Jacob Christensen

Judging by Danish media coverage, the fact that both major blocs in Sweden have now presented their electoral platforms is without relevance. After all, the seven parties only look set to win some 94-95 percent of the vote in the coming and consequently the only theme of interest this side of Øresund is the remaining … well, not the remaining 6 percent because they include parties like F!, ND and what not, but 4 of the remaining 6 percent. The 4 percent which according to Ralf Pittelkow and likeminded represent the true soul of the Swedish electorate, i.e. those who would vote for the Sweden Democrats. Okay, at least Berlingske has the decency to relay a report about the latest opinion poll which is very grim news indeed for the Social Democrats.

The latest point of attack for those concerned about the true nature of Swedish democracy is the way ballot papers are distributed, another sure sign of the elite conspiracy to suppress the voice of True Sweden. Or something.

I will start by noting that the Swedish way of distributing ballot papers is indeed a bit strange – but in order to declare a electoral system undemocratic, serious commentators need to take all of the system and procedures into consideration. Once you do that, the argument that the Swedish electoral system is undemocratic looks questionable. The attacks are another example of the Sweden Democrats’ politics of victimhood and the use of Sweden by Danish right-wing commentators as a tool to define Danishness.

But to start with today’s issue: In Denmark, as in a lot of other countries, party lists and candidates are presented on one ballot paper which is printed and distributed by the relevant electoral authority. In Sweden, there is no single ballot paper – rather each party makes its own ballot paper which is then distributed to households and made available outside the polling stations. The electoral authority pays for some the ballot papers, depending of the performance of individual parties in previous elections. Besides printed papers, the electoral authority also distributes “blank” papers where votes may vote for a party by writing the name of the party. The voter casts his vote by placing the ballot paper in an envelope and putting it in the ballot box.

Technically, this means that anybody can see which ballot paper(s) any voter takes before he or she enters the polling station and this raises the question of privacy in the electoral process. What Danish commenters conveniently overlook is that most parties – including the Sweden Democrats – will distribute ballot papers to households in advance (remember that the envelope, not the paper inside is the guarantee that the vote is valid!), so voters can simply make their choice in the privacy of their homes, put the paper in their wallets and cast their vote without anybody having a chance of guessing their choice.

Danish critics might then argue that the Swedish system is less, if not democratic, then representative than the Danish in another aspect as there is a 4-percent threshold in parliamentary elections against the 2 percent threshold in Denmark. So the Sweden Democrats would have made it to the Riksdag several years ago if the Danish rules had been applied. Similarly, Germany – with one ballot paper – is less democratic than Denmark with a 5 percent threshold.

On the other hand, the Danish electoral system has a number of hurdles deliberately designed to make it very difficult for new parties to enter the race and get their list on the ballot paper. Parties not only have to register but also present a substantial number of signatures – in two rounds – in order to qualify. Similarly, not everyone gains access to televised debates. In many ways, Danish national politics are as much of a closed shop – or a cartel, if you like – as is Swedish politics.

Finally, should the European Council or OSCE send observers to the Swedish election? I have no reason to suspect systematic fraud or misrepresentation in the process, but as a rule transparency is always a good thing. Equally, election systems more often than not develop along national trajectories and there is considerable resistance towards learning from the experiences in other systems. Just as there are questionable elements in the Danish process, there may be questionable elements in the Swedish – or conversely, there may be elements which are worth exporting or adapting in other countries.

So to conclude: All things considered, I don’t give much credence to the criticism raised by Ralf Pittelkow and other self-proclaimed experts on electoral systems. That is not to say that the Sweden Democrats are not the objects of exclusion mechanisms in media and other parts of the political sphere, but the main reason that the party hovers around the 4 percent threshold is most likely, that it has less appeal to the Swedish electorate at large than DF has to the Danish electorate. Sure, to SD winning 3.9 instead of 4.1 percent of the vote will make a big difference, but the same goes for 1.9 and 2.1 percent in Denmark.

For the record: I cast a vote in Swedish elections and referendums in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2004. For a number of reasons I didn’t bother to vote in the 2006 local and regional elections.

Or so I guess. A chance shot on my way home from the office earlier today. Best viewed large.

