First draft
Centre-Left Minority Coalition Government in Denmark:
Back to Normalcy?
Palle Svensson,
Department of Political Science,
Aarhus University,
DK 8000 Aarhus C,
Denmark
pal@ps.au.dk
Paper prepared for the Workshop on Minority and Coalition Government, Australian National
University, Canberra, October 2-3, 2012
Abstract
Minority coalition governments are common in Denmark, in fact, they have become the prevalent form
of government. The paper deals with the question whether the result of the 2011 election and a centreleft minority coalition government marks a return back to normalcy with minority government without
permanent support and with the Social Liberals as a pivotal party or whether social changes, new
cleavage lines and new issues have changed the traditional links between political competition and
policy making. The paper concludes that the formation of the centre-left government of the Social
Democrats, the Social Liberals and the Socialist People’s Party in October 2011 and the first months of
its governing does to some extent represent a return to normal Danish politics, but that the life of the
new government is far from safe.
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Introduction
After the September 15, 2011 Folketing election the Liberal-Conservative minority coalition
government under the leadership of the Liberal Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen resigned and
after more than two weeks negotiations a centre-left minority coalition government under the
leadership of the Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt was formed on October 3. The new
government was a coalition of three parties: The Social Democrats, The Social Liberals and The
Socialist People’s Party. As shown in Table 1, the three parties won 77 of 179 seats in the one chamber
Danish parliament, the Folketing. As the new government was recommended by the left wing party,
The Unity List/Red Green Alliance, the parliamentary basis of the new government comprised 89
seats, that is more than half of the 175 seats normally considered as relevant, as four North Atlantic
seats are usually disregarded when forming a new government. However, after the September 2011
election the two members from Greenland and one of the two members from the Faroe Islands actually
supported the new government, leaving no doubt about the Folketing acceptance of the new
government.
The figures in Table 1, nevertheless, reveal that the new government was not formed as a result of
an election victory. The three governmental parties obtained the same number of seats as in the 2007
election. In fact, both the Social Democrats and the Socialists were losing electoral support whereas
the Social Liberals was gaining stronger support. The new government was based from the outside on
the increased strength of the left wing Unity List/Red Green Alliance, but inside the government the
Social Liberals took a strong position, because it was a winning party and because it as a centre party
had alternative partners to the right. The Social Liberals had campaigned for a change of government,
mainly in order to stop the influence of the Danish People’s Party that had acted as a permanent
support party for the Liberal-Conservative government since 2001, but the Social Liberals had at the
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same time compromised with the Liberal-Conservative government on vital issues, such as a reform of
the early retirement benefits.
The public debate had for years up to the 2011 election been dominated by two bloc policies, a
“red” bloc versus a “blue” bloc. The Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party presented
policy programs as alternatives to the bourgeois government, more or less taking the support of the
Social Liberals (to the right) and the Unity List (to the left) for granted. It came as a surprise when the
Social Liberals in 2011 a few months before the election compromised with the bourgeois government
on reforms of the early retirement scheme and the unemployment benefits (shortening the period from
four years to two years).
The bargaining strength of the Social Liberals in the formation of the centre-left government was
clearly demonstrated with the publication of the government coalition agreement. With flowers and big
smiles the party leaders of the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party abandoned electoral
promises such a defending the early retirement scheme and the period of unemployment benefits,
introducing a millionaire tax and tackling irresponsible banks. With a few exceptions the government
program “A Denmark that stands together” was interpreted as virtually implementing the Social
Liberal’s policies.
Table 1. The 2007 and 2011 Elections
Minority coalition governments are common in Denmark, in fact, they have become the prevalent form
of government. According to Müller, Bergman & Strøm (2008: 8) 13 minority coalition governments
out of 32 governments were formed from 1945 to 1999, making Denmark the country with the highest
record of minority coalition governments. After 1982 all Danish governments have been coalitions and
only a single one – for a short period (from 1993 to 1994) – had majority status. The Liberal-
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Conservative governments formed in 2001, 2005 and 2007 were also minority coalitions. In sum,
about half of all Danish governments since the World War have been minority coalitions.
Table 2: Danish Governments 1945-2011
However, minority governments – and among these minority coalitions – defer among each other.
Whereas some minority governments have to find a majority from one issue to the next and may have
to govern by shifting majorities, other minority governments enjoy a permanent external support. To
apply the terminology suggested by Kaare Strøm (1990: 62) “any government is classified as
externally supported that enjoys the parliamentary support of any party not represented in the cabinet if
its support: (1) was negotiated prior to the formation of the government, and (2) takes the form of an
explicit, comprehensive, and more than short-term commitment to the policies as well as the survival
of the government.” If the external support makes the difference between minority and majority status,
Strøm talks about formal minority governments. The reminding minority governments where the
external support from other parties is less explicit and permanent, Strøm calls substantive minority
governments. Clearly, this distinction is not a precise either-or, but rather a more-or-less, as minority
governments may be placed along a continuum from (1) pure formal minority governments with a
permanent majority with parties outside the government, that is negotiated beforehand, explicit and
long-lasting, over (2) permanent support that may not be formalized or explicit and declared, but
nevertheless stable and long-lasting, to (3) regular, but not comprehensive support from parties
securing a majority, to (4) real substantive minority governments that have to find shifting majorities
from one issue to the next. Thus, the Danish People’s Party in relation to the bourgeois LiberalConservative government was a support party of type 2, as its support was permanent and
5
demonstrated by annual agreements with the government on the finance bill, but neither negotiated
before the formation of the government nor formalized in any way.
In Denmark the Social Liberals have traditionally taken the role as a pivotal party deciding whether
the centre-left under Social Democratic leadership or the centre-right under Liberal or Conservative
leadership should form the government. This has commonly been described as “co-operative
democracy” (“samarbejdende folkestyre”) and policy-making across the centre of Danish politics.
Sometimes the Social Liberals participated in centre-left governments (such as recently from 1993 to
2001) or have acted as a permanent support party for Social Democratic formal minority governments
(such as in the 1970s) or have participated in centre-right governments (such as from 1969 to 1971
under their own leadership or from 1988 to 1990 under Conservative leadership) or have acted – at
least to some extent (see Damgaard & Svensson, 1989 on alternative majorities) – as a supporting
party for bourgeois minority governments (such as from 1982 to 1988). It has even been argued that
the Danish political parties had gradually realized that majority governments or minority governments
with permanent support had become an exception. What in the Danish context are called “the four old
parties” (Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Liberals and Conservatives) had modified their views of
what it means to be a "responsible party." It had become less a question of which parties to cooperate
with and in what way, but rather a question of having the necessary policy measures passed in
parliament (Green-Pedersen, 2001: 66).
A remarkable change in this developing pattern occurred in 2001 (by some even called “a systemic
change”) when the Liberals and Conservatives obtained a majority with the right-wing Danish
People’s Party, making the Social Liberals redundant for government formation and policy-making.
The Danish People’s Party in reality took the role as a permanent external support party for the
Liberal-Conservative government, even if no agreement was negotiated beforehand and made explicit.
The question is whether the result of the 2011 election and the centre-left minority coalition
6
government with the Social Liberals in a dominating position marks a return back to normalcy with
minority government without permanent support and with the Social Liberals as a pivotal party or
whether social changes, new cleavage lines and new issues have changed the traditional links between
political competition and policy making?
The paper discusses this question by reviewing some recent research results and updating some of
them by an analysis of the legislation during the 2011-12 session under the leadership of the new
centre-left minority coalition government.
Social Changes and a New Political Cleavage
As a consequence of social changes and social movements during the 1970s and 1980s, the social base
of Danish political parties has changed. No Green party has been successfully established in Demark
but powerful environment movements and rights for women have influenced the existing parties.
Numerous studies have analysed a decline of class voting (Andersen & Andersen, 2003) and a new
tendency towards issue voting (Borre, 1995; 2007). It has been argued that new issues such as
immigration has formed the basis for New Politics supplementing Old Politics. While Old political
issues are mainly economic, New political issues are mainly non-economic.
Ole Borre (1995) has looked into the extent to which theses about New Politics hold true for
Denmark at the 1990 Folketing election. He found that the Danish case confirmed the main thesis that
on a number of non-economic issues New Politics tended to form a distinct attitudinal dimension that
was separated from the economic Old Politics dimension He also confirmed the overriding importance
of education in the formation of the New Politics position. The well educated tended to take positions
on the New Left and the less educated, on the New Right. Among those with secondary or higher
education, especially the new middle class of modern welfare societies constitutes the core of the New
Left.
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However, Borre argued that the Danish case did not confirm the thesis that the New Politics
dimension, defined in terms of attitudes, was necessarily connected with the rise of new parties or with
splits in the established major parties.
