ABSTRACT
VALTA researchers and the media during the two years after the programme ended (2010-2012) did not consider VALTA itself as a tool for the exercise of power in a preparatory sense. However, the material published by the Academy of Finland showed VALTA’s intention to exercise power by taking on a deliberative function in public debate. In the 2005 memorandum, the other Nordic power investigations were characterised as having produced new knowledge and inspired ‘both national and international debate’ (Akatemia, 2005, 52). Opportunities for comparative perspectives were opened up by the results, and the memorandum mentioned that Finland had thus far not produced anything comparable. It concluded that a Finnish power study would both
398 A. Elmgren
The Academy of Finland financed a multi-disciplinary research programme from 2007 to 2010 with the full title ‘Valta Suomessa-Power in Finland‘, henceforth referred to as VALTA. The programme’s individual studies covered a variety of subjects, a selection of which was presented in an anthology also entitled Valta Suomessa. This anthology and the project’s final report, both published in 2010, aswell as the programmememorandumof 2005 and the evaluation report of 2012, are here analysed from three complementary perspectives. First, the national narrative that was used to package and explain the significance of VALTA to decision-makers and thewider public is scrutinized. Then, views on limits and potentials of power within the VALTA project are compared. Finally, expectations of the VALTA programme as expressed in the following public debate, including those voiced after the fact in the evaluation report of 2012, are explored. This examination considers how VALTA has been marketed to a specialist audience and to the general public, and why-and in which ways-it was expected to influence the public discourse on power. While the individual sub-projects of VALTA have produced numerous independent
publications, the anthology was the only common one issued by the programme. It was a showcase for both the whole programme and selected sub-projects. However, as revealed at
THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF NORDIC SELF-UNDERSTANDING
the VALTA evaluation report seminar in Helsinki organised by the Academy of Finland on 23 April 2012, the anthology was also used to promote the results of the project to decisionmakers, indicating it was a significant part of the media strategy of VALTA. The other publications, including the 2005 memorandum, the 2010 report, and the 2012 evaluation, are not as extensive in scope. All are accessible on the website of the Academy of Finland and provide information about the motives and expectations of the programme.1 Unlike other Scandinavian public investigations on power, the VALTA programme was
not commissioned by the state. The 2005 programme memorandum characterised the VALTA initiative as in the tradition of the Nordic power investigations, but presented a truncated version of their history. According to the memorandum, the Nordic investigations responded to the same challenges that Finland was facing. ‘Globalisation, the EU’s increasing decision-making power, individualisation, commercialisation, the increased role of international justice obligations and the legal sector’ were depicted as challenging democracy and traditional power structures in all Nordic countries (Akatemia 2005, 52). Other factors portrayed as equally urgent included multiculturalism, the media, the environment and technological development. The historical overview of power investigations was limited to the 1990s. Sweden was mentioned as the initiator of several power enquiries, yet the ground-breaking role of Norway was ignored in the memorandum. It also noted that Finland had not conducted any comparable investigation on power and democracy before. However, in the Valta Suomessa anthology, the Nordic power investigations were not mentioned. Instead, the introduction referred to a previous scholarly investigation on power and democracy in Finland, TANDEM (Research on Equality and Democracy 1977), as its predecessor (Pietika¨inen 2010a). According to the memorandum, the main goals of VALTA were the support and
advancement of high-level research collaboration and multidisciplinary studies, international mobility, and the application and development of new research methods. The programme was also meant to conduct comparative research on power in Finland, thus clarifying the specific characteristics of the country’s power structures and power mechanisms, and giving thought to their similarities and differences in relation to other countries and cultures. It is less clear whether any preparatory or deliberative function of VALTA was intended in the sense that historian Edenheim (2010) defines the specific task of the Swedish public investigation. It was not a stated purpose of VALTA to provide long-term policy guidelines for social and legal change, which Edenheim calls ‘the preparatory function’ (2010, 35). However, the concluding goal in the memorandum stated that the programme aimed to improve the exchange of information and reporting of research results among scholars, decision makers, interest groups and the public at large, and influence the public debate on power in Finland. The preparatory function is of particular interest here. The public discourse produced by
