Denmark: Environmental Conflict and the ‘Greening’ of the Labour Movement

Abstract

In Denmark, environmentalism has not generated significant political division between the working class and the new middle class; rather, it has reinforced the cleavage between the wage‐earning classes and the self‐employed, as well as the political cleavage between left and right. This is a warning against deterministic approaches, ignoring the importance of political articulation. The successfulness of the Danish Social Democrats in reinforcing the environmental consciousness of its adherents furthermore indicates that the conventional picture of the political weakness of the Danish Social Democrats, as compared to the Norwegian and Swedish sister parties, should perhaps be reconsidered when evaluating the parties' adaptability to the demands of post‐industrial society.