The specific aims of the study were to examine 1) whether obesity status and dieting history moderate the associations of restrained eating with overeating tendencies, self-control and obesity indicators; 2) whether the associations of depressive symptoms with unhealthier dietary intake and obesity are attributable to a tendency for emotional eating and a low level of physical activity self-efficacy; and 3) whether the absolute or relative importance of food choice motives (health, pleasure, convenience, price, familiarity and ethicality) contribute to the socioeconomic disparities in dietary habits.

The study was based on a large population-based sample of Finnish adults: the participants were men (N=2325) and women (N=2699) aged 25-74 who took part in the DILGOM (Dietary, Lifestyle and Genetic Determinants of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome) sub-study of the National FINRISK Study 2007. The participants’ weight, height, waist circumference and body fat percentage were measured in a health examination. Psychological eating styles (the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18), food choice motives (a shortened version of the Food Choice Questionnaire), depressive symptoms (the Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression Scale) and self-control (the Brief Self-Control Scale) were measured with pre-existing questionnaires. A validated food frequency questionnaire was used to assess the average consumption of sweet and non-sweet energy-dense foods and vegetables/fruit. Self-reported total years of education and gross household income were used as indicators of socioeconomic position.

The results indicated that 1) restrained eating was related to a lower body mass index, waist circumference, emotional eating and uncontrolled eating, and to a higher self-control in obese participants and current/past dieters. In contrast, the associations were the opposite in normal weight individuals and those who had never dieted. Thus, restrained eating may be related to better weight control among obese individuals and those with dieting experiences, while among others it may function as an indicator of problems with eating and an attempt to solve them. 2) Emotional eating and depressive symptoms were both related to less healthy dietary intake, and the greater consumption of energy-dense sweet foods among participants with elevated depressive symptoms was attributable to the susceptibility for emotional eating. In addition, emotional eating and physical activity self-efficacy were both important in explaining the positive association between depressive symptoms and obesity. 3) The lower vegetable/fruit intake and higher energy-dense food intake among individuals with a low socioeconomic position were partly explained by the higher priority they placed on price and familiarity and the lower priority they gave to health motives in their daily food choices.

In conclusion, although policy interventions to change the obesogenic nature of the current environment are definitely needed, knowledge of the factors that hinder or facilitate people’s ability to cope with the food-rich environment is also necessary. This study implies that more emphasis should be placed on various psychological and social factors in weight control programmes and interventions.

The empirical analyses of the five original articles draw from broad sets of data, including government and stakeholder policy documents; transcriptions of Finnish parliamentary discussions; newspaper articles; semi-structured expert interviews; research and evaluation reports; and statistics. The main methods include qualitative inductive content analysis and discourse analysis. The study examines how governments, stakeholders, and the media have adopted and interpreted two dominant environmental policy discourses – sustainable development and ecological modernisation – in their efforts to balance global climate policy targets with national interests. It also discusses the changing relationships between the state, society, and market, as well as the political dimension of technology and the processes of politicisation in climate and energy policies.

The study makes theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to knowledge. It develops the state orientation and political opportunity structure approaches towards recognising the interplay between polities and politics by complementing them with discourse analytical insights, and by reconceptualising the notion of policy style. Empirically, the study develops historical and comparative analyses across the three countries and shows how national polities and state orientations, the “technology-and-industry-know-best” in Finland, the “markets-know-best” in the UK, and the “government-knows-best” in France, have both shaped policy discourses and been shaped by them. The results indicate that these historically developed and culturally embedded orientations, together with the selective utilisation of dominant discourses and appeals to generic societal values, have largely defined not only the boundaries of climate and energy policies but also the legitimate participants, credible arguments, and modes of negotiation in the national debates. At the same time, departures from the established structures and forms of argumentation highlight that the country-specific state orientations are not fixed or stable but indeed modified in and through policy discourses. This points to an understanding of politics as a dynamic process rather than a static arena and calls for recognising the mutually constitutive relationship between politics and polity.

The purpose of this thesis was to complement research on national defence and the Finnish Defence Forces especially between years 1965 and 1975. The task of research was to clarify how changes in society and how the significance of this change was interpreted in public discussion about national defence and development of the Defence Forces. The most essential points for this thesis turned out to be discourses structured from public discussion.

