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Research Group: The Moderns

The research group MODERNS is a multidisciplinary group of researchers working on themes related to a research project 'the Moders: A Study on the Governmentality of World Society'. Introduction of the researchers and their interests are displayed after the description of the project.

The research project 'the Moderns: A Study on the Governmentality of World Society' is led by Academy Professor Pertti Alasuutari at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere. It is funded by the Academy of Finland during 2009-2012.

Research seminar: Governance of Global Change

A research seminar Governance of Global Change is arranged by the project. The seminar is a weekly gathering forum for students and researchers working on or interested in themes and processes related to e.g. institutionalism, governance, globalization and transnational change. The seminar is multidisciplinary and open to researchers at any stage of their career. All project employees take part in the seminar.

During the autumn semester 2011 the seminar is held at the Virta building's seminar room on the 3rd floor on Thusdays 12-14 o'clock.

The objectives and a brief description of the project

How can we account for uniform changes in all advanced market economies, for instance the recent neoliberal reforms? That is an enigma and an object of debate within the social sciences and in public discussion. Yet it is important how we conceive of them. If the explanations portray social changes as inevitable and the political reforms as having no alternatives, they contribute to depoliticizing politics. Thus the topic of this research project, the dynamics of global change, is highly relevant and fills an obvious gap in existing knowledge.

The global social change has stirred much interest within globalization research. However, we argue that neither the existing globalization theory nor the critics to it (Kiely 2005; Rosenberg 2005) give a satisfactory answer to the puzzle why there is a growing isomorphism among nation states, i.e. why do the states make similar political reforms and where does the isomorphism come from? Such isomorphism is a puzzle also for dominant paradigms in political science and international relations (for reviews, see Finnemore 1996; Meyer, Boli et al. 1997).

To approach the mystery of isomorphism and uniform change of nation-states in this research project, we apply and combine the tools provided by world culture theory (Meyer, Boli et al. 1997; Boli and Thomas 1999; Lechner and Boli 2005) and Michel Foucault's governmentality approach (Foucault 1991; Merlingen 2003; Lipschutz and Rowe 2005; Walters and Haahr 2005). By combining these conceptual tools we are best equipped to account for the isomorphism among nation-states.

According to world culture theory world-society models shape nation-state identities, structures, and behavior via worldwide cultural and associational processes. As also stressed in the governmentality framework, instead of treating actors as unanalyzed "givens," world culture theory conceives of them as entities constructed and motivated by global cultural and institutional frames, and therefore isomorphism is the consequence of actors enacting cultural models that are lodged at the global level (Boli and Thomas 1999). Consequently, nation-states are more isomorphic than most theories would predict and change more uniformly than is commonly recognized.

In this research project we are particularly interested in the governance of global change and in the domestication of global trends at the nation-state level. When talking about the isomorphic policy change trajectory that nation-states are following, the international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are at the focus. In addition, we particularly need to understand how exactly the national actors are standardized and "culturally tamed" (Meyer, Boli et al. 1997): how global governance is achieved in such a way that policymakers at the domestic level willingly make the same reforms as other countries, and how they are passed through the democratic decision-making process.

To study such influence of the IGOs, Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality (Foucault 1991) is of particular relevance. The governmentality framework is based on the concept of power in a broad sense, as a network of dominance entangled with knowledge and with the subject positions and identities of the actors involved (Foucault 1980; Alasuutari 1996; Alasuutari 2004), and it pays attention to the fact that modern governance works by influencing or guiding the comportment of others through acting upon their hopes, desires, or milieu (Inda 2005).

However, instead of asking how the IGOs affect nation-states, we focus on analyzing how national actors use them, that is, how they refer to the knowledge produced by IGOs in justifying measures to be taken in the country in question. This means that one analyzes how the knowledge production of the IGOs is brought to the national agenda and makes an intervention to the existing discourses, resulting in changing definitions of the situation.

As one of our earlier studies indicated (Alasuutari and Rasimus forthcoming), in which we scrutinized how the OECD is used in parliamentary documents in one of its member countries, Finland, the modernization is routinely used in justifying the adoption of exogenous models and reforms. The same point is emphasized within world culture theory: reforms are justified by assumptions about universal laws, and "individuals orient their action above all toward the pursuit of rationalized progress" (Meyer, Boli et al. 1997). Therefore, to shed more light on how uniform reforms are carried out in separate nation-states, this project pays particular attention to the use of the modernization framework as a justification.

