The development of Greenland’s self-government and independence in the shadow of the unitary state

ABSTRACT

The article investigates whether the development of Greenland’s autonomy over the past 40 years can be fruitfully understood as a case of path dependency or, alternatively, as a series of changing equilibriums marked by critical junctures. The article addresses the following questions: 1) What were the drivers behind the establishment of Greenlandic home rule in 1979? 2) What were the drivers behind the establishment of Self Government in 2009? 3) What are the implications for today’s constitutional debate in Greenland? It is shown that the 1979 Greenland Home Rule Act followed from a critical juncture triggered by the Greenlandic ‘no’-vote on EU membership. The subsequent 2009 Greenland Self Government Act was, to a large extent, a consequence of endogenous change within a path dependency flowing from the Home Rule Act. The logic from home rule was carried over into self-government: the gradual transfer of policy areas to Greenlandic self-government when Greenland was willing and able to take over the policy areas. It is suggested that there is a potential tension between path dependency arising from the GSGA and intensified Greenlandic expressions of political identity which may challenge the GSGA logic, while there are still dynamics which pull towards the GSGA logic.

KEYWORDS:

• Greenland
• home rule
• self-government
• independence
• critical junctures
• path dependency

Introduction

Greenland has had political autonomy in some form for more than 40 years. Formally, it has been divided by the first 30 years of Home Rule and the present period of Self-Government. That Greenland has Self-Government and, before that Home Rule, is, at first glance, not easy to understand. After the Second World War, the UN stipulated that colonies, such as Greenland, should either become independent, offered so-called ‘free association’ or be integrated into the former colonial state. Denmark opted for the last solution in 1952 (after a very hasty consultation procedure with Greenland). This resulted in Greenland being integrated into the Kingdom of Denmark through the 1953 Danish constitution which stated in its first paragraph that ‘This Constitutional Act shall apply to all parts of the Kingdom of Denmark’. This was based on a unitary view of the Danish state which entailed that Greenland became an ordinary Danish county. Following this, a process of intense modernisation and ‘danification’ of Greenland was initiated by Copenhagen. This was expressed in the two Danish development plans for Greenland, G50 and G60. However, in what looked like a reversal of this danification process within a unitary state, Home Rule was introduced in Greenland in 1979 and later Self-Government in 2009. In this article, we attempt to understand this seeming reversal, which is puzzling given the context of the unitary Danish state and the danification policy towards Greenland. To do this, we explore the drivers of the development of Greenlandic autonomy within the unitary Danish state. We also address whether there is continuity or change between Home Rule and Self-Government and, if so, what the reason for this state of affairs is. In line with the general framework of this special issue, historical institutionalism (HI) is drawn on as a fruitful approach for addressing such questions with its focus on concepts such as critical junctures, path dependency and interests of political actors. HI has not been drawn on in analyses of Greenlandic autonomy in the existing literature; the article critically examines whether HI is helpful in analysis of a phenomenon in this geographical area with an indigenous population.

The article inquires into whether the development of Greenland’s autonomy over the 40 years can be fruitfully understood as a case of path dependency or a series of changing equilibriums marked by critical junctures. It also asks whether the drivers of this developments mainly emanate from within Greenland or whether Danish or broader concerns have also played a role. Given the dominant unitary set-up of the Danish state, our expectation would be that the drivers lie in Nuuk rather than Copenhagen. This is particularly interesting with regard to the introduction of Home Rule in 1979 and the change to Self-Government in 2009; accordingly, the article revolves around these two institutional changes and the regimes that followed from them. However, in the light of the findings of the first two issues, the paper also offers an interpretation of recent events such as the issuing of a Greenlandic draft constitution in 2023, the commission to examine Greenlandic-Danish historical relations and the increasing focus on a stronger Greenlandic profile in foreign and security policy.

On this background, the article asks the following questions: 1) What were the drivers behind the establishment of Greenlandic home rule in 1979? 2) What were the drivers behind the establishment of Self-Government in 2009? And 3) what are the implications for today’s constitutional debate in Greenland? We first present the main elements of historical institutionalism (HI) and then the basic dimensions of Greenlandic Self-Government, drawing on Trinn and Schulte’s dimensions for assessing regional autonomy.¹ In the main part of the article, we analyse the development of Greenland’s autonomy since the 1970s drawing on key concepts from HI. The last part of the paper links the development of GSGA to significant current events.

Theoretical considerations – historical institutionalism

The central explanatory model used in historical institutionalism is a dual model which assumes that institutional development is characterised by ‘long periods of path-dependent institutional stability and reproduction that are punctuated occasionally by brief phases of institutional flux – referred to as critical junctures – during which more dramatic change is possible’.² Thus, the basic idea is that the critical juncture that precedes the Greenlandic institutional development towards self-government is crucial for the ensuing character of the self-government institution. Once the institution is in place, the basic features of this institution are maintained until the next critical juncture challenges the institutional arrangement. In this sense, most politics takes place within a given institutional order. The institutional framework is laid out through choices made during (less frequent) critical junctures which precedes the institutional order. The institutions are understood as both formal institutions and informal rules and procedures.³

The institutional path dependency that is laid out by the political choices made during critical junctures is understood as ‘social processes that exhibit increasing returns’.⁴ ‘In an increasing returns process, the probability of further steps along the same path increases with each move down that path … this is because the relative benefits of the current activity compared with other possible options increase over time’.⁵ We will examine whether this kind of path dependency through positive feedback can be said to characterise the development of the Greenlandic self-government structures. Concerning the term critical juncture, we draw on the definition of Cappocia and Kelemen:

In the context of the study of path-dependent phenomena, we define critical juncture as relatively short periods of time during which there is a substantially heightened probability that agents’ choices will affect the outcome of interest.⁶

In political science, power is central for the outcome of the critical junctures. The focus is, therefore, on the role of influential actors such as policymakers (including political parties) and civil servants.⁷

Moreover, literature over the last decade has further specified the nature of a critical juncture. A critical juncture can be seen as consisting of both permissive elements (elements that undermine institutions, loosen the glue) and productive elements (conditions that shape the political outcome – the actual change).⁸ This distinction will be drawn on in the article.

