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Finland is considered one of the best countries in the world in regards gender equality. In today’s Finland, women are more educated than men and they vote more actively. However, women are a still a minority in the Finnish parliament, and are less likely to serve as ministers as well as in other powerful political positions. Furthermore, there are large variations among Finnish political parties when it comes to the proportion of woman parliamentarians. The Finnish Centre Party is one of the least balanced political parties in Finland when it comes to the proportion of female parliamentarians. However, there are great regional differences. This Master’s Thesis is a case study that aims to explain what causes these regional differences. First, the study explores how women’s political representation has developed in different constituencies over time when it comes to the number of elected female parliamentarians. Starting from the 1991 election until the 2015 election, the quantitative overview of the constituencies shows that there are substantial differences between the electoral constituencies. These show in gender parity of elected parliamentarians, as well as the share of the votes that female candidates have received for their party’s list. Furthermore, constituencies differ when it comes to the turnover in the composition of the group of elected parliamentarians. The first part of the study also addressed constituencies’ differing trends in regards to women’s representation – some constituencies were more gender balanced, others more male dominated. Based on the first part of the study, three case studies are selected for in depth case studies: Kymi, Oulu and Central Finland. The case studies are explorative in nature and conducted by interviewing central Centre Party actors, parliamentarians and candidates who have experience in the workings of the regional party organization. Interviews are analysed by using thematic analysis. Based on the interviews it is clear that while all Centre Party organisations have the same formal rules, the list formation process, the regional practises and the electoral setting are different in all three constituencies. The study provides support to many findings of previous studies. In accordance with previous feminist institutionalist research, the supply of candidates seems to be a challenge for the Centre Party, but according to the interviewees the supply of woman candidates is a challenge in all three constituencies. Therefore, it is unlikely that the supply of candidates could explain regional differences. A major difference between the constituencies is their electoral setting and the role of regional party organisation and actives. Based on the interviews it seems that in the Kymi constituency, the constituency with the fewest female parliamentarians, internal competition is less equal as the incumbent parliamentarians have a strong position within the Centre Party organisation. The setting changes when an incumbent parliamentarian steps aside. When an elected parliamentarian steps down, it creates a situation where more voters and supporters are available for newcomers. It seems, however, that female candidates have not succeeded in inheriting supporters from the relinquishing parliamentarians.

This master’s thesis investigates the dynamics between the climate movement and Finnish political parties in 2019. The climate movement mobilization overlapped two elections in Finland: the parliamentary elections in April and the European parliamentary elections in May. The research focuses on developments in the relationship before, during and after the elections, which will be analysed using the contentious politics approach and electoral contention mechanisms by Tilly, McAdam and Tarrow. This thesis uses a case study research design to examine the distinctive circumstances in which a global mobilization wave overlaps with two elections. The main set of data consists of all public tweets in Finnish twitter, which mention either ‘ilmastolakko’ (climate strike) or ‘#nytonpakko’ (#actnow) and were published in 2019. The tweets are collected using search engine technology and processed by extracting four datasets of tweets sent out by Finnish parliament members. The data is further investigated using various methods, such as network analysis. Statistics collected by the Finnish police force and survey data collected by researchers in climate protests are used to support the analysis. The analysis showed that the dynamics of the interaction between the climate movement and the political parties in Finland changed throughout 2019. Before the parliamentary elections in April 2019, the climate movement formed mutually beneficial electoral alliances with the Green League and the Left Alliance. The political parties took distance from the movement after the elections. A responsive mobilization of the climate movement after the elections showed increasing criticism towards politicians. Other parties did not significantly change their position towards the movement after the elections, although the Finns Party slightly increased the amount of criticism and the other parties slightly decreased the amount of support shown towards the movement. The developments in the movement-party relations were apparent in many ways: Indicators of the mechanisms of interaction were changes in the number of tweets published by MPs, the contents of the tweets, frequency and scale of climate protests and the support or criticism from the climate movement towards the political parties. The two waves of mobilization in Helsinki was supplemented by other types of mobilization, such as the launch of the ‘Korvaamaton’- campaign of development, climate and environmental organizations. This thesis shows that social media is a venue of movement-party interactions in more open media systems, where political elites transcend to Twitter networks. The existence of virtual political elites can have implications for social movements and the collective ‘conflict and alliance’ structure of politics. Further research should be conducted on the other venues in which movement-party interactions may occur and on other case studies, where social movement mobilization and elections occur simultaneously.