ABSTRACT
Research on Danish national identity formation has, as in other Western societies, focused on national identity evolution as a largely domestic process. Furthermore, there was a paradox in the relationship between the Danish welfare society as an export role model on the one side, and the account of the rise of welfare as an exclusively domestic process on the other, premised on a national racialised immaculateness. The peaceful demise of the Danish empire was not the result of a Denmark that was more insightful or humanitarian than the other European colonial powers. The modernisation programme was orchestrated by Danish politicians and top civil servants, so it wasn't caused by the nation rising to the occasion. International aid and sovereignty over Greenland, in particular Thule, provides the key to the initial Danish rehabilitation of its international image. The Danish international aid quickly became associated with the pursuit of more local national interests.
