Democracy Against Professionalisation of Leadership

This paper examines the 2024–2025 reform process concerning a new Parish Board Act in the National Church of Denmark (NCD) and asks whether competing understandings of democracy shape responses to the professionalisation of leadership in a hybrid religious organisation. The Memorandum defines professionalisation as a professionalising of personnel management, particularly with an increased focus on improving the work environment (Yde & Jessen, 2025). The study draws on two datasets: a 176-page reform proposal prepared by the NCD’s Steering Committee and a Memorandum summarising 526 hearing responses submitted by church stakeholders during July–August 2025. The findings show that democracy functions as a boundary object by providing a shared normative reference across stakeholder groups despite differences in their understanding of its organisational implications. Seven out of ten bishops, the Deans Association, and the church personnel unions generally support stronger leadership structures and professionalised personnel management, regarding democratic governance as compatible with clearer authority, professional competence, and the transfer of some managerial responsibilities, such as personnel responsibility and responsibility for the maintenance of the parsonage, to larger units, e.g. the local deanery. In contrast, some local parish boards expressed opposition to the proposal to transfer responsibilities to the deanery, arguing that democratic governance is closely tied to their own exercise of managerial responsibility and therefore resisted mandatory professionalisation and centralisation.