The positions of party groups on New Politics attitudes by 1990, in conjunction with the
parliamentary development of the preceding decade, point toward a different conclusion: a
competitive multiparty system … can be expected to accommodate the New Politics issues and
even to take an active part in crystallizing positions on these issues. In particular, small and
medium-sized parties that are not obliged to represent a national or religious minority may “mutate”
into New Politics parties without necessarily giving up their roles in Old Politics (Borre, 1995:
203).
For sure, this conclusion was correct with regard to the 1990 election as the average voters of the
Socialist People’s Party and the Social Liberals took positions on the left wing of the New Politics
dimension and the average voters of the Progress Party took position on the right wing of this
dimension. Nevertheless, a few years later, in 1995, the Progress Party split and a new party, The
Danish People’s Party, was formed by members of the Progress Party. During the following elections
in 1998, 2001, 2005 and 2007 the DPP was successful in mobilizing voters on the right wing of the
New Politics dimension.
Whereas it has been argued that New Politics issues (Miller & Levitin, 1976) and post-material
values (Dalton, 2002; Inglehart, 1997) have come to the forefront of the voters’ minds on election day
without structural links, Rune Stubager (2006; 2010) has in detail studied the relationship between
education and New Politics Issues or what he terms “authoritarian–libertarian” values.1
1
I agree to his empirical results, but object to the term ”libertarian” as I prefer the term ”liberal” for the left wing of New
Politics. However, I retain his terminology in direct quotes. I accept Stubager’s definition of the values of New Politics
(2010: 508f), that authoritarians favor social hierarchy and the ordering of individuals in a system with a clear distinction
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He argues that just as the class cleavage was reflected in a conflict between a socialist left and a
capitalist right represented by their respective parties, education has now given rise to a new cleavage
that lies beneath what has been seen as a purely ideological conflict over political values about
immigration and environmentalism.
In order to demonstrate the emergence of a new cleavage Stubager relies on the development by
Bartolini & Mair (1990) of the classical Lipset & Rokkan’s article on “Cleavage Structures, Party
Systems, and Voter Alignments” (1967) and further refined by Knutsen & Scarbrough (1995). Political
cleavages are defined as consisting of three inter-related elements: (1) a socio-structural; (2) a
psychological; and (3) an organizational. Cleavages arise because socio-structurally defined groups
between superior and inferior groups or persons, that for authoritarians such hierarchies are both natural and right, that
libertarians and liberals dislike social hierarchies and prefer the free and equal interaction of people without regard to social
positions of any kind, and that in addition to the attitudes to hierarchy, attitudes to tolerance for nonconformity form a core
aspect of the New Politics dimension. Entailed in a libertarian and liberal position, thus, is a basic respect for and tolerance
of other people – including those who deviate from one’s own norms or the norms of society. Variety among humans is, in
fact, seen as something to be protected for its own sake. Not so for authoritarians: Those who deviate from conventional
norms or who stand outside society should first and foremost be made to comply with the norms of society. Their deviance
is not accorded any value in itself; variety is potentially bad and deserves no protection. In this way hierarchy and tolerance
form the ideas underlying the New Politics values. The difference between liberals and libertarians, however, is their view
on the state. Whereas liberals disagree on the role of the state, libertarians support an extreme form of laissez-faire
capitalism. They favour property rights and the market. People’s choices are unrestrained by any central, supervising
authority. Differently stated the difference between liberals and libertarians is a distinction between moral and political
liberalism on the one hand and economic liberalism on the other hand. You can be a liberal without being a liberalist or
libertarian - as you can be social without being a socialist. The mistaken terminology is taken over from American
researchers such as Flanagan (1987) and Flanagan & Lee (2003). Terminologically “authoritarian” and “libertatrian” tally
nicely, and the terminology may also make some sense in the United States, where “liberal” is often used as similar to leftwing, social-democratic or even socialist. But for Europe it is misleading, which is clearly demonstrated by the need for
researchers such as Herbert P. Kitschelt to introduce a term such as “left-libertarian” in order to cover the combination of
individual freedom and social justice: “The parties are ‘left’ because they call for economic redistribution; they are
‘libertarian’, because they emphasize individual freedom, participation and social decentralization and attack the traditional
socialist instrumentalities of economic redistribution, a strong bureaucratic state with centralised planning machinery”
(Kitschelt, 1988: 155).
.
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disagree about certain matters. To be able to speak of a cleavage it is crucial to document that sociostructurally defined groups have developed opposing interests that may be either material or nonmaterial (i.e. values) and that the members of the opposing groups support organizations such as
political parties that articulate the interests of the groups in the political arena. The underlying conflicts
can be seen as erupting due to macro-social developments that has consequences for the interests of the
socio-structurally defined groups. They arise in so-called critical junctures (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967:
37) where new issues become salient due to macro-social changes that elevate them onto the political
agenda.
