Speaking through Petitions: Peasant Farmers in the Nascent Democracy, Denmark 1830s

Abstract

This article investigates the first generation of peasant farmers elected to modern representative assemblies in Denmark. I argue that the contributions of the first peasant farmer politicians are an important but overlooked part of the history of democratisation in Denmark. The peasant farmer members were uneducated and unable to speak in a way considered suitable for parliament. For that reason, they were deemed unfit for political participation by their contemporaries and have been similarly judged in most of the existing literature. The peasant farmer members were not as timidly passive as they have been described. Instead of speaking, they used petitions to gain a voice in parliament. The farmer members thus introduced petitioning as a form of political participation in parliamentary politics, a practice that remains central to popular politics today. The actions of the peasant farmer politicians challenged the existing boundaries of what was considered appropriate political practice and thereby expanded the repertoire of forms of political participation available to the uneducated majority of the population.