Jacob Christensen

We once again interrupt the blocation to send you to your one-stop guide to all things centre-right in Denmark and Sweden. You can buy a paper copy or simply download it for free.

And look: There is even a French version.

On a slightly more serious note, I go through the recent history of the centre-right in Denmark and Sweden: The parties, the policies and the electoral impact. But I didn’t dare predict the result of the Swedish election.

Enjoy your reading.

Just two quick notes about my vacation reading – vacation, that is when I’m not finishing manuscripts:

1. Peter Baldwin: “The Narcissism of Minor Differences”

US historian with European links goes mediaeval on tales of American exceptionalism and whatever Europeans have claimed in their favour in a frenzy of (easily accessible) statistics. If it wasn’t for the size of the country and the level of GDP (yes, the Americans are wealthier than we are), Martians would think that the Americans were sort-of-Europeans.

Read it before (or rather: instead of) your newspaper columnist.

Bonus info: The Swedes have guns. And they are not afraid to use them. The NRA would love Sweden.

2. Pranab Bardhan: “Awakening Giants. Feet of Clay”

US-Indian economist looks at emerging economies and helps you sort out facts from globalisation-babble. 160 pages. And no: You do not have to be an economist to get the picture.

And with this, the blog takes a vacation. See you in mid-August unless something really exciting happens.

If we ask the experts (these days, political experts in the media are invariably “communications experts”), Fælleslisten’s chances of making it to the Folketing are negligible. The reason? There are two, according to our experts: The party (which strictly speaking does not exist yet) lacks a full political programme and a charismatic leader.

The political programme issue was the subject of a recent interview with Leif Hornshøj, the leader of Fælleslisten in its present form, on DR2′s Deadline. No, FL does not have a clear position on the Danish presence in Afghanistan, the party is sort of anti-federalist when it comes to the EU and we’ve learnt later that the position on the early retirement benefit is … both ways.

But can you make it to parliament with a purely negative programme?

As it is, it has happened a couple of times. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, the Justice Party (Retsforbundet) was relatively successful in a number of elections due to its free-market and (especially) anti-rationing message. Similarly, in the 1970s the Progress Party was against taxes and bureaucrats. The realism and political efficacy of both parties was more than questionable but under the right (or wrong) circumstances, their negative message attracted voters.

If you are curious about foreign policy, the Justice Party included both pacifists and pro-NATO members. This was potentially a big deal in the 1950s. Similarly, the Progress Party originally announced that the Danish defence should be replaced by an answering machine telling a potential invader that “we surrender”. People loved it.

Still, the Justice Party and the Progress Party thrived in situations where the conflict lines between the established parties were difficult to discern – at least on issues such as free trade (1950s) and taxes (1970s). That the Danish electorate since the 1930s has included a pool of 5-10 percent potential protest voters should also be considered. But FL’s best choice is probably to enter the ring with all guns blazing and concentrate on infrastructure and public services.

Then there is the issue of leadership. Ordinary parties can indulge in less than inspiring leaders (Bendt Bendtsen, anyone?) but a protest party definitively needs somebody who knows how to work the media. The Justice Party had Viggo Starcke and the Progress Party Mogens Glistrup, both gifted media manipulators. Starcke thanked people for letting him into their homes (via the radio), Glistrup enriched the Danish language with skrankepaver, papirnussere and whatnot. Judged from his performances on tv, Leif Hornshøj is neither a Starcke nor a Glistrup, so FL does have a problem here. The party, just like FOKUS (remember them? No not the Dutch rock group) isn’t ready for the big time in national media yet. I think that FL’s prospects would be better if the party could find a way to mobilise outside of national media – but we people from the centre tend to forget things like local radio which is a force to be reckoned with outside of the larger cities.

When it comes to the formation of new parties on a national level, I tend to be sceptical: The death rate is formidable and generally it takes extraordinary situations for a new party to succeed. That Ny Alliance made it to parliament in 2007 should be a warning sign for the established parties (even if LA has zero chance of attracting people outside of the financial districts in Denmark) as it reflected a lack of loyalty towards the government among its electorate.

I’m not really sure that we are in a time of major realignments, though, so my guess is that FL will find it very hard to succeed at the national level.

Last week, Berlingske Tidende published a poll indicating that some 9 percent of voters might consider voting for a national equivalent of Fælleslisten – even if nobody has any idea about the specific policies of such a party. Strangely, Berlingske manages to argue that “Fælleslisten enjoys support everywhere” and “Danes do not believe in Fælleslisten” but this merely tells us what we already know: Newspaper headlines always, without exception, make too sweeping conclusions. The correct description is that a) Fælleslisten enjoys support outside and of North-Western Jutland and b) about a quarter of voters think that stopping the economic and administrative centralisation is a realistic option while about half of the voters think it is not a realistic option.

Unfortunately, Berlingske has not published the details of the poll on the web but the tables published in the print edition give us some extra information.

