POLITICAL RESEARCH IN DENMARK, 1965-66

Perhaps in the future someone will try to trace the development of political science in those European countries where political science as an academic discipline is a phenomenon of the post-war period. Among others, he will ask these questions: Did the government or other agencies furnish the requested money during the years of construction? How did the pioneers allocate the more or less scarce resources? Did they give highest priority to education or research? What kind of research was promoted most strongly, empirical research or other forms of research, teamwork or individual work?

We will not discuss these matters here. When the questions have been raised, it is because of their significance in the Danish context. They are simply raised repeatedly by those few persons who try to make political science an autonomous and established social science in Denmark. The greatest obstacle to a progressive development of the newly-founded academic discipline is its lack of manpower. The scarce resources have to be allocated with care. This demands a continual answer to the questions about what kinds of research deserve a high priority, i.e. what kinds of research can be expected with the given efforts te extend our knowledge of the Danish political system as much as possible.

Thereby a partial answer also has been given to the question about why Denmark will not be among those smaller European countries which will produce volumes for the forthcoming series on "Smaller European Democracies" (SED). This admirable project, if entered by Denmark, would require too much of the available manpower.

A comprehensive analysis of Danish politics has scarcely begun. Those, who try to find a way move forward with little guidance from previous analyses. A situation like this calls for a coordinated effort in a number of fields, as has happened, for example, in Norway and to a certain degree in Sweden and Finland.

At the Institute of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, efforts until now have centered partly on the establishment of an archive containing political and social data about Danish municipalities and partly around the utilization and analysis of these data.¹

The archive already includes all data on party strength from the elections during 1920—64 and demographic census data for the same period. Since continous changes have taken place in the definitions and groupings of demographic variables, not all data can be used for longitudinal analysis.

The sociological department at the Institute has planned a series of publications, two of which will be published in the first half of 1967. The first deals with the relation between social structure and relative party strength in 1960. (Ole Borre and Jan Stehouwer, Social struktur og partistyrke i 1960, in Økologiske undersøgelser af dansk vælgeradfærd, vol. I — Århus 1967). This publication deals with (1) background of the Århus Ecological Research Program, (2) methodological problems, (3) a review of earlier research in Denmark, (4) construction of a data archive, (5) social structure of Danish communities, a review of the main variables used in the analysis, (6) election of 1960, (7) regional contrasts, (8) urban-rural differences, (9) urbanization and regionalism, (10) population size of cities, (11) occupational structure, (12) population growth, (13) average taxable income per inhabitant, (14) social structure and party strength in the Copenhagen area.

Except for a part dealing explicitly with the Copenhagen area, the entire analysis
is based on the municipal community as basic unit. For Copenhagen, Frederiksberg,

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1 See Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. 1, p. 256.

and Gentofte a separate analysis has been made, based on the social structure in the
23 nomination districts of these three municipalities.

A second volume dealing with the last three elections (1960, 1964 and 1966) is in preparation and will be published shortly after volume I. (Borre and Stehouwer, Tre Folketingsvalg — 1960, .'.964, og 1966, in Økologiske undersøgelser af dansk vælgeradfærd, vol. II — Århus 1967). The first part will concentrate on an analysis and evaluation of the 1960 and 1964 elections. The second part will contain a provisional analysis of the election in November, 1966, based on ecological data from the nomination districts.

Longitudinal studies for the period 1920—1966 continue. Some of the early results are presented in this volume in an article by Stehouwer (pp. 94—116). The longitudinal studies will concentrate mainly on the development of relative party strength. Data from the last 7 elections are already available. Part of this study deals with the effect of variations in voting turnout on the variations in relative party strength from election to election. A computer program for the processing of data from the last 7 elections has been constructed for this purpose. Results from the longitudinal studies are expected to be published in 1968.

Ecological analysis is no substitute for sample surveys. A national survey seems to be the most pressing task ior Danish political scientists. Until such a survey has been made, we will have to rely upon the ecological analysis or upon secondary analysis of a far outdated survey made by the Institute of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen,2 and materials produced by Gallup.3

Apart from the above, only little research has been made on Danish voting behavior. Mogens N. Pedersen 3a has examined the effect of the voters' use of the system of preferential voting and especially has been interested in the kind of candidates favored by this special Danish arrangment. Further, he has examined the political mobilization of Danish women as voters, candidates, and representatives at the national and the local :evel (240)/

The study of the party press until recently has been historical. Now Niels Thomsen (234) with Partipressen (The Danish Party Press) has tried to analyze the role of the press in an electoral contest (the campaign before the 1964-election). One part of the study, which includes a description of ownership, party affiliations and the tendency toward concentration, is based on a content analysis of a sample of newspapers. The principal aim has been to determine to what extent newspapers affiliated with parties favored the particular party in its editorial policy during the campaign. Thomsen also has examined the relations between the electoral strength of the parties and the strength of th party press in different geographical regions. He has found that apparently no significant positive relations exist; in fact, the parties have done best in the post-war elections in those regions in which their own

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2 See Kaare Svalastoga, Prestige, Class and Mobility, Scandinavian University Books, Copenhagen, 1959. The survey, which dates from 1953—54, has been used for its politically relevant material by Erik Høgh (183 and 215). (183) contains some relections and hypotheses about the political attitudes of the Danish middle class, and (215) contains a condensation of previously published secondary analyses.

