The party traces its own history back to the International Labour Association, founded in 1871 and banned in 1873, loosely re-organised in the Social Democratic Labour Party which in 1876 issued the Gimle program, but as a formal political party it was first founded from 11–12 February 1878 as the Social Democratic Federation. This name was formally carried by the party for almost a hundred years, although in practice it also used a number of other names until it changed its name to Social Democracy in 1965. At a congress in Aalborg in 2002, the party changed its name to the Social Democrats, but from 2016 again only Social Democracy is used.[10][11]
The party has the letter A as a symbol, but the abbreviation S is often used in the media. The party's classic symbol is a red rose and in recent times an A in a red circle. Aside from the classical socialist red colour,[14] the party has recently adopted a more light red colour called competition orange.[15]
The Danish Social Democratic Labour Party works in its national form, but is convinced of the international nature of the labour movement and ready to sacrifice everything and fulfill all obligations to provide: Freedom, equality and brotherhood among all nations.
In the 1924 Danish Folketing election, the party won the majority with 36.6 percent of the vote and its first government was put in place with Thorvald Stauning as Prime Minister.[20] That same year, he appointed Nina Bang as the world's first female minister, nine years after women's suffrage had been given in Denmark. Stauning stayed in power until his death in 1942, with his party laying the foundations for the Danish welfare state based on a close collaboration between labor unions and the government.[21]
In January 1933, Stauning's government entered into what was then the most extensive settlement yet in Danish politics, namely the Kanslergade settlement (Danish: Kanslergadeforliget) with the liberal party Venstre.[22] The settlement was named after Stauning's apartment in Kanslergade in Copenhagen and included extensive agricultural subsidies and reforms of the legislation and administration in the social sector.[23] In 1935, Stauning was reelected with the famous slogan "Stauning or Chaos".[24]
Stauning's second cabinet lasted until the Nazioccupation of Denmark in 1940, when the cabinet was widened to include all political parties for a national unity government and the Danish government pursued a collaborative policy with the German occupiers. Through the 1940s and until 1972, most of Denmark's Prime Ministers were from the party.[25]
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen government coalition: 1993–2001
Social Democrats election poster for the October 1945 general election
Social Democrats-led coalition governments (the I, II, III and IV Cabinets of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen) implemented the system known as flexicurity (flexibility and social security), mixing strong Scandinavian unemployment benefits with deregulated employment laws, making it easier for employers to fire and rehire people in order to encourage economic growth and reduce unemployment.[26][19]
The Cabinets of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen maintained a parliamentary majority during the period from 1993 to 2001 by virtue of their support from the Socialist People's Party and the Red–Green Alliance.[27]
Towards the end of the 1990s, a trade surplus of 30 billion kroner (US$4.9 billion) turned into a deficit.[citation needed] To combat this, the government increased taxes, limiting private consumption. The 1998 initiative, dubbed the Whitsun Packet (Danish: Pinsepakken) from the season it was issued, was not universally popular with the electorate; it may have also been a factor in the Social Democrats' defeat in the 2001 Danish general election.