First, we should note that it is unlikely that FL would win 9-10 percent of the vote. Voters usually consider voting for more than one party – in the real world, some 4-5 percent would be a realistic target. (You might want to compare with the buzz surrounding Ny Alliance when it was formed three years ago). But that is still a respectable share of the vote which could make life uncomfortable for more than one of the established parties.

Second, the break-down of data shows some interesting distributions of the support.

The highest level of support comes from the 18-36 year-olds (16 percent), not the 60+ group (9 percent). On the other hand, we should remember that young voters generally are more fleeting in their preferences – FL is the new boy in town and we should expect that it attracted the interest of new voters. Still, calling FL a gathering of old people does not quite describe its potential, even if it would be nice to see this being broken down according to age, education and geography.

The distribution of potential FL supporters on parties is also of interest. That DF supporters are over-represented (11 percent) might not be a surprise, even if it does not quite fit the distribution according to age. But this could mean that DF will be more aggressive in pushing local projects in the coming parliamentary year. Conservatives, Social Liberals (well duh) and Liberals on the other hand look more immune to the direct challenge while FL could make some inroads among Social Democratic and Socialist voters. Again, we could expect the Social Democrats and Socialists to somehow rediscover the periphery.

But what about political leaders and programme?

To be continued

So far, political reporting during the silly season this summer has been taken over by Fælleslisten, a party which has its roots in the north-western parts of Region Midtjylland and which was originally formed in protest to the decision by the regional council – and the government – to place a new hospital in Gødstrup near Herning instead of closer to Holstebro. After winning two seats in the regional council at the last local elections, the party now plans to extend its activities to all of Denmark – or more specifically, the parts left empty-handed by the centralisation of all kinds of public services. And now the questions are: A) Will they make it to parliament at the next national elections and B) What role would Fælleslisten have in national politics.

As always, political scientists are pathetic when it comes to predictions but I will take a chance and add my considerations.

First, the party was originally organised on a local issue and it is obviously very hard to move from being a local pressure group to a national party.

On the other hand, issues such as the closing of schools, vocational colleges, public libraries, police stations, council offices and hospitals have affected large parts of the country. Add the withdrawal of public transport outside of the larger towns which is now being implemented and we face a massive problem with large parts of the country being left out and feeling abandoned by … well, by whom? The politicians? Bureaucrats? Technocrats?

Here we may have the crucial weak point in the organisational and political reforms of local government and state authorities: Even if the organisational structures of the 1960s for many reasons had outlived themselves by the 1990s, the 2007 local government reform was essentially the work of bureaucrats and technocrats with the Liberal Party and the then Interior Minister and present Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen as the political front. And even worse: While the reforms promised cheaper and more efficient public services, the economic results have been limited and the promised improvements in the quality of public services hard to discern. The most visible result has been that the counters literally have been moved further away from citizens.

At the same time, the economic development has meant that while the metropolitan region around Copenhagen and the “100-kilometre-town” in Eastern Jutland¹ have seen growth and an influx of people, the rest of the country has seen stagnation with the appearance of the by now infamous “rotten banana” as the result. (Things are a bit more complicated as large parts of Zealand also belong to the banana, but we’ll use it as the iconic image for now).

To sum up: What we have is a potential centre-periphery conflict caused by a very uneven economic development as well as national politics becoming increasingly technocratic and centralised. The question is if Fælleslisten (or any other political party) will be able to mobilise voters and turn the latent conflict into an active one.

To be continued…

1. The – legally non-existent – “100-kilometre-town”, also known as “The Fat Sausage”, is the stretch along the East Jutland motorway from Randers via Ã…rhus, Horsens and Vejle to Fredericia and Kolding. It is also the best – or worst, if you wish – case of suburban sprawl in Denmark [↩]

Last week gave us the 2010 edition of Almedalsveckan, the week when the chattering classes of Stockholm descend on the small town of Visby on Gotland. To put it in another way, it is the Swedish equivalent of the infamous Hellerup-week in Skagen with a dose of politics thrown in for good measure.

This year’s Almedalsvecka held some interest as it was the last major event before the campaign for the 2010 election really begins in late August. The former leader of the Left Party, Gudrun Schyman, who is trying to take Feminist Initiative into parliament for the second time made some kind of performance with potentially ironic effects.

For those into political parties, I should note that Statsvetenskaplig Tidsskrift published a special edition (pdf) covering changes in Swedish parties and held two seminars dealing with the left and right side of the spectrum, respectively.

All party leaders make a speech during the week, those where manuscripts or transcriptions have been published can be found here.