There has been a marked and steady increase in the educational level among Danes, for instance the
proportion with tertiary educations has increased from 12 per cent in 1983 to 22 per cent in 2003.
During the same period the proportion having only primary or lower secondary education has dropped
from 52 per cent to 35 per cent. This development constitutes an important pre-condition to the
establishment of an education-based cleavage.
For a political cleavage to develop is necessary that the conflict of interests is activated at the
structural level by events that put the conflicting perspectives in play in critical junctures. According to
Stubager this has, indeed, happened in Denmark:
An overview of Danish politics through the past two and a half decades reveals that in particular
two issues related to authoritarian–libertarian values have experienced marked changes in their
salience: environmental issues and the issue of immigration. As for the former, the environment
first made its way onto the public agenda in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the mid 1980s
brought increased focus on problems related to pollution. The result was a marked jump in the
salience of the environment to voters who placed the issue high on the agenda in the late 1980s.
Another critical juncture has manifested itself in relation to the issue of immigration. Although a
certain amount of immigration is no new phenomenon in Denmark, the number of guest workers
and refugees that have arrived in the country over the past few decades far surpasses anything
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seen before. This development has not gone unnoticed among the voters … the immigration issue
was put on the public agenda in the mid 1980s and the 1990s brought a steady increase in salience
culminating in 2001 when the issue was seen as second in importance only to the somewhat vaguer
issue of welfare … the result of these developments was an activation of the dimension in the
minds of the voters. Thus, the combined impact of the increasing salience of the two issues has been
an activation of the conflict between authoritarian and libertarian values (Stubager, 2010: 509f).
Stubager concludes his empirical analysis that a considerable – and changing – relationship between
both the old and new value dimensions and voting has been shown. His results indicate that an
increasing importance of a cleavage over authoritarian–libertarian/liberal values and a decreasing
importance of a cleavage over economic values have taken place. The decline of the class variable has
main impact among the three traditionally class-based parties (Social Democrats, Conservatives and
Liberals) while the education variable retains – and in one case increases – its impact in relation to the
three parties most closely associated with the new cleavage (Socialists Peoples Party, Social Liberals
at the liberal end and Danish People’s Party at the authoritarian end).
Linkage between the electoral and parliamentary level
The question is, then, whether and to what extent this new two-dimensionality is linked to
parliamentary politics? A study by Asbjørn Skjæveland (2005) has investigated this question on the
basis of divisions on passed bills in the Danish parliament. He concludes that the two levels have not
been linked because there is still one (left-right) dimension in the Danish parliament, Folketing:
The parties may also today (2001-03) be arranged along only one dimension, which roughly
speaking is a conflict between parties, which are far apart, and a cooperation between parties that
are close to each other ... It is not claimed that new political issues were not important ... the
argument is simply that one can still make do with a single dimension when you place the
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parliamentary groups on the basis of their voting behavior at the third reading of the legislation”
(Skjæveland, 2005: 419).
Erik Damgaard, the nestor of Danish parliamentary research, has speculated how this lack of linkage
between the parliamentary and the electoral level might be explained. He argues
... There is a difference in the voting situation at the two levels. The votes of the electors are, so to
say, individual, autonomous and influenced by many factors. The voting of the (disciplined) party
groups is, however, highly structured and negotiated between the coalition parties themselves
through government ... [and] solid coordination procedures and current agreements on political
issues, which may also involve permanent support parties. In addition, there are the many political
accommodations, which precisely oblige the parties with respect to their voting on a number of
agreed issues (Damgaard, 2005: 390f).
Legislative accommodations or agreements (forlig)2 are in Denmark a vital element in government
through broad consensus. Flemming Juul Christiansen has shown that 17 per cent of the legislation
from 1953 to 2005 was covered by political accommodations (2008: 73 and 155). He has further
shown that a significant smaller share of legislation is covered by legislative accommodations under
majoritarian governments than under minority governments, whereas no significant differences could
be documented between minority governments with and without a permanent support party (formal
and substantive minority governments) (2008: 76-78 and 155). Moreover, he could show that the
number of legislative accommodations varies with the competition between the political parties as
measured by the number of proposals other than legislation or the degree of unanimous legislation:
The stronger the party competition, the more accommodations (2008: 78-83 and 155). In Figure 1 the
relationship between legislative accommodations and bills passed with unanimous and non-unanimous
The translation to English of the Danish “forlig” is not well established. In the English summary to his Ph.d. thesis
2
Flemming Juul Christiansen talks about “accommodations”, but in later papers he talks about “agreements” (see for
instance Christiansen & Pedersen, 2011: 4).
