For more than two decades, all Danish governments were minority governments. Seven out of thirteen minority cabinets in the period from October 1971 to January 1993 – the period under scrutinity here – consisted of one party only, while six were minority coalition governments.

If we count the months these governments were in office, we get an almost identical picture: 47 per cent of the months saw a single-party minority government and 53 per cent a minority coalition government. During these many years, Denmark could be seen as a polity where both kinds of minority governments did occur to almost the same degree, the single-party variant being dominant during the 1970s and minority coalitions during the 1980s. The four-party majority coalition installed in January 1993 commanded only 50.3 per cent of the seats in parliament, and this only was a temporary deviation from the dominant pattern.

Thus, Denmark is obviously a case in point when Kaare Strøm challenges the conventional political science view of minority government and the formation of such governments. One of Strøm's conclusions in his book on minority government and majority rule reads: