ABSTRACT
This chapter studies how the relationship between democracy, citizenship and solidarity from the Danish constitution in 1849 till today had consequences for contemporary and future avenues of societal organization. Through a relational processual analytical lens of gift-giving’s reciprocity, to where a gift is given, received and reciprocated, specific attention is given to “the authorship” of the first gift. The first gift has the potential to initiate and create new rules of reciprocity and forms of relations in society and can potentially create new lines of differences in the societal organization. The rules and relations ascribed to the first gift most often re-frame, re-join and replace older lines of differences and relations into new constellations in order to gain legitimacy. This chapter shows how the battle of authorship takes place between the growing welfare state and philanthropic and voluntary organizations, simultaneously cementing their differences and enlarging their partnership. A dual movement, which by its encoding of past lines of differences over time has currently provided possibilities for both civil society as a “social fact” and a “civil” welfare state.
