Nordic workshop on democracyUniversity of Iceland 30-31 January 2014

 

Conflict and consensus in Finnish democracy

 Pauli Kettunen

Department of Political and Economic StudiesUniversity of Helsinkipauli.kettunen@helsinki.fi

Power and democracy as a research theme in Finland

research programme ”Democracy and Equality” in the 1970s (Academy of Finland)

research programme ”Power in Finland” 2007-2010 (Academy of Finland)

project on the history of the parliament of Finland (eduskunta/riksdagen), completed in 2006

integrating researchers in governmental ”democracy policy” since 2003

various problems of democracy and power in many different projects

historical and comparative interest in consensual corporatist traditions in small Western European countries (the EU funded Smallcons project 2003-2006)

democracy in ”the Nordic model” and the meanings of ”Nordic democracy”

Finland as one of the five exceptions of the Nordic model

image 1: a top example of consensual national competitiveness

image 2: a latecoming and incomplete representative of the Nordic society/the Nordic democracy/the Nordic model

the relationship between these two images?

ways of defining the national interest?

Pierre Rosanvallon and the tension between the unified political ”people” and the fragmented social ”people”

Frank Ankersmit and the distinction between consensus and compromise (cf. Arendt Lijphart’s distinction between consensus democracy and majoritarian democracy)

Nordic democracy: divergent interests and virtuous circles

the Nordic class compromises of the 1930s, reflecting class structures and the conclusions drawn from the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism in Europe

political coalitions of “workers and farmers” (Social Democrats and Agrarian Parties), and the consolidation of national systems of collective labour market agreement

positive-sum game between organised economic interests within a national society: workers and farmers, workers and employers

combining three ideological strands of Nordic modernization: the idealised heritage of the free Nordic peasant; the spirit of capitalism; the utopia of socialism

bridging “cleavages” à la Stein Rokkan

the post-World-War-II confidence in the virtuous circle of economic growth, increased social equality, and widening democracy, to be achieved by means of compromises and planning

a widely shared but all the time contested framework for political conflicts and compromises; the role of Social Democracy for the strength of this idea; in Finland much weaker than, especially, in Sweden

Nordic democracy: parity between labour market parties

the ideology of parity in European labour law since the 19th century

in the Nordic countries in the early 20th century modified by influential trade unions associated with reformist Socialist movements

Denmark the forerunner and Finland the latecomer in unionization and the development of the system of collective agreements

the consolidation of the systems of parity-based agreements between labour market parties as a part of the class compromises of the 1930s

an ingredient of ”Nordic democracy”

the recognition of conflicting interests, ”labour market parties” instead of ”social partners”

equality by reinforcing the weaker party in social relationships and by preventing the stronger party from presenting its interests as universal interests

the widening of the field of issues in which employers had to recognize the particular (instead of universal) character of their interests

the symmetry of labour market parties as a criteria of criticizing inequalities in working life

the Nordic understanding of ”industrial democracy”

Finland: a Nordic country with too much conflict and too much consensus

the image of a conflict-laden past: the Civil War of 1918; the strong support of Communism; the high level of strikes until the 1980s; unstable parliamentary system and short-lived governments until the 1980s

the image of a consensual past: the national unity during the Second World War, especially the Winter War; consensual coping with the tight limits of maneuvre during the Cold War; the power of wood processing export industries to present their interests as national interests

too much conflict and too much consensus – two sides of the sama coin

An ideal of consensus nourishing conflicts

state making and nation building in the Grand Duchy of Russian Emperor (1809-1917), former Eastern provinces of the Swedish Realm

Swedish law, Lutheran religion and the Hegelian idea of the state, nation-state within an imperial framework

conflicts on the right to define and represent the ”will of the people”

conflicts based on unfilled criteria of the nation as ”imagined community” (Benedict Anderson)

national integration creating preconditions for the politicizing of class conflicts

A strategy of social peace

strong labour movement in a very rural society at the beginning of the 20th century

universal suffrage 1906, independence 1917, the Civil War 1918, in the 1920s and 1930s democracy and the heritage of counter-revolutionary victory intertwined

the main strategy of ”social peace” after the Civil War of 1918: breaking the alliance of urban workers and rural landless population by land reforms, strengthening the class of freeholder peasants

the continuity of this strategy in dealing with the outcomes of the Second World War (in relocating the people of the Karelian territories ceded to the Soviet Union)

the strong role of the Agrarian Party (Centre Party) in Finnish politics

the number of small-size farms increased until the 1950s, livelihood based on linkage between agriculture and wood processing industries in Finnish modernization

the linkage was weakened through technological development, the change of socio-economic structures accelerated in the late 1950s and culminated in the 1960s

