On Tuesday 6 October, the Folketing will open after the election on 24 March. The election resulted in a historically fragmented Parliament. Many parties are represented, and the Social Democrats are the only really big party. This has led to many concerns about whether we will now have an effective Parliament that can make necessary political decisions. The historically long process of government formation only reinforced these concerns, and proposals to raise the barring threshold have been made, for example.
But should we actually be concerned about effective popular government? One way to answer this question is to look at other countries’ experiences with fragmented parliaments and challenges in forming governments and actually getting political decisions done. The Danish situation after the election is by no means unique – all the countries around us are experiencing a similar development, and in the Danish debate reference is also made to especially the development in the Netherlands, which has an even more fragmented parliament.
In collaboration with the Society of Sciences, Magtudredningen 2.0 therefore organizes a seminar with presentations from researchers from the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden on the importance of the institutional framework for the parties’ cooperation when the parliaments are fragmented. In Denmark, minority governments, bloc politics and political settlements form important institutional frameworks for the parties’ cooperation, both when a government is to be formed and cooperation afterwards. The other countries have different frameworks, and knowledge of these is important input to the Danish discussion.