CIAO DATE: 01/2013
December 2012
Danish Institute for International Studies
Danish foreign policy after the Cold War has often been referred to as 'activist'. But is it actually meaningful to speak of one-size-fits-all kind of Danish foreign policy activism? In the present report, PhD Candidate Mikkel Runge Olesen argues against it, and suggests instead that the different Danish political parties have, in fact, understood activism in quite different ways ever since the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, this remains the case to this day. Thus, the Liberals (Venstre) and the Conservatives (Det Konservative Folkeparti) have generally favored a hawkish approach to activism that relatively easily embraced military measures with or without broad international support, while the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne) and the Social Liberals (Radikale Venstre) have generally favored activism that was comparatively more multilaterally inclined and had a stronger focus on humanitarian aid. Any seeming consensus during the 1990s or in recent years must not, therefore, be taken for general agreement about activist foreign policy. Instead, these should be seen merely as periods where the differences between understandings of activist foreign policy were masked by the fact that the policy issues, which Danish politicians had to deal with, were not creating conditions for disagreement. Thus, the consensus periods have mostly been marked by American foreign policy restraint and preference for multilateralism, which has tended to give rise to less controversial Western interventions abroad. For this reason the present Danish consensus on activist foreign policy is unlikely to survive any major American aggressive resurgence or big shifts away from multilateralism.
Resource link: Two Danish activist foreign policies? Changing perceptions of threat and 'activism' in Danish foreign policy 1988-2011 [PDF]