National agency: internal will and external necessities

the rise of consensual corporatism in Finland as an institution of war-time national efforts

continuities through the post-war political change and associated struggles on the definition of true national interest

compromises for rescuing the national interest rather than for defining it; the continuity of constitutional constraints against single majority decisions; the crucial role of civil servants in turning the compromises into functional necessities

the post-war national strategy of prosperity based on a high rate of investment and the sacrifices in the form of more moderate growth of consumption

social policies assessed from the point of view of the limits of economic resources

the emphasis on external national necessities also in virtuous-circle arguments for social policy as instrumental for economic growth, emerging in the 1960s

Pekka Kuusi 1961: In order to survive between the highly growth-opriented Sweden and the Soviet Union, ”we are doomed to grow”. --- “Democracy, social equalization and economic growth seem to be fortunately interrelated in modern society.”

Cleavages and national integration

four ”basic cleavages” distinguished by Erik Allardt in the early 1960s:

1) Finnish and Swedish-speaking Finns

2) rural and urban Finns

3) working class and bourgeoisie

4) the Communists and the rest of the people

the Durkheimian receipt for national integration: in a society of deepening division of labour the pressure of conformity must be weakened

incomes policies and the integration of communists/the split of the Communist Party

Work-related institutional characteristics of the “Nordic model”

dominance of wage-work/salaried work as a social form of work

high degree of female employment outside home

two-hold dependence of women on the welfare state: social preconditions for employment outside home (e.g. child care); jobs in the labour market with strong gender-segregation

the (far from unambiguous) principle of universalism (rights based on citizenship) in the organizing of welfare and education

high degree of unionisation among the employees (men as well as women, blue-collar as well as white-collar workers, public as well as private sector employees )

high degree of organisation among employers (and other interest groups), as well

hierarchical national system of collective labour market negotiations and agreements

tripartite cooperation between employees’ and employers’ organizations and the government on issues of economic and social policies (“neo-corporatism”)

thus a close connection between the formation of the welfare state and industrial relations

New ambiguities of the Nordic model

globalisation and increasing asymmetries

exit, voice, loyalty (Albert O. Hirschman 1970)

virtuous circles within a national society?

symmetries of labour market parties?

the recognised particularism of employers’ interests?

1) the notion of ”Nordic model” as a target of external challenges

2) the notion of ”Nordic model” as a response to external challenges

nation-state as competition state: the nation state providing a competitive environment for globally mobile economic actors

welfare state and competition state: two aspects of “the Nordic model”

Trade union density in OECD countries 2010

Institutional continuities and competitiveness-orientated consensus

no drastic change of institutional appearance the generalised interest of economy eroding the idea of employer

interests as limited particular interests

a shift from the principle of compromise towards the principle of consensus

compromise: common interest defined through the interplay between divergent interests

consensus: divergent interests adjusted to a pre-defined common interest

Finnish political traditions provided good prerequisites for this kind of incremental change

New problems of political legitimacy

until the 1980s, national political intergation as a major political problem, associated with the rivalry between different existing or imagined societal systems in the Cold War world

since the 1980, the emphasis of national competitiveness in the defining of national political agenda

new problems of political legitimacy, declined electoral participation, especially among the young; immigrants and integration

governmental democracy policies in the Nordic countries

the Finnish variant of democracy policy: Government Policy Programme Citizen Participation 2003-2007

citizenship associated with ”civil society”, seen as the major precondition of the legitimacy of representative democracy

”social cohesion”, ”social exclusion”, ”activation”

the promotion of citizen participation thematized as a way of reinforcing the national ”us”

The limits of national gaze

a new self-reinforcing circle: dealing with globalisation as just a national or a European challenge is bound to reinforce the imperatives of competitiveness in political agenda setting

alternatives to competitiveness nationalism: nostalgic welfare nationalism; xenophobic and racist right-wing nationalism; combinations of these two in Nordic populist parties

conclusions from current economic crisis: the logic of competition state (perhaps with protectionist ingredients)? opening space for inter- and transnational economic and social regulation – but what kind of regulation?

EU as a mediator of the imperatives of financial capitalism into national politics?

the multi-level problem of democratic legitimacy