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vote is shown and the figure, in addition, clearly indicates a tendency towards an increasing number of
accommodations.
Figure 1
If the strength of the parliamentary basis of Danish minority governments has no impact on the extent
to which political accommodations are entered, it is of some interest to clarify whether there are other
differences between minority governments with permanent support (formal minority governments) and
without permanent support (substantial minority governments) with regard to policy-making. Do
formal minority governments rely more on their support party/parties by governing through bloc
politics than substantial minority governments? Comparing the winner coalitions during three Danish
governments give an answer to this question.
The minority government from 1998 to 2001 was a coalition of the Social Democrats and the Social
Liberals. Its parliamentary basis was the left wing Socialist People’s and the Unity List, but it passed
major structural reform with the non-socialist parties, being flexible when seeking support for policy
proposals (Green-Pedersen, 2001). Thus, this government seems to come close to the substantive type
of minority government . The Liberal-Conservative government formed in 2001 represented a break
with the traditional form of “co-operative democracy” (”samarbejdende folkestyre”) and policymaking across the centre. It was a right-wing Government receiving permanent support from the
Danish People’s Party and it was widely accused of conducting bloc-politics. Thus, it seems to be a
clear case of a formal type of minority government. Table 3 compares the centre-left government
formed in 2011 with the two former minority governments in order to examine whether it represents a
return to the normalcy before 2001.
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Erik Damgaard and Henrik Jensen have compared the two governmental periods 1998-2001 and
2001-04 and treat the left-wing parties in 1998-2001 as support parties for the Social DemocraticSocial Liberal government. In order to simplify the analysis they reduce the winning coalitions to five:
(1) All parties; (2) broad majorities, where governmental parties and parties from both to the right and
the left of the government vote together; (3) governmental parties and support parties against the
reminding parties, i.e. bloc coalitions; (4) governmental parties without support parties; and (5)
alternative majorities, where the winning coalition does not comprise the governmental parties
(Damgaard & Jensen, 2009: 104).
Table 3
Table 3 shows that about one third of all passed bills were adopted unanimously at the final divisions.
This pattern is similar for the three governments, perhaps even higher for the new centre-left
government formed in 2011. Another half of the bills were passed with a broad majority in 1998-2001
and 2001-04, but only by a quarter in 2011-12. This difference is more apparent than real because it
partly reflects the changed composition of the government in 2011. The table shows that 27.8 per cent
of the bills were passed by the vote of the governmental parties, the Unity List and one or more of the
non-socialist parties, but had the Socialist People’s Party (as in 1998-2001) been treated as a left-wing
party outside the government this figure would have been much higher, as the SPP voted for all the
passed bills in the 2011-12 session. In fact, this means that a broad majority (the government plus
parties from the non-socialist opposition) comprised 49.5 per cent (27. 8 + 21.7 per cent) which is at
the same level as previously. The most remarkable winning coalition to be observed is where a conflict
is demonstrated between the government and the opposition by a bloc majority comprised by
governmental and support parties. Here the new centre-left government in the 2011-12 session is more
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similar to the right-wing government supported by the Danish People’s Party 2001-04 (12.6 and 12.5
per cent respectively) than with the centre-left government 1998-2001 (6.9 per cent). At this point,
there seems to be no return to a pre-2001 normalcy - nor a return to the alternative majorities of the
1980’s (see Damgaard & Svensson, 1989).
Laws have binding effect for the citizens whereas resolutions and decisions mark the Folketing’s
political opinions towards the government and the public. Whereas the government prepares almost all
bills, the opposition has a larger lee-way with regard to resolutions and decisions. Thus, it is to be
expected that proposals and debate of resolutions and decisions to a larger extent is part of the
competition between the political parties, resulting in a higher level of conflict. This is clearly the case
for both resolutions and decisions in 1998-2001 and 2001-04. As too few resolutions for a reasonable
comparison were passed in the 2011-12 session (N=5), only winning coalitions on passed decisions are
considered. Once again it is remarkable that the new centre-left government is more alike to the rightwing government than to the 1998-2001 centre-left government. Two out of five decisions were
passed with bloc votes where the government confronted the opposition, while this was only the case
in one of twenty in 1998-2001. The centre-left government 1998-2001 could not to the same extent as
the following governments rely on support parties when the life of the government was at stake. It is,
as a matter of fact, not really accurate (as Damgaard and Jensen) to talk about support parties for the
1998-2001 period. The Unity List and The Socialist People’s Party should rather be described as
forming the parliamentary basis than permanent support parties for the centre-left government in this
period. After 2011 the Socialist People’s Party joined the government and the Unity List acted – at
least in this first session of the life of the new government – as a permanent support party to the same
extent as the Danish People’s Party to the Liberal-Conservative government.
