ESTONIAN ACADEMY
PUBLISHERS
eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
PUBLISHED
SINCE 1997
 
TRAMES cover
TRAMES. A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences
ISSN 1736-7514 (Electronic)
ISSN 1406-0922 (Print)
Impact Factor (2022): 0.2
RECONSIDERING THE FINNISH MODEL – INFORMATION SOCIETY POLICY AND MODES OF GOVERNANCE; pp. 400–420
PDF | DOI: 10.3176/tr.2008.4.03

Author
Antti Pelkonen
Abstract
During the last two decades, Finland has experienced an extensive societal transformation in which the Nordic welfare state model has been challenged by economic turbulences and globalisation. At the same time, the building of an information society, in which there is a growing emphasis on economic competitiveness and knowledge-intensive production, has become a central political metaobjective and formed a new national strategy. This article examines governance changes related to these transformations. The analysis shows that the Finnish experience combines both strong corporatist and market modes of governance but, at the same time, there has been a significant increase in social inequality related to the growing market governance. Such inequalities have been mostly neglected in recent discussions of the Finnish ‘model’ or ‘miracle’. The corporatist system shows a limited capacity towards deliberative and more inclusive approaches, but it also tends to merge with educational modes of governance.
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