Last, but not least, there is the important role of the context. According to Cappocia and Kelemen, the critical junctures are situations where the structural influences on policy, understood as economic, cultural, ideological and organisational influences, are relaxed for a relatively brief period.⁹ But relaxed does not mean that they are obliterated. So, the structural context is also the context for the political choices made during critical junctures. That means that the basic economic, cultural, ideological and organisational elements in Greenland and in the Danish-Greenland relationship within the Danish Realm are part of the context for the critical junctures which have to be taken into account in the analysis.

What has just been outlined are classical concepts in HI. While the assumption in the classical literature is that feed-back to institutions is positive (the key mechanism in path dependency), it has increasingly been argued in the literature that feedback can also be negative; institutions may obtain basic support, but there may also be elements of their workings which gradually erode their political and social support. Change can thus be both endogenous and incremental rather than (as in the old, punctuated equilibrium model) exogenous and sudden. In fact, from this perspective, all institutions can be seen as containing dynamic, endogenous sources of contestation.¹⁰ While the classical HI elements will be the point of departure in the analysis below, the new elements which challenge the dual model with its clear break between stasis during path dependency and dynamism during critical junctures will also be considered. The analysis will therefore also address the possibility of negative feedback undermining path dependency.

How autonomous is the Greenlandic self-government arrangement?

For Trinn and Schulte, the level of self-rule of a putative autonomous unit is measured by two dimensions 1) the scope of competences that a regional unit enjoys, and 2) the relative independence of regional institutions which determines whether competences can be put into practice.¹¹ In the following, we will use these two dimensions and their sub-dimensions to characterise the level of autonomy of Greenlandic self-rule. The focus here is on the state of affairs under the Greenland Self-Government Act of 2009. As far as competences are concerned, 17 policy areas were already taken over as a consequence of the 1979 Home Rule Act.¹² So far, three policy areas have been taken over under the 2009 Self-Government Act, making it 20 areas in total plus some supplementary areas. The Greenlandic Self-Government has responsibility for the following policy areas: central and local government affairs, taxation, The Greenlandic church, fisheries and hunting, conservation, landscape planning, competition law, social affairs, labour market regulation, culture and education, business affairs, health, housing, supply of goods, internal transport, protection of the environment, offshore environmental protection and mineral resources.

Appendices to the Greenland Self-Government Act list several functions where there is agreement that they can be transferred to Greenland authorities when Greenland wants to do so.¹³ Additionally, a number of functions, now administered by the Danish state, can be transferred to Greenland if an agreement can be reached after further negotiations between the government of Denmark and the Greenland Self-Government.¹⁴ When policy areas are transferred to Greenland, they must be financed by the Greenland Self-Government from the date of transfer.¹⁵

Finally, there are a number of policy issues that cannot be transferred to Greenland: Constitutional affairs, the Supreme Court, citizenship, monetary policy, defence and security policy, and foreign policy. However, Greenland Self-Government may act in international affairs in relation to Greenland within frameworks laid down according to Chapter 4 in GSGA.¹⁶

As far as fiscal competence is concerned, the Greenland self-government has the exclusive right to set and raise taxes in Greenland. However, the amount of tax raised in Greenland only covers approx. 50% of public expenditures. The rest is covered by an annual grant from the Danish state.

Concerning institutions, there is a directly elected assembly, Inatsisartut, which is elected at least every four years by the voters in Greenland. The executive, Naalakkersuisut, can dissolve the assembly. The executive comes from the governing majority in Inatsisartut. The executive, Naalakkersuisut, can be deposed through a vote of no confidence from the assembly. Thus, the regional institutions (assembly and executive) only gain legitimacy from the voters in Greenland.

Summing up in terms of the dimensions put forward by Trinn and Schulte, Greenland Self-Government scores very high on autonomy on the institutional dimensions. It also scores high on the scope of the policy areas taken over compared with many other self-governing territories. The same goes for the exclusive right to set and raise taxes. However, the heavy reliance on grants from the Danish government diminishes the de facto autonomy of the Greenland self-government. At the same time, the 2009 Greenland Self Government Act gave Greenland the de jure opportunity to become an independent state, and this increases its autonomy.

The development of Greenland self-government

Our analysis of how the present Greenland Self-Government arrangement has come into being takes its departure in the status of Greenland in the 1953 Danish constitution as a central context. This context, together with the outcome of a critical juncture in the 1970s and changes in the broader context in the noughties, have led to the two phases in Greenland’s Self-Government. We will first present the context, then argue that a critical juncture was present in the early 1970s the outcome of which was a particular institutional home rule model. We will then look at the background of the change to Self-Government in 2009 followed by an inquiry into whether the institutional developments post 2009 can still be understood as path dependent.

The context: Greenland in the wake of the Danish constitutions of 1953

Greenland’s status as a Danish colony that started in 1721 ended, formally, in 1953 with the adoption of the revised constitution of Denmark on 5 June 1953. Through the constitution, Greenland was de-colonised by integration into the Danish realm as a county,¹⁷ cf: ‘This Constitutional Act shall apply to all parts of the Kingdom of Denmark’ (The Danish Constitution 1953: §1), where ‘all parts’ meant Denmark, Faroe Islands and Greenland. The integration into the Danish realm was accompanied by a ‘danification’ process, with the aim that Greenland’s standard of living should be raised in accordance with the standard in Denmark. This should i.a. happen through a concentration of the population in the major towns, a focus on commercial fishing and a strengthening of the role of the Danish language in Greenland. As a correlate, there was a significant influx of Danes into public administration, building construction and teaching.¹⁸

