Past, Present, and Future: The Role of the Cold War in Legitimising Danish Foreign Policy Activism

TY - JOUR

T1 - Past, Present, and Future: The Role of the Cold War in Legitimising Danish Foreign Policy Activism

AU - Pedersen, Rasmus Brun

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - The Cold War has had an extended life span in Danish foreign policy due to the establishment of a right-wing revisionist agenda. This article argues that this revisionism came to serve different contemporary purposes under the Anders Fogh Rasmussen governments. Externally it was used to legitimise the Danish participation in the Iraq War and came to serve as a tool to discipline the war-sceptical social democratic led opposition and secured parliamentary support for an offensive Liberal-inspired activism in Danish foreign policy. Domestically the revisionism became entangled with the overall cultural war that the Liberal-led government launched and thereby became a part of the overall ideological war that united the governing coalition from 2001 to 2011.

AB - The Cold War has had an extended life span in Danish foreign policy due to the establishment of a right-wing revisionist agenda. This article argues that this revisionism came to serve different contemporary purposes under the Anders Fogh Rasmussen governments. Externally it was used to legitimise the Danish participation in the Iraq War and came to serve as a tool to discipline the war-sceptical social democratic led opposition and secured parliamentary support for an offensive Liberal-inspired activism in Danish foreign policy. Domestically the revisionism became entangled with the overall cultural war that the Liberal-led government launched and thereby became a part of the overall ideological war that united the governing coalition from 2001 to 2011.

KW - Dansk udenrigspolitik

KW - Kolde krig

KW - aktivisme

KW - politisk historiebrug

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84945354182&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/14682745.2015.1078791

DO - 10.1080/14682745.2015.1078791

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1468-2745

VL - 16

SP - 101

EP - 120

JO - Cold War History

JF - Cold War History

IS - 1

ER -