Dating back to the Enlightenment philosophers (Pollard 1968; Nisbet 1980; Alasuutari 2006), "modernization" and "modernity" have a positive ring; it is part and parcel of the positive self image of the nation-states belonging to the world society. From the turn of the 20^th century onward, it has been used as an epithet that many regimes have wanted to use in describing their own country. In that sense, world culture could be called the culture of the Moderns: a tribe that skillfully spreads its cultural features by appealing to a notion of a self-evident, predetermined developmental path.

There are some institutions in world society that dress the soil for such a tacit assumption about a predetermined developmental path toward progress. Two institutions and mindsets stand out as particularly important in this respect. One is the idea of objective science, and the other one is composed of the mindsets related to art and fashion. That is why these two areas are given special attention in this research project.

In this research project we aim at making a contribution to existing knowledge about the way in which world-society models are adopted at the nation-state level. We are particularly interested in studying uniformity of change brought about by political reforms: how they are justified and domesticated, and how the process unleashed affects existing practices, discourses and mentalities, thus forming new systemic wholes and creating seeds for consequent changes. The objectives of the project can be presented in the form of the following hypotheses.

1. Nation-states domesticate world culture.
2. Domestication of innovations such as internationally influenced political reforms causes changes in the existing configuration of practices, discourses and mentalities.
3. Art and fashion as institutions and mindsets reflect and reproduce the world culture as the culture of the Moderns, so that there is a reciprocal relationship between social changes and taste formation of the population.

To test these hypotheses, the research project carries on and complements the previous research of the research team (Rautalin and Alasuutari 2007; Alasuutari and Rasimus forthcoming). To complement the ongoing research, the project will study the influence of the OECD and other sources of world models from a comparative perspective. In addition, the project will analyze how the recent neoliberal changes are intertwined with changes in cultural policy, and in the mentality and taste formation of the population. As a whole, the project is composed of three sub-projects which are 1) The Use of the IGOs in Policy Reforms, 2) Public Management Reform Coordination: The Case of Horizontal Government Reforms, and 3) The Changing Notions of Art and Fashion. As a result of these sub-projects the research project will contribute to developing theory about global governance and about the role of international organizations in harmonizing social change in advanced capitalist societies. Thus, it helps us understand how the culture of modernity is expanded and modified. In addition, it will deepen our understanding of the emergence of the market regime and its effects on everyday life.

Description of the researchers and their research interests

The role of the OECD in global governance

Marjaana Rautalin, M.A., is a researcher at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Tampere, Finland. She is employed in the Academy funded research project: The Knowledge Production, Power, and Global Social Change – The Interplay between the OECD and Nation States. Her research interests include governmentality and world polity research and in more particular, the role of the OECD in global governance. She is currently preparing her doctoral thesis on the role of the OECD PISA Study in Finnish education policy.

Her recently published articles include:

• Rautalin, M., and P. Alasuutari. 2007. ‘The curse of success: The impact of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment on the discourses of the teaching profession in Finland’. European Educational Research Journal 6: 348-63.
• Rautalin, M., and P. Alasuutari. 2009. ‘The uses of the national PISA results by Finnish officials in central government’. Journal of Education Policy 24: 539-56.

The Globalization of European and Local Science Policies

MSSc. Laura Valkeasuo works at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tampere. Her PhD thesis (sociology) is on research policy, funding instruments and international cooperation on funding inside the European-Union. Her research interests are in the domestication of world cultural ideas and models to a national level and the processes of transnational network governance.

This research arrangement entails three important and complementary theoretical frameworks: neo-institutionalist and constructivist insights into world cultural models and principles that get enacted on local and transnational levels, transnational governance as a regulatory process of re-ordering the world and its rules, and the concept of domestication.

Her main approach to the research subject is via the field of discourse analysis; mainly with rhetorical and narrative methods. Her PhD dissertation includes five chapters, of which three are empirical studies on the domestication of world cultural models on different levels of science policy: national, transnational and local levels. Additionally in the final chapter she reassesses her empirical and theoretical findings, and discusses the sociological possibilities for expanding the study of global isomorphism at the national level.  