From the late 1960s, there was an increasing feeling in Greenland that Greenland and the Greenlanders needed recognition of their cultural difference from Denmark and the Danes in the wake of the increasing ‘danification’ of Greenland. Demands for ‘Greenlandification’ of Greenland started to emerge.¹⁹ The emergence of civil rights movements globally was a significant context for this. However, two specific political decisions contributed to this feeling. First of all, the introduction of the so-called place of birth criterion in 1964 according to which the place of birth (Denmark or Greenland) determined the salary you received. If you were born in Denmark, the salary paid for the same job would be higher than if you were born in Greenland. Secondly, the closure of the Qullissat coal mine and town on Disko Island by the Danish parliament and the Greenland Provincial Council in 1968 on the grounds that the coal mine was judged to be uneconomical. The closure of a mine and a whole town by Danish authorities was seen as part of the danification process and generated demands for preserving or re-establishing Greenlandic identity and opposition against Danish authorities that were still seen as a ‘colonial power’; Greenlandic dissatisfaction with these decisions and other like these led to increasing demands for political autonomy in Greenland, furthered by an increasing Greenlandic identity.²⁰

The result of the referendum on the EC in 1972: a critical juncture

A referendum on joining the European Communities (the EC) was held in both Denmark and Greenland on 2 October 1972. The Faroese Home Rule government, established in 1948, had decided to stay outside the EC and the Faroese did not have a referendum, but as a Danish county Greenland could not decide so. Prior to the referendum, there was a debate in Greenland about the merits of joining, where many political actors were critical towards joining the EC. First of all, many argued that Greenland would lose control over its fishing stock (the same concern as the Faroese), but also many felt that membership would move decision-making further away from Greenland.²¹ The overall result of the referendum in the Kingdom of Denmark was 63,4% in favour and 36,6% against. In Greenland, the figures were almost the reverse: 71% against and 29% in favour. But Greenland would have to join the EC from 1 January 1973, because of the result in the Kingdom of Denmark even if a clear majority of 71% in Greenland had voted against.

The political developments in the aftermath of the EC referendum are widely understood in the literature as having played a central role in setting the scene for the establishment of the Greenlandic home rule government in 1979 as the EC vote has been seen as closely linked to the question of a more Greenlandic Greenland.²² On this background, the EC vote and its aftermath can be analytically considered a critical juncture as it is ‘a relatively short period of time during which there is a substantially heightened probability that agents’ choices will affect the outcome of interest’.²³ The outcome of the EC referendum can also be seen as an exogenous and sudden event, central to the concept of a critical juncture.²⁴

The result led to demands for more political autonomy in order for Greenland to be able to vote on Greenland’s membership of the EC in a new referendum. These demands can be seen as a permissive element in the critical juncture²⁵ - an element which challenged the unitary stance on foreign policy in the 1953 constitution for the Kingdom of Denmark – and thus loosened the glue of the constitutional order. The Greenland Provincial Council reacted by forming a Home Rule Committee consisting of Greenlandic politicians. The committee produced a report that was submitted to Danish authorities in February 1975 as an invitation to negotiations between the authorities of the two countries about the set-up of a future home rule arrangement.²⁶ The formation of the committee and submission of the report could thus be considered as productive elements in the critical juncture – elements that concretely framed and shaped the outcome. In 1975, the Danish government responded to the invitation from the Greenland Provincial Council and the sentiments in the Greenland public debate on the lack of equality between Greenlanders and Danes by setting up a Greenlandic-Danish Home Rule Commission consisting of seven Greenlandic and seven Danish politicians plus a Danish chair, professor of law Isi Foighel. The setting up of the Home Rule Commission was the next major productive element. The commission’s report was published in 1978 and a subsequent bill on Greenland Home Rule was adopted by near consensus in the Danish Parliament later the same year. The bill was accepted by voters in Greenland in a referendum in January 1979 with 70,1% voting in favour. The Greenland Home Rule Act entered into force on 1 May 1979.

The result of the negotiations in the Home Rule Commission (and the subsequent law which followed the report closely) reflected the political and economic power relations between Denmark and Greenland at the time but also political disagreements between the Greenlandic political party members of the Home Rule Commission (see below). At the same time, it was carried by a mutual understanding amongst all the participants that reforms in the relationship between Denmark and Greenland were due in important areas and that the home rule arrangement should be durable.²⁷ The basic idea was that Greenland would take over legislative and executive responsibilities for up to 17 policy areas which are mentioned in the law (see above). The transfer of policy areas would be accompanied by a grant from the Danish government, which would cover expenses equivalent to the expenses when the areas were administered by Denmark.

The outcome of the 1978 home rule act

Four areas in the outcome (the 1978 Home Rule Act) should be mentioned which could not have been foreseen, given the questions that were brought up in the wake of the critical juncture triggered off by the Greenlandic majority against joining the EC in the 1972 referendum. The Greenlandic Home Rule commission and the later Greenlandic-Danish Home Rule Commission laid down a path for Greenland Home Rule which was not pre-given: First of all, the form of Greenlandic political governance was largely left open in the discussions in the Home Rule Commission, since the decision on the form of government was meant to be left to the Greenland authorities themselves to decide. The Home Rule Law stated in article four that”the home rule authorities has the legislative and administrative competence for areas which have been transferred”. However, since Greenland was a part of the Danish realm, the implicit point of departure seemed to be a division of powers between the legislative (parliament), the executive (government) and the judicial powers (courts). The form of autonomy that was sought, in other words, seemed to be inspired by Nordic, European or Western political ideas rather than Inuit ideas, traditions and cultures, which might have been alternative sources of inspiration. This seeming schism was hardly discussed in the first Committee in 1973 consisting of Greenlanders only or, indeed, in the 1975 Home Rule Commission. This is not least remarkable given that, in 1977, Inuit representatives from Canada, the US, Russia and Greenland formed the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (later named Inuit Circumpolar Council or ICC) to strengthen cooperation among Inuit communities.