And the there was the Littorin Affair which as such had nothing to do with Almedalsveckan, except that it happened to be published during the week and more or less diverted media attention away from what else was happening. To make a long story short, the tabloid Aftonbladet alleged that the conservative labour market minister Sven Otto Littorin of buying sex from a prostitute in 2006, something which is illegal in Sweden but a crime which is prescribed after two years. As far as we know, the story is based only on the testimony of the woman, Littorin allegedly had sex with. Following the initial allegations (not made public initially), Littorin resigned citing a conflict with his ex-wife over the custody of their children and aggressive attempts by journalists to contact his family. After his resgination, Littorin has disappeared from the public eye but (indirectly) denies any wrongdoing. We have also been told that Littorin is involved in a custody fight with his ex-wife and that he has received some kind of treatment for depressive episodes earlier.

The story raises a number of tricky questions which are difficult the answer. My observations so far:

1. Aftonbladet’s behaviour was completely predictable. First, there were “allegations”, then the paper “considered” publishing the story and finally it published the interview with the woman in question. A typical strategy when news media wants to set the agenda while pretending only to be reporting. And sell copies for successive days. (Aftonbladet’s editor interviewed by Svenska Dagbladet)

2. Littorin and prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt were in a lose-lose situation. Given the status (prescribed) of the alleged crime, there is no way police and courts will be taking up the case even if he has payed for sex. If Littorin did not buy sex from the woman in question, the only way he could clear his name would be through a civil libel case. An impossible situation for a government minister, especially in the run-up to an election.

3. Fredrik Reinfeldt’s handling of the case has been criticised for being unclear and lacking in empathy. What may be more important, the opposition Social Democrats have used the story to attack Reinfeldt. The scandal comes at an early time in the election campaign but given the surprisingly weak support for the opposition in recent polls, we should not rule out the possibility of a very dirty campaign. (More about Reinfeldt’s handling and the non-mentioning of the prostitution allegations)

4. Littorin has showed bad judgement before. In 2007 it emerged that he held an “MBA” from Fairfax University, a non-accredited university (and possibly a diploma mill) based in the US. The MBA was consequently removed from his resumé. His track record is a liability, regardless of which version of the story is true this time.

5. Littorin has claimed that he has been under treatment for a heart condition and depressions. I haven’t followed Swedish politics on a 24/7 basis for the past two years, but this has been under my radar and begs the question if a government minister can be seriously ill without the public being informed. Here the strategy of the former Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik after he suffered a depressive episode could stand as a model of good communication. That Littorin has suffered from stress symptoms following his divorce is not surprising, and fighting a custody battle in the media is probably not a very good idea, but I think the case can be made the the public should be informed about the cause in general terms if a government minister is incapacitated for a period of time.

6. Finally, the story is all the more embarrassing for the Conservative Party as the justice minister Beatrice Ask presented a rather strange proposal to send letters containing papers in cases involving prostitution in envelopes with conspicuous colours to the accused (before a possible sentencing). Even if the idea seems to have been thrown out, the Swedish Conservatives will find it hard to complain about the way media have treated Sven Otto Littorin.

Folketinget, the Danish parliament is in summer recess. And boy is it in summer recess: The homepage has been down for more than a day and nobody noticed. Except for a couple of geeks haunting Twitter.

While we’re at it: The strawberry season is delayed up here but at the risk of being called a horticultural nationalist, I think that Danish and Swedish strawberries are much better than those grown in Southern Europe. So I’ve been waiting.

According to reports, the number of Danish students using the Erasmus programme to spend between 3 and 12 months at a university in another EU country has fallen from 1674 to 1648 between 2007-08 and 2008-09. At the same time, the number of students taking international internships have risen by almost 50 percent even if the increase has been from a much lower level.

Some comments:

First, despite European aspirations Erasmus exchanges only stand for a part of the total number of exchanges. Students also go to the US and Australia – universities in the latter country in particular have turned exchange students into big business. It is perfectly possible that the total number of exchanges have risen while the numbers for Erasmus exchanges are effectively flat.

Second, there may be good reasons why students don’t choose to take one or two terms abroad. The main problem is if the academic value of the exchange courses is equal to that of courses at the home university. One problem here is that even though we have the ECTS system, courses for exchange students run separately from ordinary courses. Another issue is that even though politicians and bureaucrats like to think that abandoning national languages in favour of English in higher education increases the value of courses and programmes, research has frequently shown that teaching in English for non-native speakers lowers the value of information with some 20-30 percent compared with teaching in one’s native language. This leaves the social aspect as the main point of attraction for students.

Third, an international internship may offer more value for money for students than traditional courses. To a prospective employer, such an internship will be direct proof that the applicant will and can work in an international setting. The value of a term at an Australian university education factory is more questionable.

I do think there are some very good reasons why students should consider taking some part of their education outside of their home university – in short: you learn to think in different ways about your subject and how to organise teaching – but both students and universities would be well advised to consider the exact value of exchange programmes.

This is probably easier on the Masters level where programmes can be more specialised. It will make sense to try and attract students on a faculty basis on two to three main themes rather than trying to cover everything in more-or-less basic English language courses. This will of course demand cooperation between different departments in the planning of courses on the masters level.

I see some bigger challenges on the bachelor level where programmes are broader, even if exchanges generally take place in the fourth and fifth years.