Faroese self-government: development over time and effects of critical junctures

The Faroe Islands is receiving increased international attention due
to the political changes in the Arctic region. This is causing challenges for the Home Rule model and the Danish Realm. The Faroe
Islands have previous experiences with critical junctures that have
led to change in self-government settings. Based on historical
institutionalism, this article conducts a comparative case study of
two previous critical juncture events and time-periods for the Faroe
Islands. The first is the Second World War followed by the implementation of the new Home Rule model in 1948, and the second is
the severe economic crisis in the 1990s followed by path dependency institutional adaptations to the Home Rule model in 2005.
The investigation resembles a different-outcomes comparison and
focuses on identifying the contextual political factors of importance
and how these factors varied for the two cases. The findings show
shifts in the within-case political power balance in opposite directions, changes in the policy space, differences in the Danish state´s
position and third-party actor roles as well as differences in terms of
international salience of national self-determination norms.