Danish Cartoons Research Articles

Patterns of politicization following triggering events: the indirect effect of issue-owning challengers

Changes in party systems do not always occur gradually. While structural changes in societies lead to new tensions and potential conflicts, these conflicts often become politicized in the wake of ‘triggering events’. However, such events do not always lead to the politicization of an issue. This study addresses the question why potentially triggering events sometimes produce extensive political attention and conflict around an associated issue, whereas in other circumstances very similar events do not generate much political attention or contestation. Some scholars highlight the strategic incentives of party political elites (the top-down perspective) whereas others focus on the key role of political challengers in politicizing issues (‘the bottom-up perspective)’. We focus on three events that potentially trigger the politicization of immigration (9–11, Banlieus riots and the Cartoon crisis) and identify anti-immigration parties as challengers of government parties. Based on political claims analysis of newspapers in seven European countries, we find that government parties exert strong control over the political agenda, both in terms of salience as in positional terms. However, when anti-immigration parties are large and in opposition, they do play an important role in politicizing the issue of immigration. Since anti-immigration parties have increased their vote share over the past decade and typically remain in the opposition nevertheless, it is likely that future events will lead to further politicization of the issue of immigration.

Teach the Crisis: arguments for teaching the Cartoon Crisis in primary school

ABSTRACT The proposal to turn the so-called Cartoon Crisis into the obligatory history curriculum of the primary school system has been debated publicly over the years. Pros and cons regarding its integration into a teaching environment have been put forward. Since 2021, the proposal has also been formally debated as a bill and put to vote in the Danish parliament two times – each time voted down by the current government. Despite the bill’s defeat, I present here a number of principled arguments for making the so-called Cartoon Crisis (including the actual drawings) an obligatory teaching subject in the Danish school system. The arguments can be summed up as an encouragement to ‘Teach the Crisis’. Choosing not to include the Crisis and its primary sources in the teaching will only instal the proverbial elephant in the classroom and is probably a short-term solution for the cultural, social, and political challenges that Denmark will meet in the future.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Cartoon Controversy in Late 2005: Conflict of Perspectives on Ethical and Moral Values

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Cartoon Controversy in Late 2005: Conflict of Perspectives on Ethical and Moral Values

Islamic Caricature Controversy from Jyllands-Posten to Charlie Hebdo from the Perspective of Arab Opinion Leaders

The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons in September 2005. Cultural and political relations between the West and the Arabic and Islamic worlds have witnessed multiple events that revealed the nature and understanding of historical relations between the worlds, and the role of contemporary media in formulating them. After this incident, the phenomenon of Western media handling of Islamic religious symbols began to arouse interest, where they faced angry responses in the Arabic and Islamic worlds, which denounced Denmark, while Denmark, as a country, refused to apologize to Muslims for what they considered a major abuse, which led some Arab countries to suspend relations with the latter. Additionally, in January 2015, the French magazine Charlie Hebdo was targeted in a deadly attack on its headquarters in Paris, killing 12 people for its “red-line cartoons” on Islam. This study seeks to understand the positions of a group of opinion leaders comprised of intellectuals and influencers who represent cultural and political currents in a number of Arab countries from the phenomenon of cartoons in Western media. This study aimed to evaluate them on the intense reactions of rage witnessed in multiple Islamic countries that occurred after the release of these drawings, and ask them basic questions: Did the Arab media, opinion leaders, and intellectuals have an inciting role that provoked the Western media’s handling of Islamic religious symbols or did this practice coincide with the Arab-Islamic cultural context and its limits? Answering the above questions helped to reveal the features of continuity and change in the perception of opinion leaders in the Arab world on the role of Western media in the dialogue and cultural conflict between the Arab-Islamic and Western worlds.

Flexibility costs of debt: Danish exporters during the cartoon crisis

We study how firms respond to an unexpected demand shock, exploiting the 2006 boycott of Danish products after publication of Muhammad caricatures. On average, affected firms lose the majority of their exports to Muslim countries and experience a significant decrease in total sales. However, firms with low financial leverage redirect sales to new and existing product-destination markets in non-Muslim countries, which allows them to fully offset their losses. In contrast, high-leverage firms do not enter new markets and instead actively downsize. Our results highlight the importance of financial flexibility in times of crisis, consistent with declarations of practitioners.

Is Violence Critique?

The offence and violence surrounding episodes like the Salman Rushdie Affair and the Danish cartoon controversies have furnished Western critique of Islam. While important work has challenged this criticism of Islam by interrogating the secular foundations of critique, the relationship between violence and critique remains troubling. Through reflecting on an excerpt from an attempted murder trial following an attack in purported retaliation for offending Islam in an English prison, this article considers an expanded notion of violence that recognizes the structural conditions behind violence and the political stakes that prioritize the psychological and ideological drivers that service criticism of Islam. This article builds on scholarship that explored the State and the violent actions of non-State actors and the critical studies of hate crimes, Islamist extremism, and radicalization to reflect on the role of critique in the aftermath of violence and to ask: “Is violence critique?” It argues for an approach to violence-as-critique by recognizing how emotion and violence are not merely resident inside the fanatical body that protrudes outwards but are instead part of the wider, circulating, and unstable affective economies of structural violence where violences can be mutually reinforcing.

