The Danish Political System: Functioning and decision making capacity

1
The Danish Political System Functioning and
decision making capacity

• Christoffer Green-Pedersen

2
The Danish Political System

• Agenda
• The institutional set-up of the Danish political
  system
• The functioning of the Danish political system
• Decision making capacity and major policy issues

3
The Danish Political System

• The Danish Political System
• Constitution
• Single chamber
• Electoral system
• Negative Parliamentarism
• Decentralization
• Courts
• Referendums

4
The Danish Political System

• Constitution
• Written
• Hard to change
• Does not regulate politics in much detail
  constitutional politics is limited

5
The Danish Political System

• Folketinget
• Single Chamber
• 179 members
• Simple majority (90)
• Organized through political parties

6
The Danish Political System

• Electoral system
• Proportinal repræsentation
• 2 Threshold
• Personal votes matter

7
The Danish Political System

• Negative parliamentarism
• Not a majority against the government
• No vote of confidence
• Minority governments
• Normally not very specific government/coalition
  agreements

8
The Danish Political System

• Decentralization
• Much decentralization of the public sector
• No federalism
• Continuing debate about the self-rule of
  municipalities

9
The Danish Political System

• Courts
• No constitutional court
• Judges are not politically appointed
• The Supreme court

10
The Danish Political System

• Referendums
• Constitution allows/requires this
• Mainly used for EU questions

11
The Danish Political System

• The functioning of the Danish political system
• Single venue (Folketinget)
• Minority governments
• Multi-party system currently 7

12
The Danish Political System

• Two questions about functioning
• How is government stability secured?
• How are policy decisions made?

13
The Danish Political System

• Functioning of the Danish party system
• Parties are organized along a left-right
  dimension
• Typically divided into two blocs
• Social Democrats Conservative/Liberals
• Other parties are mainly support parties

14
The Danish Political System

• Government stability
• Support parties from the same bloc prefer this
  government to any other government they will
  not topple it
• They will not necessarily support its policy

15
The Danish Political System

• Policy making
• Government stability is not an issue
• Shifting majorities
• Opposition parties weigh policy influence vs.
  possibilities of criticism
• Legislation is often passed with broad
  majorities

16
The Danish Political System

• Decision making capacity and major policy issues
• Reforms of the welfare-state has been the major
  policy issue
• The welfare is highly popular politically risky
• Successful when party consensus mostly Social
  Democratic rule