The 1978 Greenland Home Rule Act, in other words, did not lay out a form of governance resembling ‘our kins in the west’ (in the words of the Speaker of the first Greenlandic Parliament in 1979 when he received the law on behalf of the Greenlandic people). In particular, Nunavut has a predominantly consensus style of government in its legislative assembly that has important features consistent with Inuit values and approaches, for example, the absence of political parties.²⁸ There were few if any such features in the Greenland home rule arrangement which became based on proportional representation and coalition governments. Relating to this, Gad has pointed out that present day Greenlandic nationalism, rather than drawing on a transnational Inuit identity, primarily draws on a feeling of Greenlandic nationhood.²⁹ We propose the following interpretation of why the Inuit elements are not more prominent drawing on Gad: the Greenlandification in the 1970s (as well as the increasing sense of nationhood in the early noughties, as we shall see below) drew on an understanding of a special Greenlandic culture, language and indigenous identity.³⁰ The Greenlandic political discourse does articulate an Inuit identity element, but the Inuit element has a broader character, which is comparable to the way Norden (the Nordic countries) is understood in the Danish political discourse.³¹ Significantly, Greenland also articulates itself as part of Norden. The relatively Nordic or Western development of the Greenlandic political institutions after 1979 corresponds with a limited conceptualisation of specific Greenlandic political structures, and a broad affiliation with Norden combined with a perceived need for modernisation which belongs to a Western discourse. Thus, the broad affiliation with Inuit identity was crowded out and only played a limited role in the development of the Greenlandic political structures after 1979 (we will return to this below when dealing with the rise of Greenlandic nationalism in the noughties). Closely linked to these considerations, there may also have been an element of policy diffusion or emulation from the Faroese Home Rule law from 1948 (see the contribution from West in this issue); the Greenlandic Home Rule law and its subsequent development had very strong similarities with that of the Faroe Islands. The (at the time) 30-year-old Faroese Home Rule may have appeared as an obvious point of departure for another part of the Kingdom of Denmark pushing for more autonomy. Relating to the elements of Greenlandic national identity referred to by Gad, it is indicative of the point of reference for the Greenlandic home rule arrangement that this was found elsewhere within the Danish realm.

Secondly, the Home Rule Act referred to Greenland as a distinct ‘community of people’ (folkesamfund) within the Danish realm,³² the same term as in the Faroese 1948 home rule act. The Greenlanders were not referred to as a ‘people’ with a right to independence. While some Greenlandic parties such as IA wanted references to the right to independence, the majority focused on obtaining a clear expression of a Greenlandic political identity through the taking over of substantial policy areas from Copenhagen. For the majority of the Greenlandic parties at the time, it was about obtaining a distinctive Greenlandic identity within the Danish realm; full independence was not an expressed goal, even if this may have been seen as a long-term goal also for Siumut, the social democratic party in Greenland.³³

Thirdly, there were important limitations as far as Greenland’s right to decide over its own mineral resources was concerned. The Greenlandic representatives in the Home Rule Commission wanted clear formulations to the effect that Greenland had the exclusive right to its own mineral resources; however, this was not acceptable to the Danish government. At the end of the day, the influential Siumut party was willing to compromise on this point to clinch a deal on Greenlandic home rule. This meant that the formulations in the Home Rule Act on the rights of the Greenlandic population on this point only had a vague political (that is non-legal) character, and that decisions on Greenlandic mineral resources would, at the end of the day, be taken by the Danish Parliament.³⁴

Fourthly, decisions in the field of foreign policy with relevance for Greenland would be made by the Danish government – but in consultation with the government of Greenland (which should also inform the Danish government about measures taken with international implications). According to the Home Rule Act, the Greenland home rule government could be authorised to conduct international negotiations of special relevance for Greenland (articles 11–16), but an active Greenlandic engagement in foreign and security policy across the board cannot be said to have been anticipated in the Home Rule Law.

Developments since Greenland home rule in 1979 – path dependency or endogenous change?

In the following we will look at whether the developments of the Greenlandic home rule regime after 1979 have followed a path dependency in Pierson’s sense, according to which political actors increasingly invest in the path laid out from the decisions during the critical juncture.³⁵ If this were the case, the main characteristics of Greenland’s home rule would have remained until the Greenland Self-Government Act in 2009. The alternative thesis considered here is that the development after 1979 has been marked by endogenous and incremental change shaping the subsequent development of Greenlandic autonomy, rather than any significant path dependency.

Several elements can be seen as expressions of path dependency after 1979. First, considerable political energy amongst the political parties and the home rule governments was expended on the question of transfer to Greenland of the 17 listed policy areas in the Greenland Home Rule Act. Shortly after the introduction of Home Rule a number of areas were transferred such as church matters, culture, education and business matters, while other areas such as health and part of the controversial area of mineral resources were transferred later on. However, most areas listed had been transferred well before the Greenland Self-Government Act in 2009. In fact, several supplementary areas (according to a procedure allowed in the home rule act) had also been transferred.³⁶ During the first 15–20 years of home rule, the question of independence only played a minor role in Greenland’s political debates. The Greenlandic focus was on the transfer of policy areas.

Second, the lack of reference to other forms of governance than the European/Western one in the Home Rule Act is reflected in the way home rule governance was fleshed out. At the first meeting of the Home Rule parliament on 1 May 1979, the most senior member and former chair of the Provincial Council, Lars Chemnitz, held the inaugural speech. In his speech, he presented the achievement of Home Rule as a great advantage for conditions internally in Greenland, but also for relations with ‘our kins in the west’ (‘vore stammefrænder vestpå’).³⁷ However, this reference to the advantage concerning ‘our kins in the west’ did not play any concrete role in development of the political/administrative structures of Greenland home rule after 1979. The relation between parliament and government took shape during the first decade after the introduction of Home Rule. In 1979, the government could not act without the consent of the parliament on any policy questions. The first government after the establishment of Home Rule was elected by the parliament by simple majority vote, and the government acted on behalf of the parliament in all matters. Thus, the government was de facto an executive for the parliament – its function was to implement the decisions of the parliament. The governance system was a governing parliament rather than a parliamentary government.³⁸ In 1984, however, the rules of procedure of the parliament were changed in order to allow for a ‘vote of non-confidence’. Contemporary commentators saw this as an expression of genuine parliamentarianism. At the same time, the government also gained additional powers as it obtained the right to call a new election before the four years term has ended. From 1988, the parliament and the government no longer shared the same speaker or chairperson and, thus, a formal division between legislative and executive powers was established.

