Was something rotten in the state of Denmark? Three narratives of the active internationalism in Danish foreign policy
| Author | Rasmus Pedersen |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836717738554 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717738554
Cooperation and Conflict
2018, Vol. 53(4) 449 –466
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836717738554
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Was something rotten in
the state of Denmark? Three
narratives of the active
internationalism in Danish
foreign policy
Rasmus Pedersen
Abstract
The Danish decision to enter US-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq significantly consolidated
and strengthened the Atlantic dimension in Danish foreign policy in the period 2001–2009. The
period has attracted considerable academic interest, but there seems to be a lack of consensus
about how to interpret the Danish decision, which has been characterised as everything from
an indication of adaptation, to continuation of the Danish acquiescence to great powers, to
path-breaking change in Danish foreign policy to an expression of small state independence.
Part of the confusion in the literature is due to the lack of clear conceptual awareness regarding
the concepts in use. This article identifies three frames in the literature and contributes to our
understanding of the question of change and continuity in small state foreign and security policy
by identifying the analytical implications of adopting a clearer understanding of analytical concepts
such as adaptation, determinism, activism and internationalism in the Scandinavian context in
general and the Danish context more specifically.
Keywords
Activism, adaptation, Denmark, determinism, foreign policy, internationalism
Introduction
How do we interpret the ideational roots for change and continuity in small states’ foreign
policy traditions – and what impact does our understanding of the relationship between
different ideational traits have on our conclusions about the direction and magnitude of
such changes? The small state literature has traditionally favoured domestic-level factors
or focused on the interplay between structural factors and domestic-level variables in
order to study and analyse policy choices (Gvalia, 2013; Rosenau, 1970). One strand in
this literature has in particular focused on the role of ideational factors and argued that
Corresponding author:
Rasmus Pedersen, Aarhus University, Bartolins ale, Aarhus 8000, Denmark.
Email: brun@ps.au.dk
738554CAC0010.1177/0010836717738554Cooperation and ConflictPedersen
research-article2017
Article
450 Cooperation and Conflict 53(4)
certain foreign policy ‘discourses’, ‘ideas’ and ‘lessons of the past’ seem to have seg-
mented over time and have helped to guide and structure small states’ foreign policy
choices (Mouritzen and Olesen, 2012; Noreen et al., 2017; Wivel, 2014). Implicitly, the
question of whether contemporary events constitute changes is often assessed in relation
to the foreign policy tradition of the particular country, especially in terms of whether
changes can be understood as deviations from established ideational traits in the country’s
foreign policy history. Such traditions are often argued to be structured around opposite
and competing ideological positions that often range from ‘internationalist’ to more ‘iso-
lationist’ poles, but the literature is often less explicit about how their relationships are
analytically interpreted and with what consequences for our interpretation of continuity
and change (Monten, 2005). This article argues that it makes a difference whether we
understand the relationship between ideational drivers as either ‘singular’ or ‘dualistic’.
Singular refers to an assumption that there exists one dominant ideological position at the
time that suppresses other ideational drivers. The latter refers to an interpretation where
both traits are expected to be present at the time and can co-exist even though they might
be competitive (e.g. Branner, 2000). The lack of reflection affects interpretation of change
and continuity in a country’s foreign policy tradition, where a singular understanding will
lead to interpretations that tend to emphasise ‘pendulum-like swings’ in foreign policy
decisions. These expected changes will, for instance, relate to shifts in governments while
dualistic interpretations often lead to explanations that emphasise continuity or incremen-
tal adjustments in a foreign policy tradition despite the colour of the government. So far,
the analytical implications of adopting different understandings of the nature of the for-
eign policy tradition have remained understudied, especially in the small state literature
(see, however, Branner, 2000, 2013; Rasmussen, 2005, 2017).
The recent debate about the status of the militarised Danish Activism from 2001 to
2009 in the War on Terror can, however, shed light on these questions. During this
period, the country went from being a traditional peacekeeping small state to a ‘war-
monger’ (Wivel, 2013) and actively engaged in direct warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and later engaged itself in various US-led interventions in Libya and later again in Iraq
and Syria against the Islamic State. The decisions to enter Afghanistan and Iraq attracted
a lot of public and academic attention, since it was the first time since 1864 that the
country went to war. There is, however, no consensus in the literature about the status
of this ‘change’. The period has been interpreted as everything ranging from a path-
breaking new form of independent small state activism to an expression of acquiescent
adaptation to the USA and has been seen as both a break and continuity in the country’s
foreign and security policy (Lidegaard, 2010; Mouritzen, 2007; Pedersen, 2012;
Rynning, 2003). An example is that in the Scandinavian foreign policy literature the
Danish decision to enter US-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq is seen as a departure
from the peaceful Nordic internationalism and an embrace of the ‘muscular humanitari-
anism’ promoted by the USA and the UK (Kuisma, 2007). This has raised the question
of whether something was ‘rotten in the state of Denmark’ during the period, since mili-
tarised activism was perceived as a fundamental break with the internationalist ten-
dency, which was assumed to be the dominant ideational factor steering the country’s
foreign policy (Lawler, 2007: 110, 118).
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