Recession improves the image of politics

Professor Ilkka Ruostetsaari thinks that the Finns have an ambiguous and contradictory relationship with democracy. The citizens trust the system of government but they are passive and do not believe they can make a difference.

The influence of the parliament in Finland has grown in the minds of both the elite and the citizens although researchers estimate that national parliaments have lost power because of globalisation and European integration.

Professor Ilkka Ruostetsaari is surprised with these results from his own elite study. It seems that the parliament is perceived as having more influence especially at times of economic crisis.

– Maybe this has to do with the fact that in the publicity the political institutions appear to the citizens as more significant actors than before.

Is it an illusion?

– To my mind it is a somewhat biased view, but what makes it noteworthy is that this is also what the elites think, and the elites are involved in decision-making. Maybe some of it is a sort of idealism, so to speak. People want to begin with the starting point that the parliament should have a lot of power.

Ilkka Ruostetsaari, who has researched elites and power structures, was appointed professor of political science at the University of Tampere after first working as professor in fixed-term contracts at both the Universities of Tampere and Turku for 11 years.

Less power but more image

The researchers’ view is that governments have gained power at the expense of parliaments. In the political parties, power is concentrated on the chairpersons and a part of the legislative power has been lost to the EU.

The citizens and the elites think differently. Ilkka Ruostetsaari has researched the topic for 20 years, since 1991. According to the results of his surveys, the influence of the parliament has significantly increased in this time in comparison with the other institutions in the society.

– The first major shift was the big recession in the 1990s, which changed the perceptions of power among the citizens and the elites in a way that has proved permanent. Those political institutions, that were in charge of the cutbacks and austerity measures in the state economy, seemed more influential than before, Ruostetsaari says.

Another important turning point in the estimations of power came towards the end of the first decade in the 2000s when the international financial crisis and the debt crisis in the euro-zone made the parliament the second most influential institution after the government.

– However, my understanding is that globalisation and EU integration have diminished the leeway and power of political institutions in relation to financial institutions. This can be seen, for example, in how legislative power has transferred to the EU, Ruostetsaari says.

The model for public administration came from abroad

It is not only the economy which has become global; different ideas and doctrines also spread globally. Ruostetsaari mentions New Public Management as an example which the Finnish public sector has largely adopted. The debt crisis in Europe is managed in all countries with the neoliberal idea of spending cuts even though this may result in an ever deeper crisis.

Who made the decision of adopting the New Public Management doctrine and neoliberalism?

– There is no such decision in Finland; it has mainly been adopted through international organisations. This reflects the fact that Finland, too, goes with the flow; totally different models of government are not applied here either.

Trust makes you passive

In international comparison, the Finns have an exceptionally strong trust in their system of government.

Among the European countries, the Finns have above average trust in the government, the parliament and the political parties. The trust has even increased since the latter half of the 1990s. Only Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Luxembourg are ahead of us, Ruostetsaari says.

However, the trust in democracy is ambiguous, even contradictory in Finland.

– The method of government is thought to be democratic but then there is the flipside. Of the liberal-democratic countries, Finns are the lowest in thinking that the democratic political system is the ideal system of government.

This ambiguous view may be explained by the other side of trust - political passivity which can be seen in the fact that Finland is among the lowest third in voter turnout among the Western democracies. The voter turnout has come down even faster in Finland than it has in many other countries.

Finns do not believe in their ability to have influence

The interest in politics is twofold. Half the nation has interest and the other half does not. However, the share of the interested is growing. In spite of this, the Finns have grown further apart from political parties than people in the other Nordic countries.
According to Ruostetsaari, one oddity is that the Finns think that voting is less important than it is for people in the other Nordic countries.

– On the municipal level, the Finns think voting is the most effective way to have a say in decision-making, but even then voting is not thought to have a lot of impact. Even in municipalities, people feel that the power is located somewhere else.

Subjective competence as a citizen, i.e. people’s belief in their own powers of influence, is clearly smaller in Finland than in many other European countries. The Finns are members in associations, but participation in the activities of the associations is not as lively as it is in the other countries.

According to Ruostetsaari, there is a kind of a subservient mentality in Finland which has ambiguous roots.

– Trust in the democratic institutions is a good thing from the point of view of the legitimacy of the system. However, from the point of view of how well democracy functions, it would be good if the people became more active.

Text Heikki Laurinolli
Picture Teemu Launis
Translation Laura Tohka

This story was originally published in Finnish in Aikalainen 12/2012