The Influence of NGOs on Danish Migration Policy in the 1930s: The Role of Moral and Pragmatic Legitimacy

This article contributes to a debate initiated in this journal in 2019 on the influence of ngos on migration policies in twentieth-century Western Europe. The study further develops previous studies by examining how ngos in 1930s Denmark managed and used different types of legitimacy to gain political influence. The claims of this article can be useful in seeing the influence of ngos as a process in which moral and pragmatic legitimacy are decisive factors in different phases of this process. The study finds that moral legitimacy is crucial for ngos in the initial phase of gaining access to negotiations with policymakers: the so-called ‘insider strategies’. Pragmatic legitimacy proves to be important for ngos when access to insider strategies is achieved. The ngos used their pragmatic legitimacy – for instance, their ability to reduce costs for the state – when negotiating with policymakers.