe there are other reasons, but never mind: The point is that promoting a commercial national network is an ideological priority for the parties – and please do not ask me why they keep forgetting that commercial local radio has proved viable in Denmark for the past twenty years.

Second, what is the cost for the government of private companies going out of business? Okay, so the Ministry for Cultural Affairs lose some expected income from fees for access to the sixth network (actually, the ministry will forfeit any demand for fees this time), but what is the real cost to politicians and bureaucrats? Nothing. Zero. Nada. The issue is so much below the radar of the political agenda that there are no votes to be lost on promising national commercial radio. Sure, there are some administrative costs, but who cares?

So my prediction is that as long as we have a Liberal-Conservative government, successive ministers of Cultural Affairs will try and try and try … and forget the wisdom of Adam Savage: “Failure is always an option”.

The controls on my mobile camera occasionally make for some weird colour effects.

Via Julien Frisch I was made aware of a discussion of the famous quip by Henry Kissinger: “Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?”. It turns out that Mr. K really didn’t want to call Europe because, after all, why bother with one Europe if you can divide and rule – and let’s face it: When do the French, the Germans and the Brits ever agree on anything related to foreign policy?

But the debunking of that story led me to consider another problem. In his blog post, Gideon Rachman writes this (or rather wrote, the post is several months old):

According to the late Peter Rodman, who knew him well, the saying is apocryphal, and in fact Kissinger’s concern was the precise opposite – he was fed up with having to deal with a Dane whom he regarded as incompetent and ineffective, who was trying to represent the whole of the EU as President of the Council.

But who could the incompetent and ineffective Dane be? Well, first of all, Kissinger was US National Security Advisor from January 1969 to November 1975 and US Secretary of State from September 1973 to January 1977 and Denmark joined the European Community, as it was then, in January 1973. Between 1973 and 1977, Denmark held the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in the second half of 1973, so in all likelihood we must be looking at one of the members of Anker Jørgensens first government which was in office from October 1972 to December 1973.

Here things begin to get complicated. K.B. Andersen was Foreign Minister, Ivar Nørgaard Minister for European Affairs and Anker Jørgensen (well, duh) Prime Minister. Now, you could call K.B. Andersen a lot of things but “incompetent and ineffective” would not be the first things to come to my mind. I suspect that the foreign affairs portfolio was split so that Nørgaard was chairing the meetings in the EC Council of Ministers but I don’t ever recall his name being mentioned in relation to high politics.

This could leave Anker Jørgensen as the unfortunate candidate. Although he (head of government) and Kissinger (foreign minister) probably weren’t on an equal footing in terms of diplomatic protocol, Jørgensen would have been chairing the (inofficial) EC Summit which I actually dimly recall being held in Copenhagen in late 1973 and to be perfectly honest, international politics and diplomacy was not exactly Jørgensen’s best discipline. (Economic policy was one of his other main weak points). Earlier in 1973 he had managed a big-time goof in a domestic speech where he happened to touch on the question of the causes of the Yom Kippur War. As a result the Arab OPEC countries were not happy and Denmark one of the countries singled out in the oil embargo.

Oh, and as you can see, the Kissinger remark in all likelihood was linked with the fall-out of the Yom Kippur War and the first Oil Crisis.

Update: Guan Yang pointed me to another possiblity – the former Danish Prime Minister Jens Otto Krag who was EC representative in Washington during 1974-1975 and who, frankly, did not make the best impression in that position. But maybe “incapacitated” would have been a more correct description of Krag during his time in Washington than “incompetent”. (Also, Krag was never president of the Council or anything like that).

But maybe there is a simpler explanation to the story: Kissinger would be looking for some random EC member country he could insult without any risk of provoking a large scale impassé. Any small country would do nicely and who, after all, would take Denmark seriously in international relations anyway?

And lots of it: