Professor Marlene Wind argues that Denmark’s 2026 general election is not only a contest over leadership and crisis management, but also a revealing test of how liberal democracies internalize radical-right agendas. In her interview with the ECPS, Professor Wind contends that mainstream Danish parties have “absorbed, not neutralized, the radical right,” warning that electoral containment has too often meant ideological normalization. Situating the campaign within the wider context of Trump’s pressure over Greenland, Europe’s security crisis, and Denmark’s pragmatic turn toward the EU, she highlights the deeper structural dilemmas facing contemporary democracy: the normalization of restrictive politics, the fragility of liberal institutions, and the growing entanglement between populist forces, geopolitical instability, and weakened democratic boundaries. Denmark, in her view, offers a critical case for understanding these broader European transformations.
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Marlene Wind—Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen and Director of the Centre for European Politics—offers a penetrating analysis of Denmark’s parliamentary election campaign against the backdrop of geopolitical rupture, institutional recalibration, and the longer-term normalization of radical-right politics. As Denmark heads toward the March 24, 2026 general election, the contest has unfolded under the shadow of Donald Trump’s renewed pressure over Greenland, a crisis that briefly revived Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s standing after months of domestic political weakness. Reuters reported that Frederiksen’s Social Democrats rebounded from a December polling low of 17% to around 22% in recent weeks, while the broader electoral landscape remained fragmented and without a clear majority for either bloc.
Yet for Professor Wind, the most consequential issue is not simply whether Frederiksen’s crisis management can secure a third term. Rather, the Danish case exposes a more structural dilemma at the heart of contemporary European democracy: how mainstream actors respond when radical-right agendas become embedded within the political center. This concern is captured in the interview’s headline argument: “Mainstream parties in Denmark have absorbed, not neutralized, the radical right.” Professor Wind also cautions that “the argument that we have managed to eradicate the extreme right is simply not accurate,” because “the policies adopted by the majority of politicians and political parties… have effectively incorporated right-wing positions.” The result, she argues, is not democratic containment but ideological normalization.
Professor Wind’s intervention is especially timely because the election has developed at the intersection of two seemingly contradictory dynamics. On the one hand, geopolitics has returned forcefully to Danish politics: Trump’s Greenland posture, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and uncertainty surrounding transatlantic guarantees have elevated questions of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Europe’s strategic future. On the other hand, the campaign itself has remained anchored in domestic concerns—cost of living, welfare, migration, leadership fatigue, and social trust. As Professor Wind observes, geopolitics has functioned largely as “a background condition for everything else,” not as a fully articulated debate about Denmark’s future in Europe.
Within that setting, her analysis moves beyond the immediate election cycle to a broader diagnosis of European political development. She argues that Denmark’s majoritarian political culture, limited judicial review, and long-standing transactional view of European integration have made it easier to mainstream restrictive agendas without eliminating their social base. Indeed, she notes, aggregate support for right-wing parties remains “roughly 17% to 20%,” even if now dispersed across smaller formations. That continuity leads to her central normative warning: “Adopting the positions of the extreme right is not an effective strategy to counter it.”
In sum, Professor Wind’s remarks present Denmark not as an exceptional success story in containing the far right, but as a revealing case of how liberal democracies may gradually internalize the very forces they claim to resist.
