TY - CHAP
T1 - Past and Present Futures of Democracy
T2 - The Danish Peasants’ Movement as Democracy Instigator and Cultural Mythologizer
AU - Mossin, Christiane
N1 - Published November 30, 2020.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This chapter investigates state-society-relations from the point of view of democracy. It presumes that a pluralist, self-organized civil society constitutes a vital democratic source while also involving a double democratic dilemma: The more powerful and state-independent, the greater this source, but also the greater risk of overall national disintegration; and conversely: The more intense the interplay between state and civil society, the greater the chances of mutual fertilization, but also the greater risk of one part drowning out the other. The chapter focuses on the Danish peasants’ movement, the history of which illustrates this dilemma paradigmatically. A movement of outcasts developed into a powerful society of its own; national disintegration would appear to constitute an imminent danger. Yet, as the chapter argues, by establishing new associational, democratic forms and a conception of “the people” ripe with flexible mythological elements, capable of spreading to political competitors, the movement ultimately became the foundation of overall national integration. This development raises the question: What lessons may we draw today from the peasants’ movement’s historical success? Lessons of intricate relations between centralizing and decentralizing developments? Or, perhaps more controversially: lessons of linkages between democracy and cultural mythologization?
AB - This chapter investigates state-society-relations from the point of view of democracy. It presumes that a pluralist, self-organized civil society constitutes a vital democratic source while also involving a double democratic dilemma: The more powerful and state-independent, the greater this source, but also the greater risk of overall national disintegration; and conversely: The more intense the interplay between state and civil society, the greater the chances of mutual fertilization, but also the greater risk of one part drowning out the other. The chapter focuses on the Danish peasants’ movement, the history of which illustrates this dilemma paradigmatically. A movement of outcasts developed into a powerful society of its own; national disintegration would appear to constitute an imminent danger. Yet, as the chapter argues, by establishing new associational, democratic forms and a conception of “the people” ripe with flexible mythological elements, capable of spreading to political competitors, the movement ultimately became the foundation of overall national integration. This development raises the question: What lessons may we draw today from the peasants’ movement’s historical success? Lessons of intricate relations between centralizing and decentralizing developments? Or, perhaps more controversially: lessons of linkages between democracy and cultural mythologization?
UR - https://primo.kb.dk/permalink/f/vdasju/CBS01000983487
U2 - 10.4324/9780429323881-8
DO - 10.4324/9780429323881-8
M3 - Book chapter
SN - 9780367340957
T3 - Routledge Advances in Sociology
SP - 128
EP - 144
BT - Civil Society
A2 - Egholm, Liv
A2 - Kaspersen, Lars Bo
PB - Routledge
CY - Abingdon
ER -