Martin Klatt

(Un)Familiarity? Labor Related Cross-Border Mobility in Sønderjylland/Schleswig Since Denmark Joined the EC in 1973

Abstract This article presents an analysis of recent developments in labor-related mobility (cross-border commuting) in the Danish–German border region of Sønderjylland-Schleswig. The region had an integrated labor market, until todays German–Danish border was drawn in 1920, dividing the historic Duchy of Schleswig. Until Denmark joined the EC in 1973, the Danish–German border was practically closed to labor-related mobility. Since then, commuting remained at very low levels until the mid-2000s, even though unemployment figures north and south of the border developed unevenly, and two national minorities had strong social and cultural ties across the border. From about 2005–2008 there was a drastic increase in commuting from Germany to Denmark, while commuting in the other direction has remained at a very low level. Here, the article comes up with some explanations for this development using the concept of (Un)Familiarity as developed by Bas Spierings and Martin van der Velde.

Secondary foreign policy: Can local and regional cross-border cooperation function as a tool for peace-building and reconciliation?

ABSTRACT Studies on international relations increasingly focus on actors at the sub-state level. The terms para-diplomacy or proto-diplomacy are used to describe international activities of state institutions below the national level and outside the foreign services. In this special issue, we have collected seven case studies from Europe, North America and Asia, where the authors analyse recent developments of de- and re-bordering focusing on the role of non-central state actors with regard to cooperation, reconciliation and peace-building. The cases demonstrate the wide range of multi-level governance and personal interaction of cross-border regions, but also the persistence of the central state as a norm-setting actor of international relations. We suggest labelling these activities of local international relations secondary foreign policy, widening and précising the terms of para-diplomacy or proto-diplomacy used within Political Sciences to describe regional, non-central state activities in international relations.

Minority Schools Financing in the Danish-German Border Region

Th e day after the Pentecost weekend of 2010, the Conservative-liberal (CDUFDP) coalition government of the German federal state (Land) SchleswigHolstein announced that it planned to cut funding of the private Danish-language minority schools from 100% to 85% of the statistical average per pupil operating costs of the state’s public schools. Th is decision was one among several measures to stabilize the budget of debt-ridden Schleswig-Holstein. Th e same prime minister (Peter Harry Carstensen, CDU) had as head of a grand coalition government of the CDU and the social democrats (SPD) signed a school law for SchleswigHolstein characterizing the Danish minority schools, organizationally operated as private schools, to be the “minority’s public schools” and assuring them state funding on an equal level with the state’s public schools only three years earlier. Th e Danish minority and its political party, the South Schleswig Voters’ Association (Südschleswigscher Wählerverband, SSW), had strived for this status for several decades and were consequently upset by the budget cuts, which they perceived as discriminatory. Regional minority expert Jørgen Kühl considered these events to be evidence for a crisis of a hitherto praised model of minority–majority reconciliation.1 In this article, I will present the historic evolution of the models of minority schooling and its fi nancing in the German-Danish border region and put them in context with minority policy principles of minority protection and non-discrimination and demonstrate the sensitiveness of the school issue, but also how fi nancial resource confl icts infl uence the development of constructive minority policies. Th e article is divided into four sections. After introducing interna-

Minorities as secondary foreign policy agents in peace-building and reconciliation? The case of Denmark and Germany

ABSTRACT The border between Germany and Denmark is a result of the Versailles Peace Treaty implemented after the First World War. Drawn after a plebiscite in 1920, it was challenged until at least the 1950s by key actors within the respective national minorities on either side of the border and their nationalist supporters. Since the millennium, though, a narrative of reconciliation and cooperation has taken over, where national minorities’ institutions have taken in a central role of political bridge-building and de-bordering. The article will analyse the role of the German and Danish national minorities as secondary foreign policy agents in Danish–German relations in general and regional cross-border cooperation in particular. I argue that there is still a gap between rhetorics of involvement and factual governance, and that secondary foreign policy impact is heavily dependent on institutional capacity.

Borderlands in World History: 1700–1914

This edited volume comes with an all-encompassing title, Borderlands in World History, but it is definitely not a world history of borderlands that the editors have compiled. The book is an edited ...

The negotiation of national and regional identity during the Schleswig-plebiscite following the First World War

After the First World War, five plebiscites were held to delineate the borders of Germany, Denmark, reestablished Poland, Austria, Hungary and newly established Yugoslavia. The territories subjugated for the plebiscites were border territories, where national identification had not been clear during the nineteenth century. Here, we analyse the German and Danish plebiscite campaign in the Schleswig region on the basis of visual material used of both sides. The focus lies on the iconic use of national and regional symbols to create a certain type of national identification. In the Schleswig case, it is evident that both sides used concepts of Heimat and region and tried to apply them to their national projects. There was a stronger focus on regional identity in the German campaign, though. It used the regional, Schleswig–Holstein heritage and symbols of the regions 1848 revolt against the Danish kingdom, but clearly tied it to a national, German identification in contrast to the factual historic context of the plebiscite area being a cultural and linguistic border zone between the evolving Danish and German national sphere. Thus, the plebiscite functioned as the final nationalizing measure in a hitherto transnational and transcultural border zone.