IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cnpexx/v18y2013i6p811-826.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Seize the Moment: Financial Crisis and the Making of the Finnish Competition State

Author

Listed:
  • Anu Kantola
  • Johannes Kananen

Abstract

In this paper we examine how Finnish Governments dismantled the Nordic welfare state paradigm from the 1990s onwards and adopted Schumpeterian ideas of a competitive workfare state. In the early 1990s, Finland went through a financial crisis that was the most severe in OECD countries since the Second World War and came to play a major role in the paradigm change. In the crisis, the Ministry of Finance gained a central role as a consensus-building power broker, and formulated a political strategy of national competitiveness, which was adopted as a rationale of power for consensual governments and has been maintained since. We suggest that financial crises can become formative moments in which new ideas are adopted and policies are reformulated. They can also become moments which provide opportunity to overcome citizen opinion. In Finland, the wide popular and party support for the Nordic welfare model was not reflected in the new paradigm.

Suggested Citation

  • Anu Kantola & Johannes Kananen, 2013. "Seize the Moment: Financial Crisis and the Making of the Finnish Competition State," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 811-826, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:6:p:811-826
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2012.753044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2012.753044
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13563467.2012.753044?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andersen, Torben M. & Holmström, Bengt & Honkapohja, Seppo & Korkman, Sixten & Söderström Hans Tson, & Vartiainen, Juhana, . "The Nordic Model. Embracing globalization and sharing risks," ETLA B, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, number 232.
    2. Swank,Duane, 2002. "Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521001441, November.
    3. Swank,Duane, 2002. "Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521806688, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miikaeli Kylä‐Laaso & Paula Koskinen Sandberg & Julius Hokkanen, 2021. "Gender equality and the feminized public sector in the affective struggles over the Finnish Competitiveness Pact," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1507-1523, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Molinder, Jakob & Karlsson, Tobias & Enflo, Kerstin, 2022. "Social democracy and the decline of strikes," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Niamh Hardiman, 2007. "Governing the Economy," Working Papers 200739, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    3. Thibault Darcillon, 2013. "What Causes Labor-Market Volatility? The Role of Finance and Welfare State Institutions," Post-Print halshs-00881198, HAL.
    4. Enflo, Kerstin & Molinder, Jakob & Karlsson, Tobias, 2018. "The Power Resource Theory Revisited: What Explains the Decline in Industrial Conflicts in Sweden?," CEPR Discussion Papers 13130, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Rixen, Thomas, 2008. "Politicization and institutional (non-) change in international taxation [Politisierung und institutioneller (Nicht-)Wandel des internationalen Steuerregimes]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2008-306, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    6. Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri & Ricardo Aláez-Aller & Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto, 2010. "Retrenchment or Resilience? New Evidence on Relative Social Expenditure Trends," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 28(5), pages 923-942, October.
    7. Molana, Hassan & Montagna, Catia, 2006. "Aggregate scale economies, market integration, and optimal welfare state policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 321-340, July.
    8. Xiao Tan, 2017. "Explaining provincial government health expenditures in China: evidence from panel data 2007–2013," China Finance and Economic Review, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-21, December.
    9. Özlem Onaran & Valerie Boesch, 2014. "The Effect of Globalization on the Distribution of Taxes and Social Expenditures in Europe: Do Welfare State Regimes Matter?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(2), pages 373-397, February.
    10. Hallerberg, Mark & Scartascini, Carlos, 2017. "Explaining changes in tax burdens in Latin America: Do politics trump economics?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 162-179.
    11. Guerguil, Martine & Mandon, Pierre & Tapsoba, René, 2017. "Flexible fiscal rules and countercyclical fiscal policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 189-220.
    12. Vikas Dixit, 2014. "Relation between Trade Openness, Capital Openness and Government Size in India," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 49(1), pages 1-29, February.
    13. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," CERDI Working papers halshs-01015756, HAL.
    14. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," Working Papers halshs-01015760, HAL.
    15. Robert Andersen & M. McIvor, 2013. "GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in Canada," GINI Country Reports canada, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    16. Åsa Hansson & Susan Porter & Susan Williams, 2015. "The importance of the political process on corporate tax policy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 281-306, September.
    17. Antonio Sciala' & Paolo Liberati, 2008. "The impact of economic openness on the vertical structure of the public sector," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0085, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    18. Fleckenstein, Timo & Lee, Soohyun Christine, 2017. "The politics of labor market reform in coordinated welfare capitalism: comparing Sweden, Germany, and South Korea," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68210, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp59 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Vincent Mahler, 2006. "Electoral Turnout and Income Redistribution by the State: A Cross-National Analysis of the Developed Democracies," LIS Working papers 455, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    21. Fischer Yannick, 2020. "Basic Income, Labour Automation and Migration – An Approach from a Republican Perspective," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 1-034, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:6:p:811-826. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cnpe20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.