Thus, Greenland has come to share the same constitutional structures with a separation of powers into legislative and executive (and judicial) branches of governance institutions as many European states and regional autonomies. Greenland also shares a parliamentary system with proportional representation with the Nordic countries and many other European countries. During the first 10 years where the Greenlandic political system was taking shape, there had been no mention of the possibility of an Inuit-inspired political system in the political debates after Lars Chemnitz’s inaugural speech (the speech itself did not take up this theme). So also in this respect, there are strong elements of path dependency in the home rule regime. However, there were also developments that fitted path dependency less neatly. The increasing Greenlandic engagement in foreign policy, expressed, for example, in the 2003 Itilleq declaration and in the 2004 Igaliku agreement,³⁹ does not flow from the Home Rule Act and the discussions surrounding it (even if a wider scope for Greenlandic participation in foreign affairs was envisaged in the Home Rule Act). The 2005 Authorisation Act (fuldmagtslov) gave Greenland (and the Faroe Islands) the right to negotiate and enter into international agreements in areas that had been transferred to home rule. The act was a codification of a practice that had developed since 1979,⁴⁰ and as such it can be seen as an incremental change which does not follow the logic of controlled transfer of low politics areas from Home Rule Law. This (incremental) change challenges the path dependent transfer under home rule.

The self-government act of 2009 - a result of a new critical juncture?

It is hard to point to one single event which paved the way for a move from the Home Rule Act to the Self-Government Act in the same way as the development after the EC referendum in 1972 could be seen as a critical juncture leading to the Home Rule Act. However, during the 1990s, the question of full Greenlandic independence entered the political agenda in Greenland.⁴¹ The Greenlanders increasingly saw themselves as a people with a right to self-determination, which went further than the understanding of Greenlandification held by the majority of the Greenlandic parties in the Home Rule Commission in the 1970s. One interpretation is that the increasing transfer of policy areas to Greenland with Home Rule had in itself contributed to reinforce Greenlandic political identity and confidence; that Home Rule had become a platform for imagining full independence. Drawing on the terms of newer historical institutionalism, there had been endogenous development within Home Rule. At the same time, some felt that Home Rule had, in fact, not led to Greenlandification, as the Greenlandic authorities had relied too much on Danish administrative practice and a Danish work force,⁴² which could also be said to contribute to a push for a different arrangement (through negative feed-back). Also, the creation of many new states in Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall may have inspired Greenlandic wishes for independence just as it inspired independence movements elsewhere in the world. In the 1990s, most Greenlandic parties started to present Greenlandic independence in some form as a part of Greenlandic identity,⁴³ and this understanding was also reflected in opinion polls in Greenland.⁴⁴ These elements were an important background for Greenlandic wishes for a shift from Home Rule to Self-Government in the noughties. More concretely, the transfer of policy areas listed in the Home Rule Act had been completed about twenty years after the introduction of Home Rule.

In any case, in the early noughties, the leading political forces in Greenland felt that there was a need for a revision of Greenland’s legal/political position within the Community of the Realm.⁴⁵ Even if there were no distinct event (= critical juncture) triggering a break with Home Rule, the feeling of a need for a revision can be seen as a permissive condition for a change in HI terms. The process which followed resembled the process leading to home rule in the 1970s. As the first productive step, the Greenlandic parliament set up a Self-Government Commission in 2000 with the aim of examining the possibilities for Greenland’s independence within the Community of the Realm.⁴⁶ As a second productive step, the Commission drafted a ‘partnership contract’ between Greenland and Denmark in 2003. The term ‘partnership’ was chosen to signify that the two parties were equal, and that Greenland was a country with a right to self-determination; Greenland ought to be recognised as a people with a right to independence and Greenland should have the right to enter into agreements with other states. Greenlandic should be the official language in Greenland, and Greenland should de facto, if not de jure, have the right to decide on the extraction of mineral resources in Greenland. As the third productive step, and a reaction to the Greenlandic measures and demands, the Danish government set up the Danish-Greenlandic Self-Government Commission in 2004 which put forward draft legislation for Self-Government in 2008. The Greenlandic preferences on the principles had largely been accommodated in the draft. Greenlandic was recognised as the official language and the act used Greenlandic terms for Greenlandic political institutions. It was stressed that ‘decisions about the independence of Greenland are taken by the Greenlandic people’. However, foreign policy questions remained the domain of the government in Copenhagen with reference to the Danish Constitution, even if references to the Itilleq Declaration and the Authorisation Law were incorporated in a special section on foreign policy.⁴⁷

What was the background for the accommodating stance of the Danish government and parliament? Keeping Greenland within the Realm, not least given the increasing Greenlandic feeling of being a people on the way to independence, may have been a motivation. The increasing political and economic importance of the Arctic added to these reasons for keeping Greenland within the realm. But as it has also been noted by Jensen and Heinrich that there has been general support for the Greenlandic wishes from the Danish government, the political parties and the Danish population for both Home Rule, Self-Government and the increased engagement in foreign policy and a general trust in the Greenlandic population and politicians.⁴⁸ Greenland had, to a large extent, been able to set the agenda for the institutional development of Self-Government.

