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Here I Stand

Lutheran Stubbornness in the Danish Prime Minister's Office during the Cartoon Crisis

COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL, DENMARK, cs.lpf{at}cbs.dk

The article provides a systems-theoretical analysis of the Cartoon Crisis and the way the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, responded to the expectations of Muslim groups in particular and the business community. The analysis shows that the Prime Minister followed a single strategy throughout the crisis, namely, insisting on a secular understanding of the separation of politics and religion. Religion, in this view, should not interfere in politics, and politics should not interfere in religion. The main outline of the analysis shows that Prime Minister Rasmussen, paradoxically, found himself using a theological distinction in order to make a political argument. In doing so, Rasmussen shows, in contrast to his former argumentations, that modern, so-called `secular' politics is actually based on a religious Protestant understanding of the separation of the two realms, though the use Rasmussen made of this separation remains political.

Key Words: Cartoon crisis • Politics • Islam • Protestantism • Systems theory

European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2, 231-248 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1368431009103708


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