One should always be careful in predicting the demise of institutions (not that writers of airport books are) but as Patrick Dunleavy has pointed out, something strange is happening in the world of Westminster Systems. Now, if you know your Lijphart (which you will as a political scientist), the Westminster Model is the ideal type of government where one party due to the nature of the electoral system controls the relevant chamber of parliament and consequently forms one-party majority governments. The Westminsters have always been relatively rare but this haven’t stopped leading politicians from seeing Westminster as a better constitutional model than the coalition-based models found in most of the democratic world. Helmut Schmidt of Germany and Göran Persson of Sweden have voiced their preference for the Westminster model.

But what if you have a Westminster system where no single party controls the majority. Like in … India, Canada, the UK and now Australia?¹ In fact, none of the classical Westminster systems now has a Westminster type of government: New Zealand has replaced its electoral system and is now closer to the continental European model, India and the UK … yes, the UK … have coalition governments and Canada … well, Canada is in a bit of a constitutional mess as the political leaders still can’t get to grips with the changing political system. Finally, Australia is set for a parliament with no overall control.

So, the FPTP and AV systems may no longer bring safe majorities and in this way, the classical Westminster model is challenged. Aspirations of one-party majority die slowly, which is why both Conservatives and Labour in the UK will be opposing the proposed electoral reform in the coming referendum, but they could facing more profound forces changing the rules of the game.

The Australian election actually saw both major parties winning around 40 percent of the vote, but otherwise winning more than 35 percent of the vote looks increasingly difficult in both Westminster and – to use Lijphart’s term – Consocional systems. In Germany, CDU/CSU and SPD find it hard to get more than 35 percent of the vote and depend more than ever on coalition partners – even the CSU is struggling in Bavaria. In Sweden, the Social Democrats used to win around 45 percent of the vote but would consider themselves extremely lucky to keep the 35 percent from the 2006 election. In the Netherlands, the CDA is a mere shadow of its former self.

The British Liberal Democrats have been clever enough to buy themselves five years in government (which will serve to dispel fears of government instability, even if we shouldn’t completely discount the possibility of a breakdown of the coalition) while Australia could see a snap second election and a rebound for either of the major parties. Still, I suspect that we a facing an increased fragmentation of party systems in established democracies, both Westminster and Consocional. This does not necessarily mean that government will become less effective, but politicians will find negotiating skills increasingly important. This also raises the question if politics in both traditional Westminster and Consocional regimes is really becoming more “presidential” or “Americanised”.

Curiously, the US looks destined to go in a different direction due to the changes in the Republican Party which in many ways increasingly looks and acts like a European party with strong parliamentary discipline. Given the tendency towards more adversarial politics at the federal level, the US constitutional system which, due to the checks and balances (or veto points, if you like) otherwise relies on a working consocionalism, is headed for a major institutional crisis. US could be the New Europe, though not in the way US Republicans think of the concept.

1. Dunleavy includes New Zealand but as NZ has replaced the one-member constituencies, it is questionable if the country counts as a Westminster system. [↩]

Before 1940, there was 1864: The war which nearly destroyed Denmark. Among historians, the consensus these days is that Denmark was – if not the guilty, then the stupid part which paid for its mistakes with the loss of two fifths of its territory. The emphatic defeat in the 1864 war left deep marks in Denmark – most notably the view of Denmark as a fundamentally vulnerable state and the impression that They are out to get us, something which may help explain the xenophobia in present-day Denmark and on a minor scale the regulation which bans foreigners (Germans, in particular) from buying a holiday home in Denmark.

Today’s surprising news is that King Christian IX three times during the war contacted Prussia with the offer that Denmark (with the duchies Schleswig and Holstein) join the German Confederation. In that way, Christian hoped, the problem with the different status of Denmark, Schleswig and Holstein could be managed and the entities be kept together under one crown.

Otto von Bismarck, the realist politician’s realist politician, would have none of it. Not out of a wish to humiliate King Christian and the Danes but rather because including Denmark in the Confederation could create unnecessary problems with France – Bismarck was wise enough only to engage in necessary wars which Prussia had a reasonable chance of winning – and because it would include a rather large Danish minority in the Confederation.