The main changes from home rule to self-government were, first of all, the recognition of Greenlanders as a people with a right to more self-determination or independence if they so desired (after a procedure prescribed in the law). This was a significant change from being presented as a distinct community of people within the Danish realm. It was also a major change of track from the incorporation of Greenland into the Danish state in 1953 as an answer to the request from the UN for decolonisation after the Second World War. Second, the policy area of mineral resources, which had been a subject of controversy between Danish and Greenland authorities since the Home Rule arrangement, were transferred to Greenland Self-Government on 1 January 2010. Apart from being a Danish concession to long-standing demands from Greenland, this was also seen as a possible way of financing the further transfer of policy areas and development of political autonomy in Greenland. The mineral resource issue had been one of the reasons that one of the political parties in the Danish parliament, the Danish People’s Party, has voted against the GSGA. However, since the introduction of the GSGA, the issue has not been contested between the Greenlandic and Danish governments (after the so-called Uranium case in 2013, see below). From the Greenlandic point of view, the two above points were related since Greenlandic competence in the field of mineral resources was linked to being a people with a right to self-determination. Third, the mechanism of transfer of policy areas was extended to new areas. The GSGA listed five policy areas that could be transferred to Greenland without further negotiations with the government of Denmark when Greenland wants to – and wants to pay for the expenses connected to administering the policy areas in question. The GSGA also listed 28 policy areas that could be transferred to Greenland after negotiation with ‘the central authorities of the Realm’.⁴⁹

Interestingly, the references to the Greenlanders as a people in GSGA were not accompanied by references to other peoples or identities such as, for example, Inuit. Neither was there any reference to non-Western government models. In this sense, there is continuity from the Home Rule Act. Moreover, the fundamental model of Greenlandification in Greenland Home Rule is reproduced in GSGA: it is about the gradual transfer of policy areas when Greenland wants and is ready for it (which includes economically ready as transfers will no longer be followed by a corresponding transfer of funds from Copenhagen). In this sense, the GSGA can be seen as path dependent on the home rule arrangement. An alternative could have been a massive transfer of policy areas straight away, but that was not up for discussion during the negotiations. Neither was an imminent referendum on Greenland’s independence. The approach in GSGA is gradualist with independence as a possible but not a necessary end goal. From a HI perspective, we suggest that this may be linked to the political investments the Greenlandic political parties and governments had made in the gradual model for transfer of policy areas under home rule. There were and are few political actors who wanted Greenlandic independence immediately. For the majority, a break with the gradual approach was seen as risky. The gradualist approach allowed any future transfer policy areas to be adapted to the economic means available.

This 2009 outcome was based on the (competing) Greenlandic political discourses in the noughties. It was a shared understanding amongst the political parties that Greenland should become an independent political entity. As Greenland’s right to decide on its own independence was recognised, it can be argued that a central official aim of the 2009 Act was to make Greenland and Denmark equal. There was also agreement that recognition of equality for Greenland both required self-government and self-support – where self- support meant being able to maintain a Greenlandic welfare society by its own economic means. But one party, Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) felt at the time that self-government was the foundation for developing self-support, whereas other political parties (e.g. Demokraatiit) argued that self-support was the base for self-government. Siumut, the largest party in Parliament at the time, sought to combine the two without prioritising one over the other.⁵⁰ Siumut’s (middle) preference seemed to have gained the upper hand in the Commissions in the noughties and this can be seen as the direct reason why the basic logic of transfer of policy areas when Greenland was ready was carried over from home rule. Greenland would, in other words, continue its development towards self-government/independence through (economic) support from Denmark. Thus, the path dependency chosen also flowed from power relations amongst the Greenlandic political parties.

To sum up, rather than one specific event, it was changes in Greenlandic political identity which provided the background for a revision of Home Rule in the noughties. Also, the areas specified under Home Rule had been taken over by then. Even if the GSGA of 2009 contained the recognition of the Greenlanders as a people with the right to their own mineral resources, there was also a basic continuity or path dependency in the form of governance. This may have been an expression of the investment of the Greenlandic political parties in Home Rule structures. At the same time, it was also an expression of power relations between the political parties in the noughties.

Developments since the Greenland self-government act of 2009 – path dependency stemming from home rule?

How can we characterise the development of Greenland’s Self-Government after 2009? Has it followed the path dependence laid out from the GSGA – a gradual transfer of policy areas? Or have there been slow but important incremental changes which have gone beyond path dependency? Or has the inclusion of Greenland’s right to self-determination/independence in GSGA led to a break with the path dependency laid out?

The transfer of policy areas to Greenland has continued since 2009, but at a much-reduced level compared with the Home Rule period. Since 2009, Greenland has only taken over two new areas: mineral resources and work environment offshore.⁵¹ The Greenlandic debate about whether and when Greenland is administratively and economically ready to take over new policy areas is ongoing and a central element in the debate is Greenland’s economy and potential independence. It is difficult for Greenland to take over more areas without generating faster economic growth in Greenland, and, at the time of writing, the transfer of areas seems to have stalled. Somewhat contrary to the transfer of policy areas to Greenland, a number of unresolved cases of child abuse, particularly in East Greenland, resulted in the allocation of extra Danish funding to Greenland in 2019 and to the deployment of Danish social workers to Greenland. The transfer of the mineral resource area to Greenland in 2010 sparked controversies between Greenland and Denmark about Denmark’s right to control the extraction of so-called strategic minerals (uranium was the case in point in 2013) for security reasons, which was settled with an agreement that Greenland could decide whether to produce uranium, while the Danish government could decide whether to export it. So, there are elements of path dependency even if the actual takeover of policy areas has only advanced very slowly. There is also path dependency in the sense that the logic in the political discussions revolves around whether and when Greenland is economically able to take over more policy areas. In this sense, the political parties provide support to the system, reinforcing path dependency. However, the offer of President Trump to buy Greenland in 2019 opened for reactions from some Greenlandic politicians from Siumut and Naleraq that challenged path dependency. Rather than adamantly rejecting the offer, they saw the American interest in Greenland as a way of boosting Greenland’s economy and reducing economic dependence on Denmark. Such a situation of greater self-support may open up for a fundamental reshuffling of the relationship to Denmark.⁵² One option that was discussed was the possibility of ‘free association’. Originally suggested by the UN in the early 1950s as an option for former colonies after independence, free association implies a close relationship to another state whereby the other state carries out several traditional state functions on behalf of the former colony (e.g. foreign policy, defence policy or monetary policy). While Denmark might prima facie appear as the state with which Greenland would engage in free association, it would involve a wholly new framework for the relationship.