Christoffer Green-Pedersen has argued about the Social Democratic-Social Liberal minority
government up to 2001 that it was able to govern the economy successfully because its bargaining
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position had been strengthened (2001: 53). Along the same line Kaare Strøm (1990: 97) holds that
shifting coalition strategies offer minority governments optimal conditions for having their policies
passed, but it also renders them vulnerable to defeat. In the Danish case, it has been argued that the
governing effectiveness of minority governments was dependent on the possibility of being flexible
when seeking support for policy proposals:
What a minority government needs is more than one possible way of building a majority behind its
proposals. If a minority government has only one way of building a majority in parliament, the
opposition party - or parties - necessary to build this majority are in a veto position in relation to the
policies which the minority government can pass (Green-Pedersen, 2001: 56).
The Social Democratic-Social Liberal government passed some policies with the non-socialist
opposition, some policies with the left-wing opposition and some policies with the Socialist People's
Party and some of the centre parties. When a minority government finds itself in this kind of position,
the Danish case indicates that a minority government can govern quite effectively. Due to the
flexibility in building a majority, it can have “almost all the required policies passed in parliament”
(Green-Pedersen, 2001: 64).
The Social Democratic-Social Liberal minority government of the 1990’s was an equilibrium
government as defined by Laver and Shepsle (1996: 66-69), because there was
no other feasible government that a majority would prefer. The left-wing parties have supported the
governments in the cabinet formation process so, if they withdrew their support, the Government
would fall. However, an alternative Government would most probably be a non-socialist
government, implying that the left-wing opposition would be without policy influence (GreenPedersen, 2001: 64).
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On the one hand, this meant that a threat from the left-wing opposition of bringing down the centreleft government was not really credible. In reality, the left-wing was not in a position to force the
government into choosing sides. On the other hand, the right-wing opposition wanted to bring down
the government, but it could only do so if the left-wing opposition was willing to cooperate. For both
the left-wing and the right-wing opposition the situation in relation to the Government was basically
the same: “The Government will be in power until, for instance, an election destroys the equilibrium
situation. The opposition faces a trade-off between influencing the policy of the Government and
having a clear opposition profile” (Green Pedersen, 2001: 64f).
The question is whether this relationship between the government and the opposition to the left and
the right has been re-established after 2011, i.e. whether a return to normalcy has taken place with
respect to flexibility and effectiveness for the government and the prospects for its survival? The
answer to this question at the time of writing (September 2012) blows in the wind, but scattered
information indicate that the flexibility of the new centre-left government is quite high, its
effectiveness perhaps better that its reputation and its chances for survival not as bad as they may
seem.
The performance of the centre-left government formed in 2011
First of all, the flexibility of the government has been quite high. As shown in Table 3 it has been able
to pass legislation with support from parties both to the left and to the right. After the Folketing went
on summer vacation it even compromised with the Liberals and the Conservatives in June on a tax
reform. “Denmark in work” was the title of the tax reform that the Minister of Taxation announced in
February 2012. The objective was to facilitate the taxation of individuals. In presenting the reform in
May Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt stressed that the tax cuts for those in work would
increase both the supply of labour and employment. After dramatic negotiations in which the Unity
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List believed to have reached an agreement with the government, the negotiations resulted in an
agreement between the government parties and the Liberals and the Conservatives involving a
reduction of the top tax by raising the borderline for top tax and a postponement of the regulation of
transfer payments.3 The Unity List was furious. Its spokesman responded with the comment: "The
confidence of the Unity List in the government is currently non-existent. We are no longer support
party for this government. We are in opposition” (TV News, June 22, 2012). To confront the party that
had acted as its support party definitely is a sign of high flexibility! The crucial question is, of course,
whether a threat from the left-wing of bringing down the centre-left government is really credible?
The effectiveness of the centre-left government formed in 2011seems to be less impressive than the
effectiveness of the centre-left government in the 1990’s, but it is difficult to compare exactly. It is a
fact, however, that not only the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party have been accused
of broken promises, but also the government as a whole has been blamed for given up important
elements from its own programme, most notable the announced three-part-negotiations with the labour
unions and the employers with a view to expand the labour force, and the congestion charge or
payment ring (“betalingsring”) in Copenhagen.
Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that the government over little more than six months had
actually been able to implement 42 out of 95 points in the government program while 52 points were
either in the process or were not yet addressed. Only one point was openly abandoned: the Payment
ring (Ritzau, April 16, 2012 referring to the newspaper Berlingske Tidende).
3
According to professor Jørgen Goul Andersen (University of Aalborg) the tax reform marks the final death of the Danish
flexicurity model. “Flexicurity is mostly past, and this is just a further nail in the coffin.” The Liberal-Conservative
government took the first step in 2010 when it shortened the unemployment benefit period from four to two years and also
extended the demand for rehabilitation from 26 to 52 weeks. In 2011 the centre-left government - forced by a majority in
parliament - reduced the early retirement scheme. The last remnant of flexicurity has been the compensation you receive as
unemployed in terms of the size of unemployment benefits or cash benefit. "Now the compensation is cut further, and it is
by the way pretty low for an average worker. So you cannot any longer talk about flexicurity in Denmark” (The newspaper
Information, May 29, 2012). The concept of flexicurity - which is a combination of the two English words ‘flexibility’ and
‘security’ - has in a Danish context meant that employers can easily hire and fire employees. Conversely, the employees
need not have to fear - at first - to leave house and home if they lose a job.
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Two months later the weekly magazine Mandag Morgen published an analysis under the heading:
“The broken-promises-government is a myth” claiming that behind the image of broken promises a
more complex political reality was hidden. A detailed review of the joint political initiatives from the
Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party before the election showed that the parties had been
able to carry through far more of their proposals than it had appeared in the media. The two party
leaders have not only gained a large number of their comprehensive reform proposals into the
government's legislative program on priority areas such as employment, education, health, climate,
energy, welfare, foreign policy, trade and growth. Mandag Morgen further argued that the
government's economic policy was more ‘red’ than the picture that the opposition and the media had
been trying to draw. In addition, many of the proposals that the Social Democrats and the Socialist
People’s Party had been accused of braking in the weeks after the election had since been taken up by
the government. All in all, out of 315 joint proposals advanced by the Social Democrats and the
Socialist People’s 270 proposals had been addressed: 70 had already been adopted by law or as a new
initiative. Another 148 proposals were the subject of current negotiations, forthcoming reform
proposals or committee work. The remaining 52 proposals covered by the government program had
not yet been launched, of these 45 (14 per cent of 315) had been dropped, but these dropped proposals
had dominated the public debate and helped to send the Prime Minister to take the count. Even if a
mere quantitative analysis is not sufficient for a complete evaluation of the effectiveness of the centreleft government, it is nevertheless evident that the image of the government is worse that its record.
In a number of interviews to Danish newspapers Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt in August
2012 admitted that the new government – and in particular the Social Democrats and the Social
People’s Party - had had a bad start because of a number of mistakes. She gave three main reasons (see
the newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, August 10, 2012). First, against numerous accusations
of broken electoral promises the government had not made it sufficiently clear that the election result
19
demanded compromises. This meant that the image of broken promises had hold on. Second, the
government had focused too much on long-range reforms, for instance asking Danes to work more in
order to increase the supply of man power towards 2020, instead of giving priority to actual problems
of unemployment. Finally, the government had initiated too many reforms without giving proper
explanations, which had made it impossible for the voters to keep up.
The centre-left government has obviously disappointed a large number of its voters. This is clearly
indicated by the decline of popular support for the three government parties in opinion polls and a
growing popular support for the left-wing Unity List (up to 10.8 per cent in early June 2012) and the
non-socialist opposition parties, for instance increased support for the Liberals (34 per cent in early
June 2012). In particular the decline for the once largest party, the Social Democrats, is remarkable (a
low of 16.3 per cent in late June 2012) - see Figure 2.