Unknowns, Black Swans, and Bounded Rationality in Public Organizations

Abstract“Unknowns” and “Black Swans” have become familiar terms in the public administration literature but tend to be used in different and often conflicting ways. This article provides a typology of the terms, develops a framework for thinking about how their elements relate, and distinguishes four varieties of the Black Swan. Using the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, 9/11, the international withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the trade boycott associated with the Danish cartoon controversy as examples, we examine how these four varieties may arise in public sector organizations. We offer recommendations on how such organizations might reduce psychological and organizational barriers to uncovering unknowns before they can go on to become Black Swans.

Trade Shocks, Firm Hierarchies, and Wage Inequality

Abstract This paper shows robust effects of trade shocks on within-firm wage inequality through changes in firm hierarchies. It uses two distinct research designs—one considering firm-level shocks to foreign demand and transportation costs, the other analyzing the Muslim boycott of Danish exports after the 2006 “cartoon crisis.” Consistent with knowledge-based and incentive-based hierarchy models, trade shocks affect organizational choices through production scale. Adding a hierarchy layer increases inequality throughout the organization, particularly widening the 90-50 wage gap and pay differences between top and bottom layers. Delayering after the boycott leads to wage compression through wage cuts, demotions, and employee turnover.

Framing Blasphemy as a crime: the curious similarities between the secular left and the organization of Islamic cooperation

ABSTRACT The tensions between free speech and religious sensitivities are an ongoing source of political conflict, both within western democracies and within the UN human rights system where rivalling states compete to define the limits of freedom of expression. Examining the debate on free speech and its limits in the context of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris in 2015 and the Danish cartoon affair in 2005, this article analyzes the discursive similarities between secular critics of religious satire and Muslim-majority states in the UN. In both cases, censorship is justified on the basis of combating racism, hate speech, intolerance and related human rights violations. Instead of applying theological doctrines and religious language, the article shows how the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is gradually adopting secular and leftist mainstream human rights language in its quest to instal new international censorship norms.

Cartoon Weapons Industry: Prejudicial News Reports and the Terrorising of Magazines

Two decades of ‘terror’ crises have seen politicians, legal professionals and scholars struggle to cope with atrocities organised around some joke. From the alt-right smirk of the Christchurch killer at his televised court arraignment to the ‘Danish cartoons’ and the targeting of the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine in France, a series of funny-not-so-funny international ‘incidents’ prompt us to ponder the cartoon nature of politics. Our investigation into cartooning, contextualised as part of ongoing war efforts, reveals a cultural-economic project that peddles weapons for conflicts against caricatured Muslim adversaries. To illustrate this point, we examine copycat cartoon tropes and conclude that while international cartoon politics is nothing new, cartoon contests and terrorist show-trials indicate an ever-greater reification hand-in-glove with the arms trade.

The Danish Cartoons, Charlie Hebdo and the culture wars: satiric limits in comparative national and transnational perspectives

A considerable body of academic literature has lauded political satirists as rebellious defenders of democracy and free speech against an establishment. Although satire is not always rebellious, this reputation of satirists and of satire may itself be the object of partisan capture. In this article, it is the object of capture by right-wing populists. In that respect, satire and the meta-discourse about satire can be used like any political rhetoric in gathering like-minded allies, claiming standards, and fighting opponents. With the Danish cartoons crisis of 2005-2006 and the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015, proponents of culture wars rhetoric added satire to their list of Western cultural legacies that needed defence against Islamic terrorism as well as left authoritarian elites who suppressed free speech through political correctness. They constructed simplistic global political dichotomies about satire, free speech, and civilisation and lifted events out of local contexts in a process of global framing. The culture war rhetoric was absolutist in support of free speech and satire on the international level. But the national level reveals the hortatory and partisan side to this rhetoric and the complexities that belie the absolutist stand. Nations are the arenas where struggles over free speech and political humour are played out.

