Sedgwick, Mark. ‘Something Varied in the State of Denmark: Neo-Nationalism, Anti-Islamic Activism, and Street-Level Thuggery’. (2013)

Sedgwick, Mark. ‘Something Varied in the State of Denmark: Neo-Nationalism, Anti-Islamic Activism, and Street-Level Thuggery’. Politics, Religion & Ideology, vol. 14, no. 2, Routledge, June 2013, pp. 208–233.

The article argues that categories such as ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘Right Wing’ are inadequate and even misleading descriptors of reactions to Islam in Europe, and should be replaced by a distinction between neo-nationalism, anti-Islamic activism, and street-level thuggery. Neo-nationalism is a well-established but underused descriptor; anti-Islamic activism and street-level thuggery are more novel and are explored in the article. The article applies this three-fold distinction to the case of Denmark. It is argued that the neo-nationalist Danish People’s Party can be understood as a response to neo-nationalist views that are widespread among the Danish population. It is then argued that street-level thuggery, of which a small movement called Stop the Islamisation of Denmark is taken as an example, may be eye-catching, but is ultimately unimportant. Anti-Islamism, in contrast, may be important. Two Danish examples are examined: the very Danish Tidehverv movement, which shows how Christianity can still matter even in an apparently secular society, and the Free Press Society, a more influential Danish organization that is shown to be part of an international movement.

doi:10.1080/21567689.2013.792650.

Enstad, Johannes Due. Antisemitic Violence in Europe, 2005-2015. Exposure and Perpetrators in France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. (2017) [PDF]

Enstad, Johannes Due. Antisemitic Violence in Europe, 2005-2015. Exposure and Perpetrators in France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities and Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo, 2017.

How often do incidents of antisemitic violence occur in contemporary Europe, and what trends are showing? How exposed are Jewish populations in different countries? Who commits these crimes? We need to answer such questions as precisely as possible in order to effectively combat and prevent antisemitism in general and violent antisemitism in particular, but we lack the knowledge to do so because systematic studies of the subject are few and far between. As a step towards filling this research gap, the current report presents some tentative findings about violent antisemitism in a sample of European countries and proposes directions for further research.  Combining incident data based on police reporting with a 2012 survey on antisemitism carried out by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), this report tentatively compares the levels of antisemitic violence in different countries. The seven-country sample contains comparable data for France, UK, Germany and Sweden only. Among these countries, Jews’ exposure to antisemitic violence appears to have been highest in France, lower in Sweden and Germany, and lowest in the United Kingdom.  Figures for Norway, Denmark and Russia are not directly comparable because of differing data sources. However, Russia clearly stands out with a very low number of incidents considering Russia’s relatively large Jewish population. Russia is also the only case in which there is little to indicate that Jews avoid displaying their identity in public.  Available data on perpetrators suggest that individuals of Muslim background stand out among perpetrators of antisemitic violence in Western Europe, but not in Russia, where right-wing extremist offenders dominate. Attitude surveys corroborate this picture in so far as antisemitic attitudes are far more widespread among Muslims than among the general population in Western Europe.  The findings presented here are tentative. More and better data as well as more research are needed in order to form a more accurate picture of the nature and causes of antisemitic violence, a prerequisite for determining relevant countermeasures.

PDF: https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/55776.

Fuglsang Larsen, Jeppe, Birte Siim, and Susi Meret. ‘Militants from the Other Side. Anti-Bodies to Hate-Speech and Behavior in Denmark.’ (2014) [PDF]

Fuglsang Larsen, Jeppe, Birte Siim, and Susi Meret. State of the Art. Work Stream 3 – the Danish Report: Militants from the Other Side. Anti-Bodies to Hate-Speech and Behavior in Denmark. 461002, Aalborg University, 2014, p. 38.

The purpose of the State Of the Art (SOA) is to gain knowledge about the Danish Context of organisations, groups and movements in civil society countering hate speech, institutional racism and exclusionary practices and to identify gaps in national research on the issue that can be explored through field work, interviews and group discussions/dialogues, possibly to be debated at roundtable convening in the autumn of 2014.

PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/209278105/RAGE_SOA_WS_3_Final.pdf.

Flyvholm, Anne-Mai. ‘Integration, Enlightenment or Rights?: Three Perspectives on Hate Crimes against Muslims in Denmark’. (2020)

Flyvholm, Anne-Mai. ‘Integration, Enlightenment or Rights?: Three Perspectives on Hate Crimes against Muslims in Denmark’. Journal of Muslims in Europe, vol. 9, no. 3, Brill, Sept. 2020, pp. 304–330.

This article examines how Danish Muslim organisations ascribe meaning to hate crimes against Muslims in Denmark. The study is a maximum variation case study of three Muslim organisations. Drawing on intersectional theory, organisations were included that vary on identity markers. While there are great similarities in how the organisations define hate crime, the article argues that they articulate the concept as part of very different socio-political contexts. This suggests that while the organisations in general agree on what hate crime –is–, the organisations’ intersectional identities affect which socio-political contexts they articulate as relevant in relation to hate crime.

doi:10.1163/22117954-BJA10015.

https://brill.com/view/journals/jome/9/3/article-p304_3.xml