Browsing by discipline "Yleinen valtio-oppi, politiikan tutkimus"

Tämä pro-gradu tutkielma tarkastelee internetin käytön (poliittisen tiedonlähteenä) yhteyttä euroskeptisiin asenteisiin Brexitin jälkeisessä Iso-Britanniassa. Median rooli euroskeptisiä asenteita ja kansalaismielipidettä selittävänä tekijänä on alkanut kiinnosta EU-asenteiden tutkijoita yhä enemmän. Perinteisellä medialla on aikaisemman tutkimuksen perusteella todettu olevan yhteys kansalaisten euroskeptisiin asenteisiin, mutta internetin ja sosiaalisen median yhteyttä euroskeptisismiin on tutkittu verrattain vähän. Teoreettisen viitekehyksen tutkimukselle muodostaa euroskeptisismiä selittävät teoriat sekä internetin ja demokratian suhdetta käsittelevät tutkimukset. Tutkielman tavoitteena on tarkastella euroskeptisismin ja kaikukammioteorian välistä suhdetta Brexitin viitekehyksessä. Tutkimusaineistona toimii British Election Study:n (BES) keräämä kyselyaineisto, jonka pohjalta muodostettiin tilastollisessa analyysissa käytetyt muuttujat. Tilastollinen analyysi suoritettiin logistista regressioanalyysia käyttäen. Euroskeptisismin ja internetin käytön yhteyttä tarkasteltiin tilastollisessa analyysissa neljän eri ulottuvuuden kautta, jotka muodostettiin euroskeptisismiä selittävien teorioiden pohjalta. Nämä neljä ulottuvuutta ovat EU-kansanäänestys, Brexit-identiteetti, maahanmuutto ja suvereniteetti. Tutkielman tuloksista voidaan päätellä, että aktiivisella internetin käytöllä on yhteys euroskeptisiin asenteisiin. Ainoastaan suvereniteetti ulottuvuudella ja internetin käytöllä ei havaittu olevan yhteyttä. Internetin käytön yhteys euroskeptisismiin oli kuitenkin suhteellisen pieni verrattuna muihin selittäviin muuttujiin.

This thesis explores the idea of the creation of political discourse on social media platforms, aiming to address whether social media (and in particular Facebook) under private ownership could be considered forms of Habermasian Public Spheres. A theory of what constitutes a modern Public Sphere is created and then, through a discourse analysis the ideology of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is examined in relation to his moderation of the platform and the effect this has on political discourse. This paper finds that under private ownership social media platforms such as Facebook have awarded unprecedented amounts of power over the public discourse to individual, unaccountable private citizens and that this calls into question the validity of these platforms as Public Spheres.

In recent years the world has experienced an unprecedented rise of social movements in both democratic and authoritarian states, starting from Spanish Indignados and Occupy Wall Street in the United States to Arab Spring movement for democratization, rights defence movement Wei Tu An in China, or Russian protests for fair elections and democratization of political system in 2011-2012. Despite various goals pursued by these and other similar social movements, locations and means of achieving these goals, all of them shared common features, such as loose horizontal network structure of informal nature, grassroots civic engagement, and extensive use ICT technologies and new media. This new forms of civic engagement, whether successful or not in pursuing their goals, present an interesting case of how technological advancements and other factors affect the development of civil society and the way grassroots political participation is being formed. This work intends to explore theoretical implications for new ways of civic engagement by reviewing it in the perspective of civil society development and placing it in the framework of new social movement theory and organizational theory of network society. Another important aspect that is being explored is the question of how the development of ICT technologies affects the nature of civic engagement in both authoritarian and democratic states. The argument developed in this thesis stipulates that the ICT and the effects of network society contribute to development of new, untraditional forms of political participation. This new forms of civic engagement function on a network basis, feature predominantly grassroots nature and have loose informal structure of horizontal networks. The proposed hypothesis is supported by a descriptive case-study of online-based anticorruption project Rospil in Russia, which includes analysis of how network society features are intertwined in the civil society formations of modern Russia and how it creates prerequisites for an appearance of new forms of civic engagement, despite the growing authoritarian nature of its political regime.

