Out on June 28:

Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook 2006

Edited by Nanna Hvidt and Hans Mouritzen

This year’s volume of Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook will be published on June 28. Besides the often quoted official outline of Danish foreign policy by Permanent Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ulrik Federspiel, the volume includes the following articles:

The ‘Big Other’ and the ‘Small Other’: Discursive Asymmetries and Cleavages in Russian-Danish Relations

Andrey S. Makarychev
Russian-Danish relations are analysed from the viewpoint of a constructivist approach to the conduct of foreign policy, diplomacy and international relations. Two case studies are carried out: one regarding the concept of Europe, and one regarding security policy. Various differences notwithstanding regarding the concept of Europe, the comparison uncovers a surprisingly similar attachment to ‘nation-stateness’ in policy statements from the two sides. The section on security policy dissects the distinctive approaches of Denmark and Russia to terrorism and its security hreats. Key policy makers in each country read the ‘threat’ in different ways and therefore prescribe different counter-measures. This has impacted directly and publicly upon bilateral relations. Nonetheless, the article argues that there are means by which the two sides may overcome their basic conceptual differences in developing a common language and approach.

Social Defense and National Security: The Globalized Danish Welfare State

Eric S. Einhorn
The complex forces of interdependence and globalization have forced Denmark and other advanced welfare states to rethink the components of national security policy. In addition to concerns about traditional threats of force are the destabilizing effects of global economic, health, migrative and other developments. A traditionally broad concept of ‘social defense’ – of a strong society capable of full participation in European and world affairs – contributes to an appropriate multidimensional national security policy and to sustainable economic and social policies, despite the limitations on the resources and power of a small state. As illustrated by the ‘cartoon crisis’ of 2005-06, adjustment to a multiethnic and globalized society will be the security issue of the coming decade.

Truth on Demand: Denmark and the Cold War

Thorsten Borring Olesen
The article is structured in two layers. The outer layer demonstrates, how the intense fight over the interpretation of the Cold War has elicited a series of government sponsored investigations into various aspects of Danish Cold War history, but also documents that this process has been accompanied by intensified and manifest attempts to mastermind and exploit these investigations for (party)political ends. The inner layer focuses on the four volume white book Danmark under den Kolde Krig [Denmark during the Cold War] produced by a research team at the ‘Danish Institute for International Studies’ and published in the summer of 2005. The findings of the white book are presented and discussed, and so is the heated debate which has followed in the wake of its publication.

A Hundred Years of Danish Action Space

Hans Mouritzen
Facilitated by a recent publication explosion on the history of Danish foreign policy, as well by the constellation theory of state behaviour, this article investigates the ups and downs of Danish foreign policy action space. Specifically, the focus is directed at nine episodes within the last 100 years, in which it became obvious that Danish external action space had changed markedly, either for the better or the worse. What methods did decisionmakers use to learn about these changes, and could they themselves expand action space? This is supplemented by an analysis of governments’ internal action space (vis-à-vis domestic opposition) in the episodes. The golden age for Danish foreign policy action space was the period 1990-2005. Over the last 100 years, overcautiousness seems to have been more frequent than the overplaying of Denmark’s hand.

Furthermore, the publication includes a collection of official speeches on Danish foreign policy in 2005, economic key figures and opinion polls concerning different aspects of Danish foreign policy, and a bibliography of English-language publications on the subject published in 2005.

The Yearbook can be downloaded from the DIIS website.

Printed versions: DKK 100 incl VAT/moms (plus handling). Please order from Nordisk Bogcenter.

Review copies can be requested immediately from Jacob Fræmohs, publications@diis.dk, DIIS, phone +45 32 69 89 39. Editorial office: hmo@diis.dk.

Top