There have been no concrete suggestions from the governments under GSGA for a referendum on Greenlandic independence. At the same time, several initiatives from the Greenlandic governments have been aimed at enhancing political autonomy of Greenland and strengthening Greenland’s political identity in ways that were not laid out in GSGA. Some of these have been very controversial in Greenlandic public debate. They may also potentially qualify as critical junctures, but we argue that they have not amounted to the level of critical junctures as they have not challenged the basic model of policy transfers in the GSGA or, indeed, given rise to a revision of GSGA. One key initiative by the government of Greenland was the establishment of a reconciliation committee in 2014. Reconciliation was seen as a step towards understanding the past and taking responsibility for the present to create a future independent Greenland.⁵³ However, the Danish government had refused to take part in the commission.⁵⁴ The Committee report which came out in 2017 (which was particularly critical of the Danish policy towards Greenland between 1953 and 1979), did therefore not form the basis of new negotiations about the link between Denmark and Greenland.⁵⁵

Another key initiative was the demand made by the Greenlandic government in June 2022 for a commission to be set up on Denmark’s historical relationship to Greenland. This time the Danish government agreed to participate.⁵⁶ A third initiative was the establishment, in 2017, of a Constitutional Commission consisting of members appointed by the political parties in the Greenland Parliament and with the remit of drafting a constitution for a future ‘independent, sovereign Greenlandic state’.⁵⁷ The Danish government warned the Greenlandic premier at the so-called Rigsmøde (meeting between the Danish prime minister, the Faroese Lagmand and the Greenlandic chair of Naalakkersuisut) in 2018 that such a constitution would have to be reconcilable with the Danish constitution – otherwise Greenland could quickly lose its subsidy from the Danish state.⁵⁸ Eventually, on 28 April 2023, the draft constitution was presented to the public. Now, the draft constitution is meant to serve as a basis for discussions at public meetings throughout Greenland organised by the Greenlandic Self-Government.⁵⁹

In addition, since 2009, the Greenlandic (and Faroese) governments have also increasingly demanded to be consulted on foreign and security issues. Within the last 2–3 years, this has amounted to a sharp critique of the Danish government for ignoring Greenlandic views. As a way of addressing the critique, a permanent consultative structure on foreign and security policy – the Contact Committee – was set up in 2021 between the three parts of the Kingdom of Denmark.

If there is a path dependency laid out in the GSGA it is something like the following: Greenland and the Greenlanders are recognised as a people with a right to self-determination and can decide to become independent at any time. At the same time, there is a possibility for Greenland to take over a considerable number of policy areas to be legislated for and administered by Greenland after consultations with Copenhagen in the same way as during Home Rule. However, the transfer of new policy areas will also mean that Greenland will have to take financial responsibility for these areas. If and when Greenland can take over these remaining areas, the primary question of Greenlandic independence becomes relevant in a different way. GSGA therefore lays out a sequential path: the transfer of policy areas and only then a stance on a possible transition to independence.

The policy development after 2009 has only seen the Greenlandic takeover of one significant area during nearly 15 years of Self-Government: the administration of mineral resources. A substantial part of the Greenlandic political debate has been about how to generate more income so that Greenland can take over more areas from Denmark and potentially become independent. This is reflected in opinion polls which show that nearly half of the population only wants to become independent if the living standard is not adversely affected.⁶⁰ From that point of view, the political debate in Greenland can be seen to revolve around the path dependency laid out by the GSGA, even if a very limited number of new areas have been taken over. At the same time, there are prominent examples of Greenlandic political initiatives which from the perspective of the path dependency laid out in GSGA put the cart before the horse. The significant number of initiatives aimed at increasing political autonomy and strengthening Greenland´s political identity sits uneasily with the path dependency logic of transfer of policy areas, which has hardly moved. From the point of view of classical HI, then, one would have expected that the political autonomy/identity elements would only pop up once the process of transfer of policy areas had been completed – when the path had, metaphorically speaking, come to an end. So, the path dependency of classical HI is not helpful to understand this. However, in newer HI terms, the focus on moves such as a draft constitution can be seen as an endogenous change within path dependency that entails a further strengthening of Greenlandic political identity. It may also be seen as negative feed-back to path dependency in the GSGA as it puts politics before economics and significantly modifies the GSGA logic. For some Greenlandic political actors, there is an alternative to the path to independence as laid out in GSGA: through ‘free association’ with another state, most likely Denmark, an independent Greenland with its own constitution could obtain the economic support it needed through a suitable agreement with a larger state. This logic would, of course, lead to a break with GSGA logic and a new critical juncture.

The question is which of the above paths will gain the upper hand in the years to come. The increased expressions of political autonomy can be seen as politically necessary expressions of the broad long-term support for independence in a Greenlandic political context (and part of the stride towards equal status with Denmark) at a time where this is not economically possible. Significantly, in the wake of the report from the constitutional committee, the leader of the Siumut Party has stressed the need to resume the strategy of taking over more and more policy areas from Denmark and, eventually, become an independent state.⁶¹ This echoes the GSGA logic.

Concluding remarks

The article has raised the following questions: 1) What were the drivers behind the establishment of Greenlandic home rule in 1979? 2) What were the drivers behind the establishment of Self-Government in 2009? and 3) what are the implications for today’s constitutional debate in Greenland? It has drawn on historical institutionalism as a theoretical framework.