VALTA researchers and the media during the two years after the programme ended (2010-2012) did not consider VALTA itself as a tool for the exercise of power in a preparatory sense. However, the material published by the Academy of Finland showed VALTA’s intention to exercise power by taking on a deliberative function in public debate. In the 2005 memorandum, the other Nordic power investigations were characterised as having produced new knowledge and inspired ‘both national and international debate’ (Akatemia, 2005, 52). Opportunities for comparative perspectives were opened up by the results, and the memorandum mentioned that Finland had thus far not produced anything comparable. It concluded that a Finnish power study would both
398 A. Elmgren
The Academy of Finland financed a multi-disciplinary research programme from 2007 to 2010 with the full title ‘Valta Suomessa-Power in Finland‘, henceforth referred to as VALTA. The programme’s individual studies covered a variety of subjects, a selection of which was presented in an anthology also entitled Valta Suomessa. This anthology and the project’s final report, both published in 2010, aswell as the programmememorandumof 2005 and the evaluation report of 2012, are here analysed from three complementary perspectives. First, the national narrative that was used to package and explain the significance of VALTA to decision-makers and thewider public is scrutinized. Then, views on limits and potentials of power within the VALTA project are compared. Finally, expectations of the VALTA programme as expressed in the following public debate, including those voiced after the fact in the evaluation report of 2012, are explored. This examination considers how VALTA has been marketed to a specialist audience and to the general public, and why-and in which ways-it was expected to influence the public discourse on power. While the individual sub-projects of VALTA have produced numerous independent
publications, the anthology was the only common one issued by the programme. It was a showcase for both the whole programme and selected sub-projects. However, as revealed at
THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF NORDIC SELF-UNDERSTANDING
In a summary essay on the website of the Academy of Finland posted after the conclusion of the programme, Pietika¨inen declared that VALTA was unique, even from an international perspective, because it was a multidisciplinary research programme. ‘I do not know of any corresponding multi-voiced research programme on power anywhere else in Europe, least of all in Scandinavia’ (Pietika¨inen 2010d, 1). The general results, he explained, confirmed that power in Finland had changed in character since the 1970s and 1980s. The choice of a point of reference in time pointed implicitly to TANDEM because the actual VALTA results had dealt with a much longer time-frame. Pietika¨inen also stated that the researchers often appeared in media and that this must have led to an increase in civic debate on power and powerlessness. He later appeared in the media and expressed a pessimistic opinion of citizens uninterested in taking power into their own hands (Anonymous 2013). Pietika¨inen might have felt the need to distance the programme ideologically from
TANDEM. Sociologist Sulkunen (2010) has even referred to a ‘TANDEM trauma’ in his review of the VALTA anthology. TANDEM has been strongly criticised for having its theoretical basis in a Marxist analysis of class and the production system rooted in historical materialism. Moreover, ‘Marxism’ in Pietika¨inen’s text refers to a political programme rather than a sociological theory: ‘Unlike today’s researchers, the makers of the TANDEM programme did not see power in itself as a problem. Their problem was that power rested in the wrong hands’ (Pietika¨inen 2010a, 9). Marxist-inspired analysis was a novelty in the social sciences in Finland at the time, and much of the resistance to TANDEM mirrors the broader political conflicts in the country during the 1970s (Leimu 1977). The reception of TANDEM has been characterised as hostile, but as a media strategy, the conflict-oriented approach delivered impressive results. The programme had a recurring presence in the headlines for some years before the publication of the final report. Among its critics, TANDEM could count renowned scholars and politicians, leading publicists and even popular cartoonists. During the final year of the investigation, it inspired an aggressively worded pamphlet against a specific sub-project presented to the Minister of Education by the Research Foundation for Higher Learning and Science Politics (Korkeakoulu-ja Tiedepoliittinen Tutkimussa¨a¨tio¨, KTTS), and an entire book that included some very harsh refutations of the results and methods of the entire programme (Rautkallio and Ha¨ikio¨ 1977; Vesikansa 1976). The debate became heated to such an extent that the respected non-Marxist philosopher Georg Henrik vonWright made a public statement on behalf of the freedom of science and research, defending the TANDEM scholars against their detractors (see Toiviainen 1977). Former TANDEM investigator Partanen (1992) described the public discourse on
TANDEM as partly instigated by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA) and the aforementioned KTTS. Both institutions were founded in the 1970s to counter a perceived leftist turn in the Finnish media and political sphere (Ma¨kinen 2002; Toiviainen 1977). However, other researchers have maintained that an equally important role was played by the press eager to uncover waste of money and combat ‘zero-research’, a term used to denounce the provocative methods and goals of the TANDEM investigation (Leimu 1977, 236, footnote 48). Partanen considered the long-term significance of TANDEM as deserving of more than the tumultuous reception it received in some quarters. However, the scandal remained a point of reference in Finnish social science, and it influenced the framing narrative of VALTA.
