DIIS REPORT 2012:16 DIIS REPORT TWO DANISH ACTIVIST FOREIGN POLICIES? CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THREAT AND ‘ACTIVISM’ IN DANISH FOREIGN POLICY 1988–2011 Mikkel Runge Olesen DIIS REPORT 2012:16 DIIS REPORT DIIS . DANISH INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 1 DIIS REPORT 2012:16 © Copenhagen 2012, the author and DIIS Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS Strandgade 56, DK-1401 Copenhagen, Denmark Ph: +45 32 69 87 87 Fax: +45 32 69 87 00 E-mail:
[email protected] Web: www.diis.dk Cover photo: Polfoto/Kim Nielsen Layout: Allan Lind Jørgensen Printed in Denmark by Vesterkopi AS ISBN 978-87-7605-528-8 (print) ISBN 978-87-7605-527-1 (pdf ) Price: DKK 50.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk Hardcopies can be ordered at www.diis.dk This publication is part of DIIS’s Defence and Security Studies project which is funded by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Defence. Mikkel Runge Olesen, MA, PhD Candidate
[email protected] 2 DIIS REPORT 2012:16 Contents Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 5 Key to Danish party names 6 Two Danish activist foreign policies? 7 What the existing literature lacks 9 Case selection and choice of historical sources 12 Denmark’s strategic situation 1991–2011 14 The lessons of the Cold War and the new lessons of activism: hawkish and dovish variants 16 The ‘old’ lessons: hawkish and dovish Cold War lessons 16 The ‘new’ lessons: hawkish and dovish lessons about activism 18 A lesson of September 11? 19 Two foreign policy activisms? Danish foreign policy activism from the early 1990s and