The Social Democratic Party

The Social Democratic Party is the biggest and historically most influential Danish political party. From the 1920s to the 1980s, the party led more than twenty Danish governments. During this period, the party took on the main responsibility of protecting the Danish democracy when other European countries came under pressure from undemocratic political forces. From the 1930s onwards, the party was thus the main actor behind the formation and consolidation of the Danish welfare state, and during the Cold War period, the Social Democratic Party was a firm and solid supporter of the Atlantic Alliance, even though the party opposed central elements in NATO’s policies towards the Warsaw Pact in the 1980s. Since the the turn of the century, the party has undergone significant changes, and the present-day Social Democratic Party could be characterized as ‘conservative’ as well as ‘pragmatic’. It is conservative because the party argues that it won the twentieth-century Danish political struggle, the results of which the party now needs to preserve, and pragmatic as the party has shown a remarkable willingness to adjust its policies to the challenges of the new century.