While Christian’s proposal may be difficult to understand by today’s standards, it did make some sense when you consider that he was brought up under pre-democratic rule in Denmark and that he for most of his life saw himself as a monarch in the classical European tradition. His task was to defend the interests of the State of Denmark, not the Danes as a nation, and he never really understood the idea of constitutional rule in the meaning that the Monarch should stand back and let politicians run the affairs of the state. On the other hand, the initiative also showed the desperation of the Danish situation and possibly the lack of understanding of the changing ways of 19th Century European politics among the Danish political elite.

But what if Denmark had joined the Confederation? This is a complicated piece of counterfactual (and alternative) history. One problem is if the Confederation had accepted the State of Denmark as one member or if Prussia had insisted on the four constituent parts¹ joining separately. Denmark would have lost its autonomy in foreign policy and would have had the same status as Norway (in union with Sweden) and Finland (a Russian Grand Duchy) but this might have been less of an issue given the country’s descent into international irrelevance. The fortification of Copenhagen would have been a non-issue and this might have eased internal conflicts in Denmark but on the other hand, the political system would have been dominated by the conservative forces. Parliamentarism would not have been introduced in 1901 but only after World War I. Then there is the question of the development of trade relations (especially in agriculture) and so on.

I will offer one guess, though: If Denmark had been a member of the German Confederation from 1864 and later a state in Imperial Germany, the House of Glücksburg would have been swept away by the upheavals following World War I and Denmark – likely to revert to full sovereignty in 1919 – would have been a republic.

1. The Kingdom of Denmark, Duchy of Schleswig, Duchy of Holstein, Duchy of Lauenburg [↩]

It is always difficult (to me, at least) to assess a piece of journalism when I know that there is research and other forms of coverage out there which I haven’t read. Still, prompted by Twitter contacts, here is the votes of the Danish jury on Lena Sundström’s documentary “Dom kallas rasister” – a title playing on “Dom kallar oss mods” one of the most famous documentary films in Swedish which followed a group of young men in Stockholm living on the edge of society – which was shown on Swedish TV4 earlier tonight.¹

Lena Sundström is marginally known in Denmark for her book “Världens lyckligsta folk” which describes her journey in search of, if not the soul of Denmark, then the mechanisms which have led to the establishment and growth of the Danish People’s Party. Generally, Swedes are not particularly interested in Denmark which these days mostly serves as an image of what could go wrong in Sweden if…

Well, if the Sweden Democrats managed to establish themselves as a parliamentary party with some power. And “Världens lyckligasta folk” which is written in a sort of watered-down version of Gonzo journalism (no drugs here, though) belonged to that tendency even if Sundström emerged as more puzzled than disgusted by the Danes in general and the DF in particular.

“Dom kallas rasister” had much of the same – a whirlwind tour of (mostly Southern) Sweden with a number of very short portraits of SD activists and sympathisers. This was the main weakness of the documentary in my eyes – we met many people very briefly and my feeling was that we never really got to the point where we learnt what exactly made them tick. Sure, there was detachment from the “political elite”, anxiety about the state of the Swedish society and xenophobia – but what exactly was (and is) going on in this section of the Swedish electorate? Is there a racist subculture among Swedish voters?² Were we dealing with people who wrote letters to the editor, making calls to local radio stations and not much more, or people who were on the verge of being mobilised politically? Why are the Sweden Democrats acceptable to a wider part of the electorate (wider as in 4-5% versus 1-2%) in 2010 compared with 2006 and 2002?

Sundstr̦m put in a segment where she proved that a number of the claims made by SD and the people which appeared in the programme had no basis in facts. The conclusion we are led to is that it is a feeling or a sense, rather than Рwell, what exactly? experience? observations? Рwhich drives this mobilisation. The only sure fact is that the number of people in Sweden with an immigrant background has increased and that there is segregation in the larger towns and cities.

After watching the documentary, I’m not really sure that I have learnt anything (anything new, at least) about this segment of the electorate or why SD may be on the verge of entering parliament in September. That there is a dark (or brown) undercurrent in the Swedish opinion, just as there is in the Danish, is hardly news to me (I mean – just check the forums on flashback.info if you dare). That immigration can be made an issue in local and national elections in Sweden is equally well-known – see 1991 and 2002 as cases in point.

