Political Concepts and Theories of Parliamentarism in Greenland

Greenland today is seen as a parliamentary democracy with a government (Naalakkersuisut) and a parliament (Inatsisartut) consisting of members representing different political parties and elected in general elections every four years or when the government decides to call for an election. This paper asks when this political system was introduced, by whom it was introduced, why and how the process took place - that is for which purposes and interests, by which means and with reference to which concepts or theories of political regimes the struggle for parliamentary democracy was fought. Constitutionally, Greenland was colonized by Denmark-Norway from 1721 to 1814 and by Denmark from 1814 to 1953, an integrated part of Denmark as a province or county (Amt) from 1953 to 1979, a home rule (Hjemmestyre) from 1979 to 2009 and a self-government (Selvstyre) since 2009. Granted that parliamentary democracy presupposes an autonomous or semi-autonomous political entity, it only makes sense to suppose the introduction of parliamentary democracy with the home rule or self-government system. However, ideas of parliamentary democracy could have been expected to be part of political discourse before the introduction of home rule in 1979. However, this paper argues that the introduction of parliamentarism in Greenland took place after he introduction of home rule and with reference to contemporary political practices and without any prior conceptualizations in the otherwise thorough discussions in the Greenlandic-Danish Commission on home rule. So, apparently, the commission supposed that the form of governance in Greenland would be parallel to a Danish municipal council even after home rule was introduced, presumably, because the commission saw Greenland as a sub-state entity. Now, as independence from Denmark is on the Greenlandic agenda, a draft constitution is being prepared by a Greenlandic commission for Greenland as an independent nation-state. The paper will investigate how the future form of interrelations between Greenland and Denmark are conceptualised and whether both governmental and parliamentary relations are combined.