In opposition: 2001–2011
After being defeated by the Liberal Party in the 2001 Danish general election, the party chairmanship went to former finance and foreign ministerMogens Lykketoft. Following another defeat in the 2005 Danish general election, Lykketoft announced his resignation as party leader and at an extraordinary congress on 12 March it was decided that all members of the party would cast votes in an election of a new party leader. The two contenders for the leadership represented the two wings in the party, with Helle Thorning-Schmidt being viewed as centrist and Frank Jensen being viewed as slightly more left-leaning. On 12 April 2005, Thorning-Schmidt was elected as the new leader.[28]
Helle Thorning-Schmidt government coalition: 2011–2015
In the 2011 Danish general election, the Social Democrats gained 44 seats in parliament, the lowest number since 1953.[29] Nonetheless, the party succeeded in establishing a minority government with the Danish Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party. The incumbent centre-right coalition led by the Liberal Party lost power to a centre-left coalition led by the Social Democrats, making Thorning-Schmidt the country's first female prime minister. The Danish Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party became part of the three-party centre-left coalition government. The new parliament convened on 4 October. The government rolled back anti-immigration legislation enacted by the previous government[30] and passed a tax-reform with support from the liberal-conservative opposition.[31] The tax reform raised the top tax threshold, which had previously applied to over half the working population. The aim of the tax reform was to increase labour output to fend off a projected labour shortage within the next decades. The stated goal was to entice Danes to work more in order to compensate for the decreasing workforce by lowering tax on wages and gradually lowering welfare payments to those outside of the labour market to increase the economic benefit of working relative to receiving welfare.[32]
On 3 February 2014, the Socialist People's Party left the government in protest over the sale of shares in the public energy company DONG Energy to the investment bank Goldman Sachs.[33] Because of the government's minority status and of its dependency on the support of the Danish Social Liberal Party, the government had to jettison many of the policies that the Social Democrats–Socialist People's Party coalition had given during the campaign. Although critics have accused the government of breaking its promises, other studies argue that it accomplished half of its stated goals, blaming instead poor public relations strategies for its increasingly negative public image.[34] The government pursued a centrist compromise agenda, building several reforms with support from both sides of the parliament. This caused friction with the supporting Red–Green Alliance, who were kept outside of influencing decisions.[31]
In opposition: 2015–2019
In the 2015 Danish general election, the Social Democrats gained seats and became the biggest party in the parliament again since 2001, yet lost the government because the right-wing parties had a majority. The results of the 2015 election and the defeat of the left-bloc led Thorning-Schmidt to resign as prime minister on election night and making way for the next leader Mette Frederiksen.[35] Under Frederiksen, the Social Democrats voted in favor of a law allowing Danish authorities to confiscate money, jewellery and other valuable items refugees crossing the border may have as long as those valuables have no sentimental value,[36] despite harsh condemnation from the United Nations Human Right Council[37] and widespread comparisons between the plan and the treatment of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.[38] The law had been used 17 times in the first six years.[39]
Similarly, the Social Democrats voted for a law banning wearing of burqas and niqabs, while abstaining during a vote on a law on mandatory handshakes irrespective of religious sentiment at citizenship ceremonies and on a plan to house criminal asylum seekers on an island used for researching contagious animal diseases. Frederiksen has also backed the right-wing populist Danish People's Party in their paradigm shift push to make repatriation rather than social integration the goal of asylum policy. She has called for a cap on non-Western immigrants, expulsion of asylum seekers to a reception centre in North Africa and forced labour for immigrants in exchange for benefits. Labeling foreign policies of Europe as too economic liberal, Frederiksen has criticised other social democratic parties for losing their voters' trust by failing to prevent globalisation chipping away at labour rights, increasing inequality and exposing them to uncontrolled immigration.[40]
2019–present: Frederiksen I and II
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2023)
Current leader of the Social Democrats and Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen
On 27 June 2019, Frederiksen was successful in forming the Frederiksen Cabinet, an exclusively Social Democrats minority government supported by the red bloc, becoming the second woman in the role after Thorning-Schmidt as well as the youngest prime minister in Danish history at the age of 41.[43] Despite having run on an anti-immigration stance during the election, Frederiksen shifted her stance on immigration by allowing more foreign labour and reversing government plans to hold foreign criminals offshore after winning government.[44][45][46]
