Peace, welfare, culture. Muslims as a security problem in Danish integration discourse

• Main Author: Ulrik Pram Gad
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 2011-09-01
• Series: NORDEUROPAforum - Zeitschrift für Kulturstudien
• Subjects: Foreign and Security Policy; Denmark; Identities; Domestic Politics; Minorities; Nations & Nationalism; Political Parties & Social Movements; Religion & Church
• Online Access: http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/nordeuropaforum/2011-1/pram-gad-ulrik-41/PDF/pram-gad.pdf
• ISSN: 0940-5585; 1863-639X

This article analyzes how Muslims are implied to constitute threats in the official Danish discourse of the centre-right government since 2001. It does so to provide a more nuanced picture of Danish debates on integration than the usual presentation of two discourses – culturalism and multiculturalism – pitted in opposition. By analytically focusing on “security narratives”, the article details how initial narratives of Muslims as threats to culture, welfare and societal peace merged and morphed to award surpris-ing new roles to the state and multiculturalism. The re-evaluation of cultural difference implied in a recent strategy to counter radicalization, however, does not amount to a de-securitization of Muslims – rather it installs a need for surveillance and control of the Muslim difference.