PhD Student Annemarie Borregaard
2022 - 2025
Independent Research Fund Denmark

Project description

The purpose of my ph. d. project is to examine and discuss the political and administrative history of the special care sector in Denmark from c. 1930-80. The sector cared for people with intellectual disability either in institutions or in families supported financially by the state.

The positive narrative on the Danish Welfare State is, that the Public Care Act of 1933 replaced the patchwork of laws regulating the social sector and made the social system just-based on a principle of equal rights to social assistance if needed given from a set of law-regulated criteria. A recipient was considered deserving or undeserving of whether the need for help was legitimate or not. The group of ‘deserving’ had contributed to society but could not any longer due to changed life circumstances. In the group categorised as ‘deserving’ was also people with disabilities. None of the ‘deserving’ could be blamed for their poverty.

This could not be said about the situation for the ‘undeserving’. Their problems were of their own making, and therefore they could help themselves and social assistance came with a price: loss of rights and stigmatisation. For the disabled, the state established a ‘Special Care Sector’ in the Public Care Act in 1933. The overall purpose was to give one of the most vulnerable groups of people a more dignified life than before with the state as responsible care provider. The state took over the responsibility and most of the expenses. However, the care system was already there – based on institutions founded already in the 19th century.

The general aim of my project is to describe the organizational developments within the special care system, to analyse the public welfare policies on people categorized as intellectual disabled and to explain why the care system was centralised (nationalised) from 1933 until it in 1980 was decentralized and localized. In other words, I analyse when, how and why changes in the care system occurred. 

PhD Student Søren Werther Kjær Rasmussen
2022 – 2025
Velux Foundation

Project description

My PhD is part of the project The Outcast, the Unwelcome and the Admired, which investigates how the handling of outcast collaborators, unwelcome German refugees, and admired resistance fighters became a catalyst for the development of welfare and democracy in post-war Denmark. The project focuses on how the authorities prepared 60,000 refugee children for life in a democratic Germany, how Danish SS and HIPO members were subject to denazification efforts, and to what extent young resistance fighters were helped to reintegrate into civilian life in peacetime. Through empirically grounded research and wide-ranging dissemination, the project offers historical perspectives on contemporary issues such as deradicalisation and citizenship.

My PhD project centres on the admired resistance fighters. Its aim is to describe and analyse the social and economic support provided to members of the Danish resistance between 1941 and 2025, with particular focus on the post-liberation period. The study is structured around two main themes:
The first is an empirical, social-historical analysis of the specific support measures implemented. How many former resistance fighters received assistance? What types of support were offered? What were the criteria for receiving help, and what needs did the applicants present?

The second theme examines the ideological and political background of this support. Who were the driving political forces behind the initiatives? Was the support state-led and regulated, or initiated by non-governmental actors? Was it a tool for advancing the political ambitions of the resistance movement in the post-war era—or, conversely, a means of exercising social control over certain segments of the resistance? The study also considers how the social effort influenced political debate, and how political agendas, in turn, shaped the implementation of support schemes.

Output

Efter Sachsenhausen: Peder Damsgaard og hjælpen til besættelsestidens ofre (After Sachsenhausen: Peder Damsgaard and the Aid to Victims of the Occupation)
 Fynske Årbøger (Funen Yearbook), 2025 (to be published December 2025), 20 pages

Vi sætter stearinlys i vinduerne den 4. maj, men få kender historien bag traditionen (We Place Candles in the Windows on 4 May, but Few Know the Story Behind the Tradition)
Information (05/05–24), 2024
Read the article here.

Når krigen er slut
(When the War Is Over)
Co-author: Henrik Lundtofte, 2024
Read the article here.

I nationens tjeneste? Gesandt Kruse i Stockholm under krigen (In the Service of the Nation? Envoy Kruse in Stockholm During the War)
Co-author: Jacob Vrist Nielsen, 2024
Read the article here.

Associate Professor Cecilie Bjerre and Postdoc Turið Nolsøe
2024-2026
 The Independent Research Fund Denmark, the Inge Lehmann Programme.

Project description

PAID explores the history of the Danish welfare state’s involvement in establishing paternity. By developing a unique theoretical framework that examines the interplay between scientific ideas, technology, lived experiences, and welfare state practices, this project provides valuable comparative insights into the techno-political evolution of paternity within the Kingdom of Denmark. It highlights the differences in paternity establishment practices across Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland and their varying implications for men, women, and children. The project seeks to uncover how scientific advancements were translated into welfare administration and legal frameworks. Establishing paternity has far-reaching consequences for those involved while also raising societal and political ethical dilemmas: Who gets to be recognized as a father, and who gets to have a father? The answers to these questions have changed over time, particularly with the emergence of new reproductive technologies. PAID addresses pressing historical and contemporary societal concerns that remain highly relevant today.

