ABSTRACT
In an essay on the growth of the political-science profession, Nils Elvander writes: ‘Academic teaching in political science has a relatively long history in Sweden compared with the other Nordic countries’ (1977:75). This statement is echoed by another Swedish scholar, Olof Ruin, who maintains that Swedish political science research ‘is based on quite a long tradition in comparison with the other Nordic countries’ (1977:157). Ruin points out that a chair in political science, the Johan Skytte Professor of Discourse and Politics, was established as early as 1622 at the University of Uppsala; however, he admits that the scholars holding this chair did not concentrate on the study of politics until the 1840s. This means that political science has a longer tradition in Finland than in any other Nordic country. At Åbo Academy, founded in 1640, a chair of politics, the holder of which was called Professor Politices et Historiarum, was an integral part of the university from the beginning. The first holder of this chair was Michael Olai Wexonius, one of the most productive professors at the university, who dealt mainly with political theory issues of that time and in 1647 published his most important work, Politica (Nurmi, 1984).
