ABSTRACT
As we point out in Chapter 1, the political situation and political possibilities are relational in that the latter can change the former and the former restricts the latter. In the case of Finnish education policymaking, the institutional build-up during the Second Republic significantly restricted the exploitation of political possibilities during the Third Republic. Vice versa, the new political possibilities created during the Third Republic have started to take effect inside the pre-existing structures, and little-by-little are changing the political situation in terms of changing the roles of the institutions. Indeed, the constitutive policy drift of political possibilities in Finnish basic schooling could be traced to the equality policy and how it was manifested in the political situation after the Second World War. Political action, or politicking, has played a role here at key moments in terms of interpreting a contingent array of possibilities. The key actors range from policymakers and institutions in Parliament and the Ministry of Culture and Education to the Confederation of Finnish Industries and Employers (CIE).
