During today's Constitution Day celebration in Queen Margrethe and the Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt paid special tribute to the women who fought to achieve the right to vote 100 years ago. We watched both the Queen and Prime Minister's speech on the steps of Christiansborg. I was so struck by how little security we had to pass through to see the queen and prime minster. We were right next to the the two most important people in Denmark, yet all we had to endure was a quick pocket search by the police. If this was the United States, in order to see the President, we would have to go through multiple security checks and full body scans. For the Danish people, in their small country, the leaders are much more accessible and familiar to the people. In the United States, due to the sheer size of the nation, the vast majority of citizens have never had contact with the president. But in Denmark, these leaders are deeply entrenched with the people, so it is not uncommon to see them in public. This difference is categorized in culture by Hofstede as a high power distance in the US versus a low power distance in Demark.
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