Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[HVC]

Forced mixing seems like more of a liberal thing. The right usually wants to wall them up and then try to get rid of them because they're not integrating.

[grumbler]

Forced mixing seems like more of a liberal thing. The right usually wants to wall them up and then try to get rid of them because they're not integrating.

Yeah but the selling of public housing stiock to private developers is definitely a right-wing thing.

[Sheilbh]

I'm with Zoups - though I'd say six of one, half dozen of the other on Yi's question.

From what I understand the "ghetto law" creates a list of ghettos with a number of criteria including jobless and crime rates, education levels and the population of first and second generation migrants (though Ukrainians are excluded) including citizens. So a neighbourhood with qualifying joblessness, crime and education would not be identified as a "ghetto" if it was occupied by third-generation or more Danes).

Part of the policies is to clear public housing, renovate it and then turn it into private rental. But there are also parts of the "ghetto deal" that allow higher penalties to be set for crimes (unclear if committed in the area or by residents) and eviction as a punishment, which obviously applies to the entire family. There are also restrictions on who can move into one of these neighbourhoods. It doesn't seem like a particularly liberal set of policies.

I believe the Social Democratic government actually slightly widened the criteria and increased the penalties on some of this - but they also stopped the use of the word "ghetto" to describe the policy.

[Jacob]

I'm not super interested in whether to call it inherently far-right or not, but the local genesis of the decision making is (successfully) taking the edge off a surging xenoophic populist party by stealing some of their policies and attitude to bolster an otherwise (declining) Social-Demcrat position.

The line of reasoning goes essentially like this:

- Everyone in Denmark should actively embrace Danish language and culture and those who do not do not belong.

- This is should be supported with sticks, carrots, and paternalist action though the rhetoric is centred around sticks with a helping of paternalist action.

- People are classified as "ethnically danish" and "having other-than Danish background" (or sometimes "coming from a multi-lingual home").

- The other-than-Danish-background / multi-lingual home folks are classified as socially vulnerable in a number of different ways, and all sorts of statistics show all the things that might require paternalist intervention (or other actions, depending on your persuasion). In this particular situation, neighbourhoods above a certain threshold of other-than-Danish residents are in a specific administrative category (commonly understood as "ghettos") and are often featured as represenations of trouble in the media, but also selected for additional resources, monitoring, policing, social services, statistical analysis, and what-not.

- Since being in this administrative category is both a marker as being troubled and popularly understood to be insufficiently integrated, it is desirable for the government to reduce the number of neighbourhoods in that category.

In Denmark a significant amount of housing is handled through various large, semi-public housing companies that are perhaps a bit akin to co-ops. The state takes a fairly active role in helping people find places to live if they are outside the ownership side of things. Viewing this through a lens of property rights vs renting to find right vs left in a broader context isn't really a useful paralellel IMO. It's more like there is much more "council flat" type housing stock available - and it's more broadly used and thus less stigmatized perhaps - and the state is using it's influence there to change neighbourhood demographics to claim progress in furthering integration and reducing social problems.

Whether you consider that reasoning right or left wing in a philosophical sense, locally in Denmark it is the application of a political positioning the centre left (Social Democrats, making coalitions to the left with the "red block") took from the xenophobic populist right (Danish People's Party, making coalitions to the right with the "blue block") to successfully reverse a decline. In other words it's a position originating on the right that's now become a widely accepted mainstream position (with a minority of dissenters across the spectrum as well).

[Sheilbh]

Whether you consider that reasoning right or left wing in a philosophical sense, locally in Denmark it is the application of a political positioning the centre left (Social Democrats, making coalitions to the left with the "red block") took from the xenophobic populist right (Danish People's Party, making coalitions to the right with the "blue block") to successfully reverse a decline. In other words it's a position originating on the right that's now become a widely accepted mainstream position (with a minority of dissenters across the spectrum as well).

Yeah and before Scholz slightly upended things I would see that Danish model pop up a lot in articles about "what to do about the fall of social democracy/centre left in Europe". I can't remember any of the details but I think it was normally the Danish model (which might only apply in other Northern European countries) of trying to take the radical right's ideas to bolster/secure your traditional vote; or the Iberian model which I've forgotten

[The Larch]

Whether you consider that reasoning right or left wing in a philosophical sense, locally in Denmark it is the application of a political positioning the centre left (Social Democrats, making coalitions to the left with the "red block") took from the xenophobic populist right (Danish People's Party, making coalitions to the right with the "blue block") to successfully reverse a decline. In other words it's a position originating on the right that's now become a widely accepted mainstream position (with a minority of dissenters across the spectrum as well).