3 The main part of the politically relevant Gallup- surveys are now condensed in POLLS (International Opinion Research Documents, Amsterdam).

3a Mogens N, Pedersen.Preferential voting in Denmark: The Voters' Influence on the Election of Folketing Candidates, Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. 1 pp. 167—187.

4 Supplementary materials concerning the role of women in Danish politics can be found in Ellen Strange Petersen, ed., Kvinderne og Valgretten, J. H. Schultz Forlag, København, 1965.

press was weak or totally absent. This finding, of course, is relevant in any evaluation
of the influence of mass media upon voting behavior.

This is the extent of recent and planned studies concerning the Danish political
system.5 Besides those already mentioned, several Danish political scientists are doing
research in other fields.

Since 1964 George Damborg, under the auspicies of the Institute of Contemporary History and Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, has been working on a study of Montesquieu's political ideas and their influence upon Danish political theory in the age of absolutism. The main task has been to register and follow the study of Montesquieu's ideas and works to find out how many of his ideas and how much of the theory ordinarily connected with his name can be attributed to him. In this way it should be possible to find out — by comparing Danish political theories to the now commonly accepted original thoughts of Montesquieu — to what degree Danish authors and statesmen have been influenced by the French thinker.

George Damborg proceeds in such a way that de divides Montesquieu's thoughts
into a number of themes with an examination of each theme.

Until now he mainly has concentrated on examining two central themes: the theory of governments and the constitutional theory. As for the former, it is especially relevant to view the Danish reception of Montesquieu's works in the light of the French writer's distinction between "monarchy" and "despotism". The relations between those two concepts assumed a fundamental importance for Danish writers of this period. Since 1660 Denmark had been an absolute monarchy, perhaps the only one where absolutism was legally recognized, and Danes were very sensitive to any criticism of their form of government. Some Danish writers, e.g. Ludvig Holberg, assumed that absolute monarchy for Montesquieu was identical with despotism and therefore rejected this part of Montesquieu's theory. Others, however, endeavoured to incorporate this theory into the ideology of Danish absolutism by arguing that Montesquieu's monarchy was really an absolute monarchy and that Denmark accordingly would be a monarchy in Montesquieu's eyes. From the few scattered remarks in Montesquieu's writings, it appears he regarded Denmark as a despotic state. His knowledge of conditions in Denmark was limited, however. In view of the orderly manner in which the Danis monarchy was governed and the relatively high degree of security against arbitraty acts of government enjoyed by its subjects, the Danish writers belonging to the last group may well have been correct.

As for Montesquieu's constitutional theory, many interpretations have been suggested. Today, however, scholars generally are aware that his constitutional theory is a combination of two elements: the separation of powers and the mixed constitution. An examination of the ideology of Danish absolutism indicates there was hardly any room for the idea of the mixed constitution. On the other hand, a certain separation between the different functions of state and especialy between jurisdiction and administration had been practiced long bfore Montesquieu. One principal aim of George Damborg's studies is to examine to what extent this separation was inspired by the desire to protect the individual against arbitrary acts of government or the desire to obtain greater efficiency and to what extent each of these two points of view prepared the ground for a reception of Montesquieu's ideas.

Two Danish political scientists are doing research abroad. Jacques Berg is working on a study of the French political "Left", trying to show that French "Leff'-ideas are specifically French and have existed since the turn of the century. Torben Worre, who for some years has done research on African party systems, is centering his interest on the West-African systems, until now especially Senegal and Gambia. His

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5 See further the papers presented in this volume.

ultimate goal is a comparative research project on the function of the special agencies working inside the one-party systems of modern Africa. Nearly all African states have developed a rather uniform but original type of one-party system in which these agencies, addressing youth, women, workers, students, etc., play a central role. In a way the agencies replace parties in a pluralist system, and they may become the rallying ground for the opposition forces. Often they seem to constitute the most dynamic element pushing party leadership toward reforms. Thus, the new African one-party system is distinctive formulating ideas, articulating and integrating interests and recruiting leaders. The special agencies play a significant role in these functions. Worre attempts, in this way, to illustrate an essential aspect of the dynamics of the new system.

Reports of studies in the field of International Politics, will as a rule not be
mentioned in this review, but they may be found in another joint Scandinavian
publication, Cooperation and Conflict.

One such study nevertheless deserves consideration here: the doctoral dissertation of the professor in International Politics at the University of Aarhus, Erling Bjøl. The dissertation' is the first Danish dissertation given the degree "dr.scient.pol." But besides that, its scope — an examination of the formation of French European policy during the 4th republic — qualifies it for mention in this report as an example of a study in the field of deciuion-making.

The conceptual framework of Bjøl's thesis is primarily inspired by French writers on international politics. Its specific and elaborated character forbid a condensation of the book here. The chief aim has been to identify the motives behind the French foreign policy in the field of European integration. "It is not the individual motives of the politicians involved that has interested Dr. Bjøl, but the 'typical' motives, those experienced by the parties and other groups as essential at the time of debate and decision. The political actors' pictures of the past, the presensat and the future, as their visions of the future, form the central concepts in the thesis."

The book of Bjøl represents a methodological innovation, particularly in its choice of data. Besides the official French documents and other public sources, professor Bjøl personally has conducted interviews with many of the decision-makers of that time, as well as with many of the persons placed in the "milieu créateur" around the decision-makers.

University of Aarhus