Main research material consisted of approximately 35000 news, editorials, articles and opinions presented in mass media supplemented by literature, committee reports and other archival sources. Frame of reference for this thesis is based on relativistic worldview. According to this, social reality is relative and there is no single truth. Environment has significant influence on the issue how knowledge and truth are formed.

Data analysis was based on critical discourse. The key objective was to clarify the effects of broad changes in society using discursive methods. One essential goal was to form order of discourse using linguistic analysis and also connect discourses to wider sociocultural custom.

On this thesis I came to the conclusion that on the review period there were five significant ensembles of discourse. They consisted of several discussions focused on different themes. The discourse of official security policy aimed to define national defence and the position of the Defence Forces as parts of foreign policy. Foreign policy is often perceived as the most significant part of security policy. Historical memory, geographical position of Finland and also the state contracts, changes in international warfare, tasks of the Defence Forces and increasing critic of national defence and the difference in thinking between generations formed the discourse of security policy.

In the discourse of the liability to military service, the issue was about individual responsibility to society and national defence. Resisters and unarmed defence demands, encouraged by international examples were the themes. The discourse pointed out how mass media is used to influence and forced the Defence Forces to develop the practices in public information.

The discourses of democracy and politics were closer to internal development of the Defence Forces to integrate more into society. The discourse of democracy focused in changing power relationships of the Defence Forces that were known as authoritarian. Issues like conscript and personnel union activity had lot of similarities to general social development. The discourse of politics presented how the Defence Forces were pushed towards parliamentary decision making. The personnel was granted the same rights as other population.

Themes related to the discourse on the will to national defence were development of mental national defence, increasing education on national defence and creation of more open public information culture.

According to discourses presented above I can state, that the position of the Defence Forces in society was changed between years 1965-1975. This change was advanced by the Defence Forces reformed attitude towards mass media and public information in general. Active participation in public information important became important instead of only answering topics. This positive development created an atmosphere, that was easier for the public to understand and create own pictures of the armed forces. Due to this, I can describe that the defenders and supporters of the armed forces were stuck in their trenches, until discussions presented in discourses and themes developed the Defence Forces to be better fitting part of society.

Key words; society, national defence, Defence Forces, discourse, mass media, security policy, liability to military service, conscription, democracy

The study confirms Foucault as a systematic thinker of truth and freedom and claims that his main problem is the relationship between truth and politics as historical experiences. This thesis is supported by close readings of Foucault's ways of questioning in his historical enquiries, together with a comparative reflection on other thinkers from the angle of these specific historical problems.

The methodological stakes of the work are twofold. First to follow Foucault's own approach by folding his way of questioning towards his own historical system of thought and investigating what is its own structure, what are its own historical limits and conditions of possibility. Secondly, on the basis of this reading, the study asks what would be the possibilities for a political philosophy that would neither be moral philosophy nor empirical science of politics, but would continue critically to question the concrete modes of political reason and to explore the relations between truth and politics without reducing one to the other.

The monograph includes six previously peer-reviewed articles. The first investigates Foucault's archeological critique of knowledge, the second his strategic analysis of power and third his ethical critique of governmentality. The next two articles examine the modern concept of human in relation to the modern scientific, artistic and political experiences. The last article reflects on the relationship between violence and life.

The articles are preceded by an extensive encyclopedic introduction to the critical political anthropology of Foucault. The introduction gathers together the phrasing of questions in other articles and links Foucault's thought to the three critical questions of Immanuel Kant's philosophy: What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope? It also places Foucault's thought in relation to Kant's view of philosophy as system (Schulbegriff) and a science of the ultimate ends of mankind (Weltbegriffe). The aim of Kant's critical philosophy was to prepare a propedeutic introduction to the possibility for a new metaphysics as transcendental philosophy through the criticism of transcendental illusions.

The thesis of the study is that Foucault's critical philosophy can be read as a propedeutic introduction to the new political philosophy through its criticism of anthropological illusions.

In addition, in the end of the thesis there is an appendix, where the approach of the study is differentiated from other approaches (especially from some hegemonic anglo-saxon receptions of Foucault), they are argued against and the particular approach and methodology of this study are defended.