The aim of this thesis is to study from a theoretical point of view the core and main changes of conservatism and its doctrine by analysing how this has developed during time in two countries: Great Britain and Romania. This study comes as a reaction of curiosity aimed to be yielded academically. After the events of 2013 in Great Britain when the activists from the Conservative Party put pressure on the Prime Minister David Cameron to extend the immigration controls on the citizens of Romania and Bulgaria living and working in UK. As at the end of December 2013 the controls barring most Romanians and Bulgarians working in UK were to expire, the chairman of the constituency parties along with the activists from the Conservative Party, urged David Cameron to extend the ban based on a provision from the EU law. This provision allows the extension of the ban against new member states in order to prevent those citizens to come and work in another EU country if this may cause serious disturbances on the labour market. Consequently, this ban is an act against the free movement of labour, one of the central pillars of EU and the European single market. As EU allows temporary restrictions on new member states in order to prevent mass immigration due to better economic benefits, under the EU law these are considered transitional controls and can only last up to seven years just like in the case of Great Britain and the ban over Romanian and Bulgarian citizens, taken into consideration that both countries joined EU in 2007 and the restriction to work in UK was to expire on the 31st of December 2013 at midnight. As a Romanian national myself, living and studying political science in Finland I have found this matter as a crucial subject to analyse from an academic and political theory point of view. My method of analysing the subject is purely theoretical and I provide a unique approach by just comparing how conservatism is portrayed by its thinkers in Great Britain with the one in Romania, having as main focus the changes the doctrine in both countries suffered along time, or how it actually adapted to modern times in order to survive as ideology put in practice. Needless to say why I have chosen to analyse the conservative thought of Great Britain, considering that this is the country where it was born, but of more importance is why this comparison is done with Romania, a country where nowadays there is no conservative party as such. As time frame I have chosen for Great Britain the 18th and 19th centuries and for Romania, as the conservative thought developed later, the second half of the 19th century up to 1921. Between 1880 and 1925 Romania went through numerous and fast changes. The country suffered modifications not only in terms of territorial extent and population, but also experienced deep alterations in its internal structures. However, the conservatives were not able to keep pace with the rate of change, and they struggled to direct the process of change according to their own doctrine and ideas. Nevertheless, the solutions they provided were not so appealing and comprehensive in order to attract a great number of people. Therefore, the main reason for the vanishing of the conservatives from the political scene is not only their particular reluctance to change, but especially the social and political context which was in such a manner that it did not allow them to develop and to go further with their traditional ideals. In Romania after 1921 the conservative party only survived with its name but no practical conservative approach as it did not manage to adapt to modern times and attract supporters. The method used consists of an analysis of the major works that define the conservative doctrine. Moreover, an analytical approach is also used to make the difference between theory and practice-especially for the Romanian case.

Dance and its connection to politics is the central theme of this study. A traditional way of addressing dance or other arts in the context of political research is to view them as supplementary areas of politics. In these studies dance and politics are seen as separate fields that are analysed in a chosen context, e.g. by examining the use of performative means in political campaigns. In this study however an opposite logic is applied; dance is not seen as a means of politics, but brought to the centre of the political as such. The main contribution of the study is to offer a view on how dance can be seen as the general paradigm of all politics. Starting from a praxis view on politics as defined by Hannah Arendt and further elaborated on through the thought of Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy and Alain Badiou, this study shows that dance can be seen as revealing something essential about politics. Along with formulating a prominently theoretical foundation for dance as political, the findings of this study are firmly connected to empirical research; an improvisational dance event concept, Katulavatanssit, is used as a case supporting the construction of the paradigm. The method regarding the case is a qualitative analysis of text and interview material. In addition, a brief history of the birth of modern dance in the US is also presented to highlight some important aspects in the view of dance as the paradigm of politics. One of the central findings of this study is that dance can in fact be seen as corresponding exactly to the definition of politics as a space of praxis or pure means as the product of dance is identical with the performance itself. There is however some room for elaboration here if the actual world of dance is taken into consideration. By introducing the theme of improvisation versus choreography, the paradigm takes a slightly different shape – both the Katulavatanssit case and the brief dance-historical account show that dance is always comprised of two simultaneous tensions: improvisation and choreography. If we in turn use this bipolar paradigm as a lens for viewing politics understood in more conventional terms, it provides a way of analysing to what extent the two tendencies are identifiable in politics. Finally, this study returns to the core of political research by analysing the liberal representative government from the viewpoint of the dance paradigm. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, the means aspect of politics coincides with a so called elitist view on democracy as presented for instance by Joseph Schumpeter. If elections are viewed as a moment of competition for votes, they can be described as a typical form of improvisation with a minimal restraint. On the other hand, this minimally restrained space has been invaded by parties and pressure groups that resemble strict forms of choreographies.