On the first question, we have shown that the 1979 Home Rule Act followed from a critical juncture triggered by the EC membership of Denmark which included Greenland despite the Greenlandic ‘no’-vote on EC membership. The subsequent 2009 Greenland Self-Government Act was, to a large extent, a consequence of endogenous change within the path dependency stemming from the Home Rule Act. Central here was the growth of a stronger Greenlandic political identity which led to demands for recognition of Greenlanders as a people with a right to self-determination. However, the logic from home rule was carried over into GSGA: the gradual transfer of policy areas to Greenland self-government when Greenland was willing and able to take over the policy areas. The last part of the article links the development of GSGA to significant current events. It is suggested that there a potential tension between the path dependency arising from the GSGA and intensified Greenlandic expressions of political identity which might challenge the GSGA logic. Most important of these are the setting up of the constitutional committee but also the increased attempts to raise the autonomous profile on foreign policy. These may be seen as elements which are aimed at further strengthening the Greenlandic political identity while still following the path dependency of home rule – our interpretation in this article which is, we think, supported by evidence. But they may also be seen as challenges to this same path dependency.

The overall assessment of the use of HI to understand the development of Greenland’s Self- Government is that the theoretical concepts in classical HI have been useful for explaining the making and path dependency of Greenlandic home rule – and the central path laid out in GSGA. HI has led to a thematisation of the continuity and change between the two institutional regimes of Greenland’s autonomy through path dependency including the political actors’ investment in the two regimes. It has been analytically fruitful in providing a lens for highlighting how political actors follow a long-standing processual logic in their endeavours, even if they also articulate broader goals. At first glance, it may appear obvious that political actors follow the formal rules in the political system in which they are embedded. But the HI perspective has pointed to how many Greenlandic political actors follow and argue according to the GSGA logic even when broader political visions are presented. Also, if there are political disagreements on issues such as free association and desirability of a constitution, the political actors seem to fall back on the GSGA logic. However, HI has been less conceptually helpful for analysing the significant role of changing Greenlandic identities over the period examined. HI has allowed us to analyse changing identities as endogenous change within path dependency. While this has certainly been possible with HI’s own terms, the question is whether an approach which focuses more on identity formation (such as discourse analysis) could have been a more fruitful avenue to analyse given the major changes in Greenlandic political identity. But that would have been a different theoretical approach which would have downplayed the institutional/political logic which is central to HI and this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Trinn and Schulte, “Untangling territorial self-governance.”

² Cappocia and Kelemen, “Study of Critical Junctures,” 341.

³ Thelen and Steinmo, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” 2.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Cappocia and Kelemen, “Study of Critical Junctures,“ 348.

⁷ Cappocia and Kelemen, “Study of Critical Junctures,” 353–54.

⁸ Pollack, “Rational Choice and Historical Institutionalism,” 112.

⁹ Cappocia and Kelemen, “Study of Critical Junctures,” 343.

¹⁰ Pollack, “Rational Choice and Historical Institutionalism,” 112–113.

¹¹ Trinn and Schulte, “Untangling territorial self-governance,” 10.

¹² Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 379.

^13. GSGA, List I.

¹⁴ GSGA, List II.

¹⁵ GSGA, Section 6.

¹⁶ GSGA, Section 11–16.

¹⁷ Beukel, Jensen and Rytter, “Phasing out the Colonial Status.”

¹⁸ Jensen, “Nyordning og modernisering,” 320–355.

¹⁹ Jensen, “Nyordning og modernisering,” 355–357.

²⁰ Christiansen, “Kajs Grønlandskrønike,” 53–56.

²¹ Jensen, “Nyordning og modernisering,” 361.

²² See for example Jensen, “Nyordning og modernisering,” 361–365.

²³ Cappocia and Kelemen, “Study of Critical Junctures.”

²⁴ Pollack, “Rational Choice and Historical Institutionalism,” 111.

²⁵ Pollack, “Rational Choice and Historical Institutionalism,” 112.

²⁶ Johansen, “Udviklingen af et grønlandsk hjemmestyre,” 9.

²⁷ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 370–371.

²⁸ White, Traditional Aboriginal Values in a Westminster Parliament; and Wilson, Nunavik and Inuit Governance; see also article by Papillon and Rodon in this special issue.

²⁹ Gad, “National Identity Politics.”

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ White, “Traditional Aboriginal Values in a Westminster Parliament;” and Wilson, “Nunavik and Inuit Governance;” see also article by Papillon and Rodon in this special issue.

³² GHRA, Section 1.

³³ Jensen, “Nyordning og modernisering,” 368; Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 417.

³⁴ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 370.

³⁵ Pierson, “Increasing Returns.”

³⁶ Statsministeriet, “Oversigt over sagsområder.”

³⁷ See Grønlands Landstingsforhandlinger, Forårssamling, 2; also, Atuagagdliutit/Grønlandsposten, 6.

³⁸ Ihalainen, Ilie and Palonen, Parliaments as a Conceptual Nexus; and Jakobsen and Kurunmäki, “The Formation of Parliamentarism.”

³⁹ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 390–397.

⁴⁰ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 391.

⁴¹ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 417.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ Gad, “National Identity Politics,” Chap. 3.

⁴⁴ Skydsbjerg, “Selvstændighed.”

⁴⁵ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 410.

⁴⁶ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 410–417; also Gad, “National Identity Politics,” 55–60.

⁴⁷ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 410–417.

⁴⁸ Jensen and Heinrich, “Fra hjemmestyre til selvstyre,” 409–410.

⁴⁹ GSGA, List II.

⁵⁰ Gad, “National Identity Politics,” 55–58

⁵¹ Statsministeriet, “Oversigt over sagsområder.”

⁵² Breum, “Grønland og den amerikanske forbindelse.”

⁵³ Andersen, “Lessons from the Greenlandic Reconciliation.”

⁵⁴ Henrich, “Forsoningskommissionen.”

⁵⁵ Andersen, “Lessons from the Greenlandic Reconciliation.”

^56. Ólafson, “Vi skal turde at se ind i vores histoire.”

^57. Lindstrøm, “Forfatningskommissionens arbejde.”

⁵⁸ Breum, “Hvis Grønland river sig løs.”

⁵⁹ Tunngavik, Inatsit Tunngaviusussaq pillugu isumalioqatigiissita isumaliutissiissutaat, 20

⁶⁰ Skydsbjerg, “Stort flertal for selvstændighed.”

⁶¹ Berthelsen, “Selvstyreloven og hjemtagelse af ansvarsområder.”