Eeva Luhtakallio

Quota trouble: Talking about gender quotas in finnish local politics

Abstract This article analyses the discourse concerning gender quotas and their implementation in Finnish local politics. Among our local actor interviewees, we found four different groups: feminist-oriented, non-feminist, accepting and disapproving. Despite the successful implementation of the quotas, our analysis reveals hidden conflicts and resistance. Respondents often resorted to memory lapses, strategies of distancing or assumptions about the interim character of quotas in an ‘almost gender equal Finland’ when discussing the implementation process. The predominance of these strategies is explained by contextual factors, including the strong cultural support for gender equality and legalism in Finland. We suggest that they can be interpreted as psychologized forms of resistance to a hegemonic discourse which does not really allow for anyone to be ‘against gender equality’ or wilfully negligent of the law.

Justifications Analysis: Understanding Moral Evaluations in Public Debates

This article introduces Justifications Analysis, a methodological approach for studying moral evaluations made in public debates. Established approaches to content analysis, most often building on the concept of framing, tend to overlook the moral dimension of public deliberation. We draw on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenots justification theory to present a typology of moral justifications, that is, ways of justifying arguments referring to varying understandings of the common good. We illustrate the use of the method through two case studies, one on the media debate on globalization and another on local political conflicts. We argue that this approach is particularly useful for understanding the differing degrees of institutionalization of moral categories and power relations within and across cultural contexts.

Contesting Gender Equality Politics in Finland: The Finns Party Effect

The Finns Party challenges the Finnish status quo on gender equality and creates a counter-trend to recent developments, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Firstly, the party is male-dominated: its conservative agenda mobilizes especially male voters, and inside the party men are more conservative and right wing. Secondly, the party’s equality discourse belittles gender discrimination and helps to conceal power structures that cause gender inequality. In this regard, the Finns Party represents a backlash to gender equality politics in Finland, and its electoral gains can be seen in part as the victories of a new wave of masculinist politics.

The Movement of the Unemployed in Finland

Unemployment became a major political issue in Finland in the late 1970s, and has kept this status ever since. The economic depression of the first half of the 1990s, however, hiked up the unemployment rate to figures unforeseen in the country’s history. Unemployment has thereafter been the number one driving force of one victorious presidential campaign (Martti Ahtisaari, 1994), and of one government program (Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, 1995). In terms of public opinion, polls have reported for more than a decade that the Finns consider unemployment one of their most critical social problems. The issue of unemployment has thus been on the agenda from the times of the depression to the current era, marked by simultaneous economic growth and structural changes in production resulting in closing down of factories and mass redundancies. Deepening polarization in terms of growing differences in income and wealth has gained importance in public debate over the past few years (e.g., Heiskala 2006). However, a massive social movement against unemployment has never become an important transforming force in the Finnish society, despite certain attempts of mobilization during the recession. In this chapter, we examine why this is so, and what are the forms of collective action the unemployed in Finland have taken on.

Up with ecology, down with economy? The consolidation of the idea of climate change mitigation in the global public sphere

Building on theories of valuation and evaluation, we develop an analytical framework that outlines six elements of the process of consolidation of an idea in the public sphere. We then use the framework to analyse the process of consolidation of the idea of climate change mitigation between 1997 and 2013, focusing on the interplay between ecological and economic evaluations. Our content analysis of 1274 articles in leading newspapers in five countries around the globe shows that (1) ecological arguments increase over time, (2) economic arguments decrease over time, (3) the visibility of environmental nongovernmental organizations as carriers of ecological ideas increases over time, (4) the visibility of business actors correspondingly decreases, (5) ecological ideas are increasingly adopted by political and business elites and (6) a compromise emerges between ecological and economic evaluations, in the form of the argument that climate change mitigation boosts, rather than hinders economic growth.

