Forerunner, follower, exceptionalist or bridge builder? Mapping Nordicness in Danish foreign policy

Since the early Cold War Denmark has been part of a cluster of Nordic states characterized by their commitment to Scandinavian welfare state values at home and abroad. However, today Danish foreign policy is at the same time super-Nordic, un-Nordic and anti-Nordic. The role of Nordicness in Danish f...

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Published inGlobal affairs (Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK) Vol. 4; no. 4-5; pp. 419 - 434
Main Author Wivel, Anders
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 20.10.2018
Subjects
Danish foreign policy
Nordic foreign policy
role theory
Scandinavia
small states
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Summary:Since the early Cold War Denmark has been part of a cluster of Nordic states characterized by their commitment to Scandinavian welfare state values at home and abroad. However, today Danish foreign policy is at the same time super-Nordic, un-Nordic and anti-Nordic. The role of Nordicness in Danish foreign policy has been largely overlooked in the literature on post-Cold War Danish foreign policy, but I identify four different roles for Nordicness in Danish foreign policy: forerunner, follower, bridge builder and exceptionalist. I explore each of these roles discussing what they tell us about the role of Nordicness in Danish foreign policy, and how the roles play out in different issue areas and to which extent the importance of each role has changed over time. I argue that while each role depicts Denmark as a fringe Nordic country, Nordicness continues to play an important, but mostly uncredited, as a source of ideas for Danish foreign policy.
ISSN:2334-0460
2334-0479
DOI:10.1080/23340460.2018.1557016