How Denmark Became Democratic

Abstract

In taking a statist perspective inspired by Hegel, Clausewitz and C. Schmitt this article provides an analysis of the period from the early seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, when Denmark evolved towards a liberal-democratic state based on a written constitution. It is argued that Denmark became a democracy as an unintended consequence of military reforms. Whereas most analyses on state formation in early modern Europe contain some form of path dependency, this work argues that the Danish case clearly demonstrates that no path dependency model can in any satisfying sense explain the two crucial years in the formation and change of the Danish state, 1660 (the introduction of the Absolutist rule) and 1849 (the introduction of the liberal-democratic constitution). Consequently, the Danish development challenges commonly held views of state formation processes in Europe.