Abstract
Adopting a post-structuralist perspective and focusing on a segment of public debate prior to the September 2000 referendum in Denmark on the introduction of the common European currency, five different conceptions of democracy are identified, but a hegemonic discourse is seen to prevail across these conceptions. This discourse contains knowledge of democracy as a community of one homogeneous, solidaristic people and of the existence of one homogeneous and solidaristic Danish people. It is ethno-nationalist in so far as it implies common and unifying traits which serve as boundary markers. It points to certain limits as regards relations between `Denmark', `Europe' and `democracy'. For so long as predominant conceptions of democracy all rest upon knowledge of one homogeneous people, and as long as `we all know' that there is no homogeneous European people, a conflict will remain between `Europe' and `democracy' in Danish debates.
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