Being civic while disavowing politics: An ethnography of a youth NGO in Portugal

Civic and political participation are the vehicles through which citizens of democratic societies engage in the public sphere, identify and address matters of public concern, and monitor governments’ activities. While the civic and the political are often regarded as two sides of the same coin, that assertion deserves questioning in times of an expanding voluntary sector and shrinking participation in institutional and electoral politics. Based on an ethnographic study in a large volunteer organization in the north of Portugal, this article discusses the complexities of civic and political participation, namely whether it is possible to be civic without being political. The article shows how an emphasis in caring for the other and promoting volunteers’ personal development coexists with indifference regarding political issues, and how high levels of motivation and engagement concur with resolving (or smothering) conflict through a strong investment in affective bonds, rather than open discussion. Finally, the article examines the role of religion in creating collective identity and simultaneously legitimizing a depoliticized approach to social intervention, thus exploring the paradoxes and limitations that may lie in the way of wishing to change the world without engaging in politics.

Citizenship and Gender in Local Activism

The excerpts above illustrate the salience and power of expression of the notion of citizenship in understanding local civic practices. Talking about citizenship with local activists in Lyon and Helsinki quickly gave the impression that they framed both the notion, and the variety of features they connected to it, very differently and defined the entire question from differing standpoints. Julien’s confusion and reluctance before the notion literally summed up the predominant line of thinking among the French activists. Similarly, the rather optimistic and self-assured tone Henna used to talk about citizenship was typical of the Finnish activists. Where did this difference stem from?

Framing Democracy: Participation and Representation by Activists and Politicians

Recent political theory has placed much emphasis on the ideas of inclusion, deliberation and participation as answers to the problems of existing democracies (e.g. Fraser 1992; Benhabib 1996; Young 1996; 2000; Rosanvallon 2006, 2008). These ideas seem to trickle widely, in various forms, into legislation and policy (Bacque et al. 2005; Sintomer 2007; Blondiaux 2008). In both France and Finland, different participation practices and procedures have recently been introduced as remedies to the problems of representative democracy. Evaluations of practical endeavors to enhance civic involvement in decision-making indicate that citizens draw contradictory experiences from them, some empowering, but some nurturing the distrust between citizens and representative democracy (e.g. Niemi-Iilahti 1999; Carrel 2003, 2006; Rui 2004; Koebel 2006; Leino 2006; Talpin 2006; Backlund et al. 2006; Backlund 2007; see also Chapter 1 in this book). In this chapter, I put in parallel the ideas springing from current democracy theorizing with the ideas the local political actors put forward when they talked about democracy. The focus is on the perceptions and definitions of democracy of, first, the counter-democratic actors met in the previous chapters, and, secondly, the local politicians and administrators that held different positions of political power in Lyon and Helsinki.

A Sociological Travelogue

On a chilly day in May 2007, in a Helsinki city hall meeting room, two groups gathered to ponder issues of local democracy. One group was from Lyon and its surrounding areas in France, while the other was from the hosting city of Helsinki and its surrounding areas in Finland. The visit was initiated by the French group, which consisted of the leader of the Rhone-Alpes regional council, local councilors and leaders of party junctions from Lyon, members of the regional opposition, as well as members of different local associations, who wished to learn from experiences of local democracy abroad. The Finnish group had been chosen in order to respond to the request of the visitors in the best possible way, and included Helsinki city officials, Helsinki Urban Fact Center’s researchers (and one sociologist), and representatives of several associations, such as a the umbrella organization of Helsinki neighborhood associations. The introductions, however, showed that the first group consisted of French citizens — citizens and only citizens, one could say, as each participant repeated this status with care and emphasis. The Finnish participants, in contrast, introduced themselves as representatives of various organizations, and specified meticulously each of their affiliations.

Visual Frames of Representing the Local Society

In the previous two chapters, activists I met in Lyon and Helsinki shed light on the principles of belonging, co-operating, and contesting, as well as shared their ideas concerning citizenship, civic practices, and the ways in which gender figured in these practices. Although the activists talked about the surrounding institutions and political establishment, and their activities addressed and were performed on the local public spheres, the emphasis was hitherto on the activists’ points of view. In this chapter, I take a step further by including a wider range of actors and focusing on published visual representations. More exactly, this chapter is about the framings that visual representations portrayed of local contention on the one hand, and democratic governance and ‘the good life’ promoted by the city administrations, on the other.