Platform
Since its foundation, the lemma of the party has been "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and these values are still described as central in the party program. In the political program, these values are described as being consistent with a focus on solidarity with the poorest and social welfare to those who need it, with individual responsibility in relation to other members in society and with an increased involvement in the European Union project.[47]
As well as adopting more left-leaning economics, the party has become increasingly sceptical of mass immigration from a left-wing perspective in the late 2010s. The party believes that immigration has had negative impacts for much of the population, a more pressing issue since at least 2001 after the 11 September attacks which intensified during the 2015 European migrant crisis. It also returned to a more sceptical view of economic liberalism, including the view that perception of adopting the Third Way and practicing centrist, neoliberal economics, and supporting unrestricted economic globalisation contributed to its poor electoral performance in the late 2000s and early 2010s.[12][13] In a biography written before becoming the prime minister in 2019, Mette Frederiksen wrote: "For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes."[48]
The party had factions that promoted anti-immigration policies since the 1980s, but it was Mette Frederiksen that completed the party's right-turn on immigration. Since then, Social Democrats have been supporting strict controls of immigration, arguing that it is integral to "a new class struggle" as it protects the national culture, rural communities and the working-class identities of Denmark.[49] The party's proposals include expulsion of asylum seekers, a cap on non-Western immigration, and a requirement for immigrants to work at least 37 hours per week before being given a right to social and welfare benefits. Social Democrats also adopted a more conservative stance on cultural diversity, supporting repatriation rather than integration, postulating a ban on burqas and niqabs, and voting in favour of a law allowing Danish authorities to confiscate valuable items from refugees crossing the border.[7]
Since then, the party is described as a "left conservative" social democratic party, as it "places itself to the left on issues related to welfare and redistribution, and right on cultural and value‐related issues".[6] It has also been described as welfare chauvinist,[50] and nativist.[51] Programmaticaly, the party has been compared to the German Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance and the Dutch Socialist Party, known for their culturally conservative positions.[52]
The Social Democrats governed Denmark for most of the 20th century, with a few intermissions such as the Conservative People's Party-led government of Poul Schlüter in the 1980s. It continued to be Denmark's largest party until 2001 when Anders Fogh Rasmussen's liberal Venstre party gained a landslide victory, becoming the largest party and forming a centre-right government. The Social Democrats returned to government from 2011 to 2015 and since 2019.
Of the 16 Danish members of the Nordic Council, four are members of the Social Democrats. The members of the Nordic Council are not elected by the public, but instead chosen by the parliamentary party groups. The Social Democrats are part of The Social Democratic Group in the Nordic Council.[58][59]
The Social Democratic Youth of Denmark (Danish: Danmarks Socialdemokratiske Ungdom) is the Social Democrats' youth wing. It was founded on 8 February 1920 and is an independent organization from the Social Democrats. This allows them to formulate their own policies and make their own campaigns. Prominent Social Democrats beginning their political work in the Social Democratic Youth include prime ministers Hans Hedtoft, H. C. Hansen, Jens Otto Krag, Anker Jørgensen and Mette Frederiksen, as well as ministers Per Hækkerup and Morten Bødskov.[60][61]
Frit Forum is the Social Democrats' student organization. It was founded in 1943 in Copenhagen. It has since 1973 been organizationally part of Social Democratic Youth. Prominent members previously leading Frit Forum include prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and other leaders of the Social Democrats Mogens Lykketoft and Svend Auken.[62][63]
^ abAxford, Barrie (2021). "Populism in Practice: Causes, Correlates and Crises". Populism Versus the New Globalization. SAGE Publications Ltd. pp. 38–39. ISBN978-1-5297-3741-7.
^Nordsieck, Wolfram (2019). "Denmark". Parties and Elections in Europe. Archived from the original on 1 April 2022. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
^Merkel, Wolfgang; Petring, Alexander; Henkes, Christian; Egle, Christoph (2008). Social Democracy in Power: the capacity to reform. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-43820-9.
^Mørch, Søren (2002). 24 statsministre: 24 fortællinger om magten i Danmark i det tyvende århundrede og en kort forklaring på, hvor den 25. er blevet af (in Danish). Copenhagen: Gyldendal. p. 165. ISBN9788702003611.
^"Socialdemokratiet". Arbejdermuseet.dk. Archived from the original on 9 October 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
^Volkesn, Andrea (2004). "Policy Changes of European Social Democrats 1945–98". In Bonoli, Giuliano (ed.). Social Democratic Party Policies in Contemporary Europe. Psychology Press.
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