Forskningen har sitt syfte i bakgrunden av det ökande intresse bland kommunerna i Finland att ta i bruk medborgarråd. Därmed är det motiverat att utreda huruvida legitima medborgarråd i verkligheten är, redogöra för framgångsfaktorer och de största utmaningarna som bemöts i implementeringen av medborgardialoger. Genom den deliberativa demokratiteorin sammanställs systematiskt de fundamentala kriterierna för demokratisk deliberation. Kriterierna kopplas till det empiriska materialet som består av två medborgarråd som genomförts i Sverige och sex medborgarråd som genomförts i Finland som deliberativa försök. Genom en innehållsanalys utreds huruvida de fundamentala kriterierna uppfylls. Resultaten visar att uppfyllande av de deliberativa kriterierna påverkar hur framgångsrikt medborgarrådet är. Det upptäcks en stor skillnad i de studerade medborgarråden i Sverige och Finland, varav de medborgarråd som studerats i Finland varit betydligt framgångsrikare än de studerade medborgarråden i Sverige. Resultaten beror i stor grad på att de studerade medborgarråden i Sverige inte uppfyller deliberativa kriterier och är såtillvida inte legitima. Utöver detta upptäcks det andra faktorer som påverkar framgång och som bör tas i beaktande i genomföringen av medborgarråd. De fundamentala kriterierna höjer legitimiteten av medborgarråden och kan därigenom möjliggöra verklig påverkan. Analysen visar att medborgarråd lämpar sig för svårare, komplexa frågor och kan användas för att nå marginaliserade grupper och vissa målgrupper. Eftersom det i Finland inte systematiskt implementerats olika former av medborgardialoger i kommunerna än, är det motiverat att utreda hur implementeringen har skett i Sveriges kommuner och landsting, pga. de stora satsningarna och projekt som genomförts för att utveckla olika former av medborgardialog som kan implementeras i styrningen. Genom en intervju med SKL:s handläggare för demokratifrågor får forskaren en djupare förståelse för hur implementeringen av medborgardialoger har skett i Sveriges kommuner och landsting. Det redogörs för vilka som är de största utmaningarna beträffande implementeringen av medborgardialoger i dagens läge, och vilka faktorer som påverkar medborgardialogers framgång. För att närmare studera hur implementeringen har skett, genomför forskaren en utvärdering av en specifik kommun i Sverige, Hudiksvalls kommun. Utvärderingen baserar sig främst på de åren som Hudiksvalls kommun medverkade i ett nätverk och projekt med fyra andra kommuner där syftet var att finna permanenta former för styrningen som dessutom når marginaliserade grupper. Hudiksvalls kommun valde att satsa på medborgarråd. Medborgarråden genomfördes inte enligt den ursprungliga 'cittizen jury' modellen, vilket resulterade i att ett klart syfte saknades, ansvariga aktörer saknades och kontakssamarbetet var inte aktivt. Dessutom utbildades inte tjänstemän och förtroendevalda och medborgarråden fick inte stöd av experter. Dessa faktorer resulterade i ett sjunkande intresse för medborgarråden, och det upplevdes inte möjlighet till påverkan. Projektet misslyckades och medborgarrådens existens upphörde år 2010. Utvärderingen visar, att målen inte uppfylldes. Forskningen sammanfattar slutligen resultaten av innehållsanalysen, intervjun och utvärderingen i en sammanfattande analys. Det redogörs förutom för betydelsen av de deliberativa kriterierna också andra faktorer som påverkar framgång, som upptäckts i forskningen. Dessa är: är ett klart syfte, utbildning av tjänstemän och förtroendevalda, stöd av experter, utvärdering av medborgardialoger, systematisering av medborgarråd och att de tas i bruk som permanenta former. Forskaren redogör slutligen för medborgarråds potential till verklig påverkan och hur detta uppnås. Dessutom redogörs för de största utmaningarna med medborgarråd och andra medborgardialoger som bör tas i beaktande vid implementeringen. Genom en framtidssyn redogörs forskarens egna reflektioner som stöds av forskningsresultaten. Forskningen beskriver att medborgarråd lämpar sig att tas i bruk i kommunerna i Finland i allmänna, komplexa och svåra frågor som berör alla kommuninvånare, och kan dessutom användas för att nå marginaliserade grupper och specifika målgrupper. Forskaren betonar systematisering i implementationen, utbildning och involverande av tjänstemän och förtroendevalda samt stöd av experter.

