The Danish Party System and the Rise of the Right in the 2001 Parliamentary Election.
By International Social Science Review
- Release Date: 2003-09-22
- Genre: Social Science
Description
Introduction The 2001 elections represent a watershed in Danish electoral politics. (1) In every national election from 1924 through 1998, the Social Democrats emerged as the strongest party in terms of both popular support and parliamentary representation. (2) From 1924 to 2001, Social Democrats held the prime ministerial office for forty-eight of the seventy-two years that Denmark was unoccupied by a foreign invader. (3) The Social Democratic vote of 29.1% in 2001 represents the party's lowest level of electoral support since the "political earthquake" of the 1973 elections. That year, the Social Democratic party garnered only 25.6% of the total vote. (4) Then, as now, the fall of the Social Democrats' vote was associated with the rise of new right-wing forces in Danish politics. In 1973, however, the Social Democrats remained Denmark's largest and "natural party of government." (5)
