This article investigates how a Danish peasant movement, united in the association ‘Bondevennernes Selskab’, became a social movement and therefrom developed into an early version of a parliamentary party. Established in 1846, it was the revolutions of 1848 and following political development in Denmark that triggered the movement’s entrance to parliamentary politics. In this process, the association challenged the bourgeois liberal concept of politics, as the association argued that it would represent one particular class – the peasants – in parliament. (...) The argument of the article is unfolded in an analysis of a conflict between the peasant association and the dominating bourgeois, liberal opinion. As the conflict took place in the daily press, the article investigates both the arguments, the peasant movement had to face in the liberal newspaper Fædrelandet and its replies in the paper Almuevennen. Thereby the article touches upon how the association legitimized its actions as a social, political movement. (shrink)

Democracy became a popular and highly contested concept in the Danish-speaking parts of the Danish monarchy in 1848. For a brief time, it went from being an occasional guest in political language to a popular concept in the constitutional struggle of 1848–1849. This article argues democracy became attached to an equally popular concept of the time, movement, when introduced into everyday political communication in Denmark. In this context, democracy became a name for the movement observed in Europe and in the (...) Danish monarchy. The article identifies three main interpretations of democracy that occurred in the Danish constitutional struggle of 1848–1849 and argues the battle over the constitution was essentially a battle over how one interpreted the past, the present, and the future. Democracy became a key term in this battle in 1848 Denmark. (shrink)