In my thesis, I was interested in exploring how and why the quality of democracy varied in Central and Eastern European countries after they became EU members. Throughout the accession process, these countries have, for the most part, successfully moved away from post-communist legacies and became increasingly more democratic. There is ample evidence in literature suggesting that this positive trend in democratic quality might be expected to continue post-accession. However, as data from major indexes of democracy shows, this has not been the case. A declining trend in democratic quality is at present prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe. In order to identify possible causes, I examined a sample comprising of the ten countries that gained EU membership in 2004 and 2007. Using crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis on data from the 2004-2011 period, I found that the main explanation for democratic quality variation among cases is economic in nature. Specifically, inflation can explain both the decline and the improvement of democratic quality: countries well equipped to deal with the consequences of high price fluctuations, in particular those caused by the economic crisis, were also able to improve their democratic quality slightly. Countries where the negative impact of inflation proved stronger saw a decline in democratic quality. Additionally, corruption emerged as an alternative explanation for decline. This thesis also briefly examines the post-accession influence of the EU on democratic quality in these countries. It finds that, while diffuse and difficult to quantify, this influence continued to be both significant and positive. These findings lend empirical support to Wolfgang Merkel’s theoretical framework of embedded and defective democracies. In particular, they support his claim that internal embeddedness – the interdependence of sound democratic institutions and practices – can be either reinforced or weakened by a sphere of external embeddedness containing elements such as economic development and international integration.

According to the study done by International Coffee Organization, the years between 1964 to 2013, the volume of coffee consumption has grew on an average 1,9% per year and it grew from 57.9 million bags in 1964 to 142 million bags in 2012 (ICO, 2014). On the other hand, study has also shown the positive relationship between growth of GDP per capita and the growth of national consumption of coffee, in another words, with emerging economies like India, China and other South East Asian countries there will be more demand for coffee in the future (Grigg, 2002). However, the global demand and supply for coffee market has never been bigger but also way more stratified than ever. It is because of the parallel developments of specialty coffee market and ethical consumerism in coffee, the two most recent developments of coffee market used to operate in two different segments, the specialty coffee market is smaller in total volumes and puts more emphasis on taste and quality, for ethical consumerism like fair trade movement it focuses more on the commodity market and targeting multinational companies like Starbucks and Nestles. However, the two parallel developments has shown signs of converging and was called as “Third Wave Coffee” which set out to provide ethically and directly traded coffee but at the same time more delicious than the rest. This thesis scrutinized Third Wave coffee movement which it proposes that with direct and closer relationship between coffee farmers and coffee companies: it will be the guarantee for higher quality coffee to the consumers and also raise the living standards for coffee farmers in the process. I approached third wave coffee movement and direct trade with few questions in mind: how do these professionals understand direct trade and their reflections of it? How did the taste and distinction manifest itself in practice? How did the language of quality and trade justice converge together? How do they tell the story of specialty coffee and direct trade, what kind of representation are used to bridge the gap between the two ends of coffee production chain? In order to answer my questions, I interviewed coffee shop workers and roasters in Helsinki with years of working experiences and also make use of various sources of literatures like internet publications and events.For for the gathering of primary materials and analysis, I relied heavily on qualitative mixed method approach: semi structured interviews, content analysis and participatory observations. I was able to identity the narrative structures of discourses said and performed by specialty coffee professionals in Helsinki and their reflections on direct trade. More importantly, I have also included theories such as moral economy, distinction and alternative globalization in order to better understand and analyze my primary materials. In conclusion, I categorized the language that they used into three distinctive characteristics: quality statement, portrayal of professionalism and connections. By using them in their discourses to wider public, they were able to politicize and differentiate themselves from the rest of the coffee market. My research brought light to a telling example of contemporary development of ethical consumerism and the effort paid by actors to propose a different imagination of global supply chain. Ultimately, it is about the current transition of contemporary consumer society and the different forms of political consumerism.

