| Adopting a post-structuralist perspective and focusing on a segment of public debate prior to the September 2000 referendum in Denmark on the introduction of the common European currency, five different conceptions of democracy are identified, but a hegemonic discourse is seen to prevail across these conceptions. This discourse contains knowledge of democracy as a community of one homogeneous, solidaristic people and of the existence of one homogeneous and solidaristic Danish people. It is ethno-nationalist in so far as it implies common and unifying traits which serve as boundary markers. It points to certain limits as regards relations between 'Denmark', 'Europe' and 'democracy'. For so long as predominant conceptions of democracy all rest upon knowledge of one homogeneous people, and as long as 'we all know' that there is no homogeneous European people, a conflict will remain between 'Europe' and 'democracy' in Danish debates. |