The Muhammad cartoon controversy in New Zealand newspapers

This study examines the construction of the controversy surrounding the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as it appeared in three New Zealand newspapers and discursively identifies how three New Zealand newspapers framed Islam and Muslims from an Orientalist perception. This study argues that these newspapers framed the issue of Muhammad cartoon controversial image in a way that reinforces the notion of a clash of culture between Islam and ‘the West’ and identified that Islam is a threat to the civilization. The metaphors employed, the visual texts incorporated, the terminologies they imposed appear to dehumanize Islam and Muslims, which also violates the philosophical stand of the freedom of expression. The news frame that these newspapers adopted in covering the controversial cartoon issue also supports an elite political agenda without respecting the religious norms of a minority group. However, the dehumanization of Islam and Orientalist perception of clash of cultures were mostly absent in their editorials. Therefore, the news frame conflicts with editorials’ construction of the issue in most cases. Furthermore, while one newspaper’s editorials dehumanized Islam and Muslims by espousing Orientalist perception of clash of cultures, the other two played a constructive role towards Islam and Muslims.

EU’ve Got to Be Kidding: Anxiety, Humour and Ontological Security

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen a pronounced turn to humour in EU discourse. From attempts to build solidarity with/through the rights of satirists after the Danish Cartoon Crisis and Charlie Hebdo, to ongoing efforts to re-brand the EU as a reflexive and liberal polity through self-deprecating messaging and the use of snark in diplomacy on Brexit/Trump, the rise of EU humour raises critical questions for IR. This paper argues that one important way to think about humour is as a mechanism for managing anxiety. A widely known ‘defence mechanism’, humour, joking and laughter can suspend the seriousness and pressure of difficult social situations. We draw on the literature on ontological security to argue that, when deployed in political and diplomatic discourses, humour might tell us rather more about the power relations, hierarchies, and instabilities which characterise a given polity.

Cosmopolitan Democratic and Communicative Rights: The Danish Cartoons Controversy and the Right to Be Heard, Even Across Borders

During the Danish cartoons controversy in 2005–2006, a group of ambassadors to Denmark representing eleven predominantly Muslim countries requested a meeting with the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to protest against the cartoons. Rasmussen interpreted their viewpoint as one of demanding limits to freedom of speech and he ignored their request for a meeting. Drawing on this case study, the article argues that it is an appropriate, and potentially effective, moral criticism of anyone who is in a position of political power—taking into account reasonable constraints of feasibility and practicality—that they have refused to receive information, ideas, or opinions from individuals, or their representatives, with dissenting viewpoints. The article also articulates one possible theoretical ground for such a moral criticism: that they could be violating a fundamental (cosmopolitan) moral right of people to submit information, ideas, or opinions to those who wield power over them and to be meaningfully heard—a right which can span state borders.

JUSTIFYING BLASPHEMY LAWS: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, PUBLIC MORALS, AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

AbstractIn its General Comment No. 34 dealing with freedom of expression, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) rejected the idea that a blasphemy law could ever be human-rights compliant, unless its function was to prevent incitement to religious or racial hatred. This is a widely shared view that is consistently endorsed when any international blasphemy controversy (such as that involving the Danish Cartoons in 2005) arises. This article assesses the legitimacy of this view. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) permits freedom of expression to be limited inter alia in the name of public morality, provided that the law in question is also necessary to achieve this end. This article argues that because a blasphemy law can be a response to a public moral vision; therefore a blasphemy law can serve a legitimate purpose insofar as human rights law is concerned. It is further submitted that whereas some blasphemy laws are unacceptably draconian, it is not inherently impossible for such a law to represent a proportionate response to a public morals concern. Thus, the conclusion from the UNHRC is not warranted by the text of the ICCPR. Moreover, there is a risk that, in reaching this conclusion the committee is evincing an exclusively secularist worldview in its interpretation of the ICCPR that undermines its claim to universality.

Five Thoughts About the Repeal of Denmark's Blasphemy Ban

In June 2017, Denmark repealed Article 140, its blasphemy ban. This came after a Danish prosecutor sought to charge a 42-year-old man under the blasphemy law for burning the Quran. The prosecution and repeal led to first shock and then rejoicing in the global community as another country abolished its blasphemy ban. The dominant narrative, however, is too simple. n this essay, I suggest five additional issues raised by the Danish blasphemy debate. First, blasphemy ban opponents emphasized the impact of Denmark’s ban on the majority Muslim world. Is this concern empirically accurate? Even if there is a connection, should Denmark have to repeal its own ban because of outside pressure? Second, those celebrating repeal have not asked why the previous arrangement – a rarely used blasphemy ban – unraveled in 2017, a question worth asking if one wants to plot out the future of the movement against blasphemy bans. Third, some American critics of the prosecution pointed to a double standard because in 1997 Denmark refused to prosecute a TV show that burned a Bible on air. Are Bible and Quran burning really the same thing? Fourth, the Danes largely rejected the anti-appeasement language of the Danish cartoon controversy, instead asking whether repeal would enhance or hinder the likelihood of terrorist attacks in Denmark. What accounts for the change? Finally, repeal comes at the time many countries across Europe are using anti-terror laws to restrict speech (including, in one instance, Quran burning). Are Europeans, in abolishing blasphemy bans, simply trading one speech restriction for another?