Figure 2
On the one hand, this declining popular support can be taken as a sign of weakness for the centre-left
government, but on the other hand it may actually have strengthened its parliamentary position in
relation to the left wing Unity List, because bringing down the government will surely result in an
electoral defeat for the ‘red’ bloc and the formation of a new and stronger non-socialist government. In
this respect, a return to pre-2001 normalcy has taken place. It has to be remembered in this context that
only once in the post-war period - in 1967 when a breakup in the Socialist People’s Party resulted in
the resignation of a Social Democratic minority government - has intra-party conflict been the cause
for termination of a Danish government (Damgaard, 2008: 306). Nevertheless, the life of the
government is far from safe. Its problems are illustrated by the fact that shortly after tough negotiations
on the finance bill between the government and the Unity List was started, the chairman of the
20
Socialist People’s Party and Foreign Minister, Villy Søvndal, on September 7 announced that he
resigned as chairman of the party causing public turmoil on the election of a new chairman.
Conclusion
The formation of the centre-left government of the Social Democrats, the Social Liberals and the
Socialist People’s Party in October 2011 and the first months of its governing does to some extent
represent a return to normal Danish politics with the Social Liberals as a pivot party in control. Indeed,
the Social Liberals have taken a dominant position and the left wing has during the first parliamentary
session even acted more clearly as a support party than in the 1990s. The government has shown
remarkable flexibility and a better effectiveness than acknowledged by the public. Moreover, it holds a
strong equilibrium position between the left-wing and the right-wing. At least it remains to be seen
whether the Unity List will really bring down the government by refusing to vote for the finance bill
for 2013 with a prospect of winning votes in a coming election but loosing policy influence to a new
non-socialist government.
21
Table 1. The 2007 and 2009 Folketing Election results
November 2007
September 2011
Per Cent
Seats
Per Cent
Seats
Unity List (UL)
2.2
4
6.7
12
Socialist People’s Party (SPP)
13.0
23
9.2
16
Social Democrats (SD)
25.5
45
24.8
44
Social Liberals (SL)
5.1
9
9.5
17
Christians People’s Party (CPP)
0.9
0
0.8
0
Liberal Alliance (LA)
2.8
5
5.0
9
Conservatives (Con)
10.4
18
4.9
8
Liberals (Lib)
26.2
46
26.7
47
Danish People’s Party (DPP)
13.9
25
12.3
22
0
0
0.1
0
100.0
175
100.0
175
Outside parties
Sum
Note: Two members elected on the Faroe Islands and two members elected on Greenland not included.
22
Table 2. Danish Governments 1945-2011
Majority
One party
Coalitions with
two or more parties
0 pct.
(N=0)
11 pct.
(N=4)
Minority
40 pct.
49 pct.
(N=14)
(N=17)
N= 35, when the 2001, 2005 and 2007 Lib+Con minority coalition governments and the
2011 SPP+SD+SL minority coalition government are added to the information in Müller,
Bergman & Strøm, 2008: 8
23
Table 3. Types of Winning Coalitions for three Government Periods. (N=100 Per Cent)
Winning
Passed bills
Resolutions
Decisions
coalition
SD + SL
Lib+Con
SPP+SD
SD + SL
Lib+Con
SPP+SD
SD + SL
Lib+Con
SPP+SD
1998-
2001-04
+SL
1998-
2001-04
+SL
1998-
2001-04
+SL
2011-12
2001
2011-12
2001
2001
All parties
2011-12
29.0
31.0
37.9
13.1
13.3
(60.0)
10.9
12.5
13.9
46.6
49.8
27.8
42.6
45.0
(0)
50.0
35.5
38.9
6.9
12.5
12.6
28.4
20.4
(0)
4.9
40.8
38.9
17.1
6.4
21.7
14.2
17.8
(40.0)
33.7
10.5
8.3
.4
.2
0
1.7
3.3
(0)
.5
.7
0
(713)
(622)
(198)
(176)
(180)
(5)
(184)
(152)
(36)
The Government
and parties to the
left and the right
The Government
and support
parties
The Government
without support
parties
Alternative
majority
(N)
Sources: Damgaard & Jensen, 2009: 107, Table 3.6 for the 1998-2001 and 2001-04 governments; my
coding for the 2011-12 parliamentary session.
24
Figure 1. Number of legislative Accommodations 1953-2005
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Unanimous
Non-unanimous
Note: A governmental period is here defined by a change of party composition or an election, but
without a change of prime minister – i.e. different from Strøm, Müller & Bergman, 2011.
Source: Christiansen, 2008: 79.
25
Figure 2: Support for Political Parties 2011-12. Per Cent
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Election
September
2011
January
2012
UL
February
2012
March
2012
SPP
SD
April
2012
SL
Source: Epinion, 2012, for Denmarks Radio.
26
May
2012
Red bloc
Mid June
2012
End June
2012
Blue bloc
August
2012
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