Publications

Bjerre, C. (2024). ‘Hvem er far til barnet? Det spørgsmål har altid skabt problemer.’ Videnskab.dk. https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/hvem-er-far-til-barnet-det-spoergsmaal-har-altid-skabt-problemer/

Professor Klaus Petersen and Associate Professor Cecilie Bjerre
2024-2029
The Velux Foundation

Project description

From the 1960s to the 1980s, Danish family life underwent dramatic changes. Women entered the labor market, gender roles were debated, marriage lost its traditional status, and children began attending public daycare in large numbers. This period marked nothing less than a family revolution.
Our project explores how these changes were experienced by individuals. Using an innovative model for collecting life stories, we will gather personal accounts from Danes who lived through this transformation.

Through Citizen Science, up to 3,000 high school students will participate in a special educational program to help collect around 1,000 life stories on the lived family revolution. These narratives will be analyzed using digital methods, allowing for new insights into how Danes experienced one of the most profound societal shifts in modern history.

Publications

Bjerre, C., & Petersen, K. (2024). ‘Vil du og din gymnasieklasse skrive ny Danmarkshistorie?’ Videnskab.dk. 

Bjerre, C., Haastrup, M. F., & Petersen, K. (2022). ‘Citizen Science in the Humanities: Implementing the Collaborative History Model (CHM) in the classroom.’ P o S - Proceedings of Science, 418, 1-7. 

Bjerre, C., & Petersen, K. (2022). ‘Vores Historie: Historisk forskning’. Fredericia Gymnasium: Årsskrift, 2021-2022, 64-66. 

Bjerre, C., Petersen, K., & Haastrup, M. F. (2022). ‘”Vores Historie” - Citizen Science i gymnasiet.’ Noter, 234, 55. 

Other

Vores historie

PhD Student Jesper Lund Jørstian
2023-2026
Part of the Maritime Research Platform at SDU, funded by Dampskibsselskabet Orients Fond

Project description

Shipping occupies a rather unique position in the contemporary history of Danish industrial politics. With the enactment of policies such as the Danish International Ship Register (DIS) in 1988, which allowed for tax free labour on larger merchant ships, and the tonnage tax law in 2002, which replaced the regular corporate tax law, Danish shipping companies today navigate within a more liberal domestic policy framework than many other industries do.

But how did these polices actually come about? And what broader implications did their implementation have for the practises of Danish maritime politics in the period? This project investigates how the Danish shipping policy framework was developed. It covers the political processes which led to the enactment of the above-mentioned polices, specifically, and deals more broadly with other topics, such as the emergence of the concept of ‘The blue Denmark’, environmental regulation and the rise of the offshore economy in shipping. Analytically, the project employs a transnational perspective, emphasising that both national and transnational actors played important roles in shaping policy debates in the period.  

Seminar

Studying Business Influence in Danish Politics (w. Christoph Ellersgaard and Jesper Lund Jørstian, 5 June 202 at SDU). Seminar: The Bermuda Triangle: A tax haven, Scandinavia and the EU in the invention of International Ship Registries in the 1980s (w. Jesper Lund Jørstian, 9 April 2025 at Dept. of Economic History, Uppsala University). 

Assistant Professor Gareth Millward and Postdoc Troels Skadhauge
2025 – 2028
DFF Project 1

Project description

In many European counties, people are complaining about their welfare states. For some, the state is too generous. For others, not enough support is being given to those who need it. Long-standing debates about our rights and responsibilities to the country and to each other play out in the newspapers, social media, and political campaigns. 

These complaints might reveal what people think is wrong with the welfare state. But perhaps just as importantly, they tell us a lot about what people think the welfare state ought to be.

This historical study shows what people complained about in the British and Danish welfare states since the 1960s. It shows how our concerns have changed over time, and how the way we have complained has also changed. By doing so, we can analyze the history of welfare and how citizens responded to it. The international comparison demonstrates how different countries reacted to perceived problems. The differences – and, indeed, the similarities – in complaining in traditionally “universalist” welfare state like Denmark versus a more “liberal” one like the UK will give a deeper understanding of European postwar welfare. Further, it will inform present-day debates by showing how complaints can be understood as expressions of what welfare could be, not just moaning about everything that is supposedly wrong “these days”.