Institutionalization of ethical policy advice

In his Phd thesis MSSc. Jukka Syväterä studies the institutionalization of ethical policy advice by taking under closer investigation the development of what has been called “political”, “official”, or “public” bioethics. The national bioethics committees advice governments in making health policies and regulating developments and uses of life sciences and medical technologies. During the last few decades, expert advisory bodies of this kind have been established in most countries with advanced economies. In this study, the idea of “ethical policy advice” and the institutionalized form of “national bioethics committee” are conceived as transnational models domesticated by nation states.

In the first part of the PhD monograph, the global diffusion of the organizational model of national bioethics committee is examined. The second part focuses on the domestication of ethical policy advice in the case of Finland by studying the establishment of the National advisory board on health care ethics. By analyzing the processes of diffusion and domestication, the study aims to add understanding about the globalization of political bioethics and, more generally, about the logics of institutional isomorphism between different nation states.

Climate Governance through Carbon Markets

In her PhD thesis MSSc. Elina Mikola is studying emission trading as an element of international climate governance and the development of global carbon markets. Drawing from the foucauldian conceptualization of power and government the study focuses on the problematizations and rationalities embedded in emission markets and the consequences of this reasoning in context of national policy making.

Through case examples on Finnish parliamentary processes concerning the launch of EU Emission Trading Scheme and use of Kyoto mechanisms the study illustrates how the establishment of global carbon markets transforms the subject positions available for different actors (e.g. politicians, environmentalists and industry) and changes the spaces for political contestation. Attention is also paid on how the world cultural ideals of a green yet competitive nation state are enacted and translated in Finnish context.

Modernity and the Domestication of World Culture in Pakistan

In his PhD thesis MPhil. Ali Qadir studies cultural trends underlying modern higher education reform in Pakistan and their historical construction, emphasising continuities between contemporary patterns and British colonial institution of education for Muslims in the sub-continent. Following the PhD, expected to be defended in December 2011, Ali Qadir will continue to examine the institutionalisation of world cultural models in Pakistan with a focus on transnational implications, in two dimensions.

One aim of the project is to examine how globally similar cultural blueprints emerge simultaneously with attitudes of ‘banal nationalism’ in a country such as Pakistan and how that compares to analogous emergence in post-industrialised nations such as Finland. The project will track and analyse this emergence in various fields, including higher education (as instrumental culture) and popular media (as expressive culture). Comparison with countries such as Finland is expected to reveal insights into commonalities and variations of domestication processes.

A second aim of the project is to begin scrutinising cultural specificities of the models increasingly being domesticated around the world. That is, it is becoming apparent that global blueprints are neither universal nor culturally neutral, but rather have their origins firmly in ‘modern’ Western cultural and religious history. The project will explore these features and their histories, beginning with transformations in higher education. In addition, Ali Qadir will also be working to co-edit a book on domestication of global models at the local-global interface.

Public Management Reform Coordination: The Case of Horizontal Government Reforms

To study how isomorphic changes in different countries are upshots of governments exchanging experiences, within the project PhD Ari Rasimus scrutinizes The Finnish programme management reform (Programme... 2007) as an example of public management reforms, which have been influenced by the OECD. The government programme management reform is also a prime example of the how public management reforms and development are intertwined with research and evaluation, so that the social effects of policy measures are tightly monitored.

The Finnish programme management reform aims at more horizontal and strategic policymaking and ensuring effective implementation of the government’s political agenda. The new programme management entails that when a new government decides about its political agenda, there is a fairly small number of particular Government Programmes, which are implemented “horizontally”, i.e. crossing the sectoral organization of central administration into ministries. A substantial part of the government programmes themselves was to fund research and development in their focus areas. In addition, the programme management also entails the government’s mid-term policy-review sessions, in which in-depth policy evaluations on the social effects of prioritised current policies for the use of the prime minister and the whole government.

It is also essential to note that once the programme management reform has been made and there is already experience about it, Finland’s experience is promoted to others to adopt and learn from. The OECD is an organization which aims to collect and spread information about reforms in this area, thus contributing to uniformity in public management reforms.

In addition to researching the Finnish programme management in its national and international context as a whole, this case study takes one government policy programme of the present government, Children, youth and families, established in 2007, as an object of case analysis. We study how the programme is justified; how it is implemented, i.e. what projects are started; what reports and publications are produced; how the programme is reviewed; what policy implications are drawn; and how the experiences are communicated to other countries.