It is difficult to make portraits of people who have a porcupine relationship to the “elite” (which they no doubt think that Lena Sundström is a part of) but I suspect that concentrating on a smaller number of portraits and letting people talk to figure out exactly why immigration has been the catalyst for mobilisation and why we are seeing a potential breakthrough for SD now.

PS: As my colleague Johan Karlsson has pointed out, the Sweden Democrats have inspired a cottage industry of more or less interesting books about the party and its sympathisers. For a list, try this.

Update: Andreas Johansson Heinö has a blog post on the programme (in Swedish)

1. Note the change in title – it is not “They call us racists”, but “They Are Called Racists”. The active voice is replaced by an anonymous passive voice. [↩]
2. Here we should remember that SD has its roots in the ultra-nationalist fringe of the 1980s. Historically, the party is much closer related to NPD than DF. [↩]

A short note on a passage in one of today’s editorials in Information:

Anders Fogh Rasmussen vil gå over i historien ikke alene som den statsminister, der misrøgtede økonomien og tvang Danmark ned på rangstigen over verdens rigeste lande, men også som den statsminister, der som den første kompromisløst tog økonomien som gidsel i sine bestræbelser på at bevare magten.

I would accept the argument that Fogh (and the Liberal Party under his leadership) was first and foremost office-seeking and that the economic policies of the naughties in many ways left Denmark in a worse position on the eve of the present economic crisis. In many ways, the economic policy is eerily reminiscent of the Swedish economic policy of the later 1980s which ended with a massive crisis lasting from 1990 to 1998. There were other reasons for the breakdown in Swedish economy but a lack of control of government expenses and a completely irresponsible handling of the financial markets did a lot of harm to Sweden and led to the lost decade of the 1990s. Unlike Fogh Rasmussen, Ingvar Carlsson had the decency to stay on board in order to try and sort out some of the mess himself before retiring from politics in late 1995.

But … while Information is right that Fogh Rasmussen’s predecessors Nyrup Rasmussen, Schlüter and even Anker Jørgensen did engage in policy reversals in order to stabilise the Danish economy, we should consider the case of Kulegravningsbanden, the all-party committee which in 1972 presented a comprehensive catalogue of possible cuts in public expenditures in order to stabilise an overheating Danish economy and reign in a public sector which had slid out of control, only to find its plans thwarted by prime minister Jens Otto Krag.

Sure, indications are that Krag was afraid that announcing cuts in public spending in the run-up to the 1972 EEC referendum would have turned public opinion against the EEC as the left-wing was running a “Welfare or Europe” campaign but the result stands: Danish economy overheated on a big scale, controlling public expenditure continued to be a major problem, the Progress Party gained momentum and, following the 1973 earthquake election, a succession of weak governments spent the rest of the decade and a major part of the 1980s getting the massive economic imbalances under control.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen deserves his place in the Danish Economic Policy Hall of Shame (especially as he should have known about the Swedish experiences) but he is not alone.

After looking at and considering the latest reporting on the Helle Thorning-Schmidt case, I think that my observations from late June still stand so instead of writing an all-new post repeating myself, I will refer you to the older piece.

Some added comments:

1. Once there is an international element to it, income taxes can really make your brain hurt. Trust me: I’ve been there myself.
2. That said, I’m not quite convinced by Helle Thorning’s argument that the different informations about her husband’s whereabouts during weekends were the result of an oversight.
3. Thorning and her advisors are also well advised to reveal all potential skeletons in the respective closets (whether they are in Copenhagen, Davos, London or some fourth place)
4. The “awful poll” from late July should be taken with a very big grain of salt. July is the month of vacations and this summer has not produced much in terms of news related to policy.
5. That said, the Social Democrats still face the problem that they have not been and still are not able to attract voters to any significant extent. As it is, the Socialists, not the Social Democrats have the potential to produce a majority for the left in Danish politics.

Okay, the title is slightly ironic. While walking the streets of London (or driving in buses) last week, I couldn’t help wondering just how many … how to put this in a gentle way … less than successful buildings one could find there. Sure, the Germans mush bear some of the blame but the Brits in particular seemed to have a rather unique way of making concrete very … concretey. I lived in a hotel next to Centre Point, which is the building pictured above, and kept wondering just what it reminded me of. It finally dawned upon me that it was somehow a cousin to the old Interhotel at Alexanderplatz in Eastern Berlin.