Yeah and before Scholz slightly upended things I would see that Danish model pop up a lot in articles about "what to do about the fall of social democracy/centre left in Europe". I can't remember any of the details but I think it was normally the Danish model (which might only apply in other Northern European countries) of trying to take the radical right's ideas to bolster/secure your traditional vote; or the Iberian model which I've forgotten

In fact the message of the story I quoted is actually "not everything is rosy in Denmark, so don't go around trying to emulate what they do there in order to solve the problems in other countries" aimed at Labour.

[Sheilbh]

Oh interesting, I didn't read it as aimed at Labour at all.

[The Larch]

Oh interesting, I didn't read it as aimed at Labour at all.

It's in the original article, I didn't paste it in its entirety.

This is part of what I left out (because it was not directly about the Danish case):

This matters not just in Denmark but in Britain, too. It is often said that leftwing parties must placate the cultural anxieties of left-behind voters if they are to stave off the electoral threat from the right. This is visible in the distinction drawn between "somewheres" and "anywheres", the argument that working-class Labour votes collapsed because people feel like "strangers in their own country", or in the books that give an academic sheen to the troubling idea that the "racial self-interest" of white citizens is not the same thing as racism. Some have even appeared to suggest, much like the Danish government, that whether you're truly British is defined on the basis of your ethnicity.

Denmark's Social Democrat party has been praised by British commentators as a lesson in how to achieve integration and as a model for neutralising the right. Mjølnerparken shows just how ugly these ideas are in practice. It should be a lesson: travel down this path, and you will find yourself forcefully ripping apart communities in the name of social harmony.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm with Zoups - though I'd say six of one, half dozen of the other on Yi's question.

If it's a) then it's an empirical question, not a framing issue.  Either someone associated with the far right first suggested the policy or someone else did.

If not (or perhaps even if a) is true) then the interesting question to me is does a policy which is predicated on the belief that immigrants to Denmark are not assimilating well, that assimilation is a desireable goal, and this policy is designed to achieve that, have to by definition be a far right policy, or a nod to the political strength of the anti immigrant right.  Can it not be a centrist policy following its own goal?

[Jacob]

If it's a) then it's an empirical question, not a framing issue.  Either someone associated with the far right first suggested the policy or someone else did.

If not (or perhaps even if a) is true) then the interesting question to me is does a policy which is predicated on the belief that immigrants to Denmark are not assimilating well, that assimilation is a desireable goal, and this policy is designed to achieve that, have to by definition be a far right policy, or a nod to the political strength of the anti immigrant right.  Can it not be a centrist policy following its own goal?

In theory it could be, but in this particular case it is the result of the centre left deliberately and successfully adapting anti-immigrant positions for electoral reasons.

I guess that you can make the case that if the centre left and right subscribe to those positions long enough then at one point or other those policies are now de facto centrist policies (in Denmark at least). Maybe long enough has passed in Denmark for that to be the case, but personally I don't think so. Give it another couple of decades and leadership changes, I think.

[DGuller]

I would say that if a center-left party adopts an idea from a far right in order to improve its electoral prospects, then that kind of implies that the idea has a wider support than a "far-right idea" label implies.  I imagine they're not trying to get the die-hard far-right to vote for them, but rather they're trying to prevent marginal voters from being attracted to the far-right parties.

[mongers]

So the latest Putin foreign policy triumph is forcing the likely creation of German panzer divisions in the 21st century?


I'm assuming a significant part of the announce 300,000 strong NATO reaction for will be German land forces.

[Jacob]

I would say that if a center-left party adopts an idea from a far right in order to improve its electoral prospects, then that kind of implies that the idea has a wider support than a "far-right idea" label implies.  I imagine they're not trying to get the die-hard far-right to vote for them, but rather they're trying to prevent marginal voters from being attracted to the far-right parties.

The reasoning is sound, IMO, and - disregarding my distaste for the specific policies in question - demonstrates a well functioning democracy.

Maybe a less-contentious (but longer winded) way of putting it is something like "a policy position previously championed by the far right has now become part of the mainstream centre in Denmark."

I'm not sure whether that makes it a right-wing or mainstream policy position in other countries. Certainly, in Canada the underlying impetus would be considered right-wing I reckon.

[Jacob]

So the latest Putin foreign policy triumph is forcing the likely creation of German panzer divisions in the 21st century?


I'm assuming a significant part of the announce 300,000 strong NATO reaction for will be German land forces.

As Darth Putin says on twitter: "I remain a strategic genius".

[crazy canuck]

What impact will NATO spending on increasing its own forces have on supplying the Ukrainians?