Inter/national Ideas and Agendas of Public Health Policy- A Research on Policy Change and Continuity in Portugal and Finland

MSSc. Leena Tervonen-Gonçalves works at the School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere in the field of social- and health policy. In her PhD thesis she studies the interpretation of European public health policy initiatives in Finland and Portugal from the 1970s onwards. During the analyzed time period international organizations, namely World Health Organization and European Union, have put forward a series of new concepts, principles, and programs to promote public health in their member states. In order to be able to monitor and evaluate the spread and influence of the suggested policies different comparative practices have been created. In this study the numbers, categories and labels provided by these comparative practices and common discourses are not taken as a mere description of the reality. Instead they are understood to construct the reality by conditioning the processes of agenda-setting and identity-formation. These soft methods of governance are analyzed by combining a comparative approach with discourse theoretically oriented perspective. Majority of data consists of policy documents (e.g. government programs, public health strategies) from Finland and Portugal as well as from WHO and EU. In addition newspaper articles and majority churches programmatic texts on health promotion are analyzed.    

Accounting innovations and other organization concepts diffusing across time and space

Lauri Lepistö is a PhD student of management accounting at the School of Management, University of Tampere. His research interests lie in the broad field of management and organisation studies. In his PhD research he is studying how accounting innovations and other organization concepts diffuse across time and space. In more detail, his research project aims at shedding light on global convergence and divergence of management tools and practices as well as how macro level concepts are used in micro level. His theoretical underpinning comes from neo-institutional organisational sociology enriched by flavours from “Scandinavian” school of institutionalism. 

The usage and travelling of the concept of articulation

MSSc. Matti Kortesoja is studying the usage and travelling of the concept of articulation at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tampere. The aim of his PhD thesis in sociology is to understand the strategic usage of the concept by redescribing its semantic fields, socially structured networks and ideological battlefields. The term 'articulation' is analysed at the cross-roads of structural linguistics, economic anthropology, political philosophy and communication and cultural studies to understand the particular ways in which the concept is used and how it has been 'domesticated' from one disciplinary field to another.

References

Alasuutari, P. (1996). Toinen tasavalta: Suomi 1946-1994 [The Second Republic: Finland 1946-1994]. Tampere, Vastapaino.

Alasuutari, P. (2004). Social Theory and Human Reality. London, Sage.

Alasuutari, P. (2006). Is Globalization Undermining the Sacred Principles of Modernity? Questions of Method in Cultural Studies. M. White and J. Schwoch. Malden, MA, USA, Blackwell: 221-240.

Alasuutari, P. and A. Rasimus (2009). "Use of the OECD in justifying policy reforms: The case of Finland." Journal of Power 2(1), April 2009: 89-109.

Boli, J. and G. M. Thomas, Eds. (1999). Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Finnemore, M. (1996). "Norms, culture, and world politics: insights from sociology's institutionalism." International Organization 50(2): 325-347.

Foucault, M. (1980). The History of Sexuality / Vol. 1. An Introduction. New York, Vintage Books.

Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 87-104.

Inda, J. X. (2005). Analytics of the Modern: An Introduction. Anthropologies of Modernity: Foucault, Governmentality, and Life Politics. J. X. Inda. Oxford, Blackwell: 1-20.

Kiely, R. (2005). "Globalization and Poverty, and the Poverty of Globalization Theory." Current Sociology 53(6): 895.

Lechner, F. J. and J. Boli (2005). World Culture: Origins and Consequences. Malden, Blackwell.

Lipschutz, R. D. and J. K. Rowe (2005). Globalization, Governmentality and Global Politics: Regulation for the Rest of Us? London, Routledge.

Merlingen, M. (2003). "Governmentality: Towards a Foucauldian Framework for the Study of IGOs." Cooperation & Conflict 38(4): 361-384.

Meyer, J. W., J. Boli, et al. (1997). "World Society and the Nation-State." American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 144-181.

Nisbet, R. (1980). History of the idea of progress. London ; New Brunswick, NJ, Heinemann : Transaction.

Pollard, S. (1968). The Idea of Progress: History and Society. London, Watts.

Programme... (2007) "Programme Management within the Finnish Government." Prime Minister’s Office Publications.

Rautalin, M. and P. Alasuutari (2007). "The Curse of Success: The Impact of the OECD PISA Study on the Discourses of the Teaching Profession in Finland." European Educational Research Journal 7(4): 349-364.

Rosenberg, J. (2005). "Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem." International Politics 42(1): 2-74.

Walters, W. and J. H. Haahr (2005). Governing Europe: Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration. New York, Routledge.