The hotel I stayed at (not pictured) was basic but okay (and it had a location to kill for) but I always had the feeling that it had been designed by Orcs, or alternatively the firm Orwell, Kafka and Partners. British brutalism is very brutalist indeed.

Add the ubiquitous CCTV cameras and Orwell’s ghost was always close.

Now, this may make you think that I hated every minute of my stay in London. I very definitively did not, but in some ways the city is a curious place.

The big stories this summer has not been about the more or less outlandish test-balloons, parties usually release during July and August when the Folketing is not in session and we are waiting for next year’s budget. In fact, one might argue that the summer has been characterised by the complete absence of policy discussions as all interest has been focused on the leaders of the Conservative and Social Democratic parties who for different reasons have made the headlines – the Conservative leader Lene Espersen for not attending meetings while the Social Democratic leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt (or rather her husband) has been facing suspicions of tax evasion.

In the case of Lene Espersen, problems began when it emerged that she had not participated in an Arctic5 meeting of foreign ministers shortly after she became FM due to a family vacation. And then the ball started rolling. According to Erik Rasmussen of Mandag Morgen, Danish newsmedia have had 2700 items on Espersen since March while the state of the Danish economy only was covered in 800 news items.

So we might ask two questions: 1. Are Espersen’s absences a substantial problem? and 2. Why did they become issues on the media agenda?

The answer to the first question must be: We don’t know. As far as I can tell nobody have seriously tried to consider if or to what degree Espersen is a less effective foreign minister than her predecessors. That Messrs Lykketoft and Helveg Petersen think so hardly counts as an authoritative argument: There is after all a party political element to take into consideration here. The jury, in my opinion, is still out here.

But why did the case explode in media? Well, one reason might be that it makes for a good story as policy is not involved. Media don’t have to explain the intricacies of the Arctic5 cooperation, border disputes, programmes for rebuilding Afghanistan and so on.

Another reason could be that Espersen made herself vulnerable because she exchanged the business and economic planning portfolio with the foreign office in order to … well, not in order to demonstrate that the government’s priorities or Conservative foreign policy had changed but purely in order to raise her own profile.

Now, there is nothing wrong with having a high profile as party leader – the risk with a low profile is that voters forget the party’s relevance – but the absence of some kind of policy profile can easily become a problem as soon as a minister runs into trouble with the media. If becoming foreign minister was seen as a vanity project or an attempted short-cut to popularity without any policy substance, the project was on shaky grounds right from the beginning and this made it all the more important that the minister’s public handling of the office was flawless.

Things were not made better by Espersen’s handling of the original criticism (relevant or not). Voters never received a good explanation of the role of Arctic5 but the presence of US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (whose calender we must assume is very full) indicated that the meeting was of some importance, even if it was only symbolic. If Lene Espersen is as concerned about receiving good media coverage as we are told, the planning was very strange indeed. Even good photo opportunities take some work.

At one point the story took a life of its own, simply because Lene Espersen wasn’t willing or able to kill it in the media. Again: Nobody has been able to demonstrate that Danish foreign policy has suffered, but Espersen has looked clumsy and ineffective in the eyes of the news media. Any meeting she did not attend (either by choice or due to obnoxious authorities in Farawayistan) was painstakingly recorded. The lesson, which had not been learned, was that Espersen as foreign minister should have delivered some kind of clear message about the role of foreign policy in the coming years during the spring (if she did, I and the media completely missed it; the Liberal development minister Søren Pind has stolen some of the limelight here) and the she and the FO – once she had become fair game in the media – should have made every effort to avoid negative reporting, even if Danish foreign ministers have always skipped the July meeting of EU foreign ministers.

It is said that those who live by the sword, also die by the sword. The same risk applies to politicians who live by the media.

I understand that silly things have happened in Danish politics, while I was away. I’ll probably get around to comment but in the meantime please enjoy this late evening view of Trafalgar Square. I’ll be adding more photos here in the coming days.