Popular Struggle and Democracy in Scandinavia 1700-Present

Flemming Mikkelsen, guest researcher at the Department of Sociology, is one of the authors behind a new book titled 'Popular Struggle and Democracy in Scandinavia 1700-Present.' The book is part of the series Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology and covers subjects on hunger riots, tax rebellions, petition drives, demonstrations, revolutions, and strikes.

This book focuses on popular struggles in Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1700-2015, and how popular struggle in the form of hunger riots, tax rebellions, petition drives, strikes, demonstrations, public meetings, and social movements paved the way for the introduction and development of civil liberties and political rights. The authors portray social and political mass mobilization of ordinary people as vital to the construction of democracy and an essential condition for the formation of the Scandinavian welfare states. The book shows the transnational connections between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden and between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, and also contains a comparison of popular struggle in Scandinavia seen in a wider European perspective.

Flemming Mikkelsen, Knut Kjeldstadli, and Stefan Nyzell, Popular Struggle and Democracy in Scandinavia 1700-Present, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.