This thesis investigates the relationship between different welfare models and the realisation of gender equality in European states. Despite the European level legislation that should ensure the equal treatment of women in many areas of life, levels of gender equality vary in states across Europe. The research question of this thesis addresses the effects of welfare state models upon the differential realisation of gender equality across a range of social, economic and political indicators. The thesis relies upon a theoretical and empirical element. Chapters 1 and 2 address the literature and theory on both gender equality, and European welfare state models. Both concepts are defined and their theoretical relationship is addressed from both mainstream and feminist viewpoints. This research adopts and describes a theoretical framework based upon a modified version of G0sta Esping-Andersens typology of welfare models, incorporating a fourth group - the Mediterranean states. Chapter 3 outlines and performs a comparative analysis of the relationship between gender equality in Europe, and the welfare models in question. Statistical data on 11 indicators of gender equality is collected and analysed. These indicators address a range of aspects relevant to gender equality, focusing on labour market situation, educational achievement, parental employment support and political participation and representation. A statistical model is built to rank the states and welfare models by their relative performance according to these metrics. In Chapter 4 these results are analysed, and seen to confirm a number of the hypotheses drawn from the theory. Similar welfare models appear to affect gender equality similarly - i.e. forming clusters. These clusters also exhibit differences between them, implying that welfare models do affect gender equality in determinate ways. Furthermore these differences are observed to be broadly similar to those proposed in the literature. Social Democratic states ameliorate gender inequalities most effectively, with other models achieving less in this regard. The conclusions also identify limitations in the theory however, indicating that the Mediterranean welfare model is less coherent than assumed, but apparently more effective in addressing gender equality than was expected.

Effective responses to climate change cannot be achieved without the transition away from fossil-fuel-based electricity systems towards low-carbon systems of power generation. Such sustainability transitions are highly complex and require deep structural changes along different dimensions: technological, economic, political, infrastructural or socio-cultural. The transitions literature has so far very much focused on the diffusion of (radical) sustainable innovations like wind or solar, while the destabilisation and decline of unsustainable technologies such as coal has received much less attention. The decline of established systems is of particular importance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively. It also creates space for sustainable innovations, thereby accelerating ongoing transitions. Decline processes in general, and of fossil-fuel-based systems in particular, are value-laden and often highly conflictual. They usually involve a broad range of powerful actors trying to influence the pace and direction of the transition. How these different actors affect the transition is an open issue. So far, only few studies have targeted the role of politics and power in decline processes. The goal of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the ‘politics of decline’ by looking into the public discourse on the coal phase-out and energy transition in Germany. This research is based on a discourse analysis of 345 newspaper articles published between 2000 and 2019. The study explores how actors struggle to build or challenge the legitimacy of coal-fired power generation through storylines and elucidates how they form discourse coalitions based on those storylines. The research also aims to uncover broader discursive developments with the potential to influence the pathway of the energy transition. The discourse analytical approach is qualitatively driven, but also entails quantitative coding with NVivo to record how frequently certain categories appear in the data set across time. The study reveals two antagonist actor coalitions. The anti-coal coalition, comprising NGOs, activists, the Green party, the Ministry for the Environment, think tanks and researchers, challenges the legitimacy of coal primarily due to its vast environmental and climate impact. Led by electric utilities, the pro-coal coalition mainly build legitimacy by pointing to the economic role of coal for the national economy, the lignite mining regions and the coal workers. The analysis finds an extensive and sudden discursive shift which accelerates the discursive destabilisation of coal-fired power. The discursive patterns reveal a strong dominance of coal-delegitimising storylines as well as high media attention on the future role of coal resulting from the discursive shift. Moreover, the discourse shows clear signs of disruption of the actor coalition in support of coal. Traditional coal allies such as the Ministry of the Economics, the political parties CDU/CSU and SPD, as well as some of the utilities withdraw from the legitimising discourse. However, as pressure on the coal regime increases, other influential actors such as the labour unions, industry representatives and the minister presidents of the coal states enter the discourse, enacting severe resistance to the decline of coal-fired power. The research concludes that the German coal phase-out provides a range of valuable insights for countries in similar situations. Nevertheless, for future research, systematic cross-country comparisons of destabilisation discourses are needed to be able to generate more generalisable insights into the ‘politics of decline’.