From Respected Religion Scholar Expert to Cartoon Character: Reflections in the Wake of the Danish Muhammad Cartoon Crisis and Three Decades as Expert to the Media

Respected scholar, expert, public opinion maker, oracle, under-cover politician, charlatan, cartoon character – all roles “out there” waiting for scholars sharing knowledge with a wider public. Scholars of religion trying to carve out more room in the public arena for a nonreligious, scientific approach to religion always risk digging their graves as (respected) scholars. What’s worse, they also risk digging the grave for a valuable and respectable, as well as publicly valued and respected academic, scientific study of religion. The scholar popularizing scientifically based knowledge, not least via the mass media (daily newspapers or public television), may “become” political and controversial to such a degree that s/he becomes a problem for the scientific study of religion, the community of scholars of religion, and the university with which s/he is affiliated. The otherwise valuable engagement threatens the reputation of science as being something valuable, “pure” and “neutral,” elevated above the dirty business of politics and power. In spite of the risks, the engaged scholar, it is, however, also argued, actually can help to strengthen the position, inside and outside the academy, of scientifically based knowledge and of the critical, analytical, scientific study of religion.

Freedom of expression in multicultural societies: Political cartooning in Europe in the modern and postmodern eras

Abstract At the intersection of modern cultural and political history, security studies and debates about freedom of expression and international human-rights law, this article aims to contribute to a better understanding of political cartooning and its implications in multicultural societies of Europe, which have shifted in a geographical, cultural, normative, communicational, political and many other respects through the last two centuries. Through comparison of the Serbian cartoons from late nineteenth-century Croatia and the recent Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, the article reveals that both modern and postmodern European cartoons have been centred around equally discriminatory narratives: a 'clash of civilizations' and 'racialization of religion'. Since open racial stereotyping in cartoons became illegal in the postmodern international regulations, traditional discriminatory practices of cartooning have shifted towards subtle, 'liquid' racism. This decodes some of the twelve Danish cartoons as ambiguous strategies of racialization of Muslim immigrants in Europe (as 'terrorists' and 'others') but also as hate speech which is illegal in the European Union, and member states of the Council of Europe. The author concludes that the most current European and international regulations of hate speech, whether concerning offline media or online media, actually protect free speech. While a truly clear-cut regulation of liquid racism might remain problematic in Europe (and the world) due to the lack of a universally accepted definition of hate speech, neither strict legal regulations nor different definitions of hate speech could diminish the role of political cartooning as a viable free speech platform in the multicultural landscape of Europe. Ultimately, what diminishes its viability is the enduring lack of diversity in the creation of visual satire, which could and should reflect the multicultural reality of communities, politics and societies in Europe.

Freedom of Expression: Positive or Negative freedom? Helping Understanding the Boundaries of a Cherished Right

Freedom of expression is a key value of a liberal democracy. In the Netherlands, like other democracies, freedom of expression has become a hot topic. Events such as the assassinations of Pim Fortuyn (2002) and Theo van Gogh (2004), the Danish cartoons affaire (2005) and the Paris Charlie Hebdo shooting (2015) have ignited debates concerning the scope and limits of the right to freedom of expression. There are roughly speaking two prevalent opinions in the current heated debate about freedom of expression: either free speech is under attack or there is simply too much of it. This brings me to the following main question of the article: what are the justifications to curtail freedom of expression in a liberal democracy? I will show in this article that Isaiah Berlin´s ideas of freedom are extremely useful in exploring the boundaries of free speech. After presenting a case dealing with the boundaries of freedom of expression, I will explain the two concepts of liberty as designed by Isaiah Berlin. I will demonstrate that, generally speaking, we value freedom, when it becomes practically meaningful, when it is a condition in which people have the opportunity to become or do something else. I will analyze Berlin’s preference for negative freedom and discuss his criticism of positive freedom. Next, I will analyze whether freedom of expression is a positive or negative freedom. This outcome helps to better understand appropriate boundaries on freedom of expression.

Journalism, solidarity and the civil sphere: The case of Charlie Hebdo

On 7 January 2015, Said and Chérif Kouachi assaulted the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, leaving 12 people dead. The terrorist attack soon became a highly symbolic event, reflecting the core struggle between free speech and religious values that escalated after the ‘cartoon crisis’ in 2005. In this article, we wish to explore media discourses in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack in three European countries – Spain, Norway and the United Kingdom. In particular, we investigate if and how journalism performed their role as ‘vital centre’ in the ‘civil sphere’. We find that the patterns of in-group and out-group were carefully constructed to avoid polarization between ‘ordinary’ Muslims and the West in most newspapers. By doing so, most of the newspapers managed to work for the construction of an idealized civil sphere that exists beyond race, nationality or religion.