David Arter
Biographic Data
| ID | 1534562 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Arter |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Arter |
| SIGNATURE | ARTER D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tampere University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4000-9611 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 84 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 654 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 84 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Livelihood, Language or Self‐Identification? The Shifting Base of Sámi Representation in Finland
Against the backdrop of (i) the Finnish Eduskunta's enactment in June 2025 of a contentious change in the voting rules for elections to the Sámi Parliament and (ii) the publication in December 2025 of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission examining the historic discrimination practised against the Sámi population, this paper focuses on the representation of the indigenous Sámi minority in Finland. The central question, which…
Localness, partyness or well-knownness? Dissecting the personal vote of celebrity candidates in Finnish regional elections
This paper explores the value of ‘localness', ‘partyness', and well-knownness' (name-recognition from outside the world of politics) in the personal vote of dual mandate-seeking celebrity candidates at the 2025 Finnish municipal and regional elections. This was the first time these elections were held concurrently, and candidates could run at both levels. Theoretically, the article challenges the orthodoxy that the personal vote is by definition …
Why do MPs run to become MEPs when most simply want to remain MPs? On servicing the personal vote and doing party service
This paper proceeds from the observation that, when viewed in comparative perspective the incidence of MPs seeking to become MEPs is highest in open-list (intraparty preference) voting systems and that in these systems votes will represent both a personal resource for MEP-candidates and an electoral resource for political parties. Finland is presented as a case of optimal list-system openness and all 124 MPs standing in the seven European Parliam…
Whatever happened to Red Belt rural communism in Western Europe? A comparative perspective on the Finnish case
The rise of no-confidence votes in individual ministers: Towards a neo-Westminster style of politics in Finland
When in Rome do as the Romans do’ or ‘Rome is for Romans only’? How the search for a classification of the Finns Party could clear a way through the taxonomical jungle of the European far-right
The first aim of this study is to put the Finns Party on the academic map of the European far-right. Whilst averaging almost one-fifth of the vote over the last four general elections, it has been curiously absent from the comparative parties’ literature. The second aim is to consider how the search for an appropriate classification of the Finns Party might help to navigate a way through the terminological maze of parties parading under the Europ…
Are catchall strategies bound to fail? The catchall conundrum and the case of a niche agrarian-class party
When viewed as a response to long-term decline in a party’s core constituency – whether class, religion or language-based – catchall strategies involve the inherent risk of marginalising the party’s core voter without achieving significant and/or sustained electoral renewal. The risk of core shrinkage will not be offset by a durable electoral dividend and the catchall strategy may well feed the very decline it is designed to arrest. Whilst catcha…
W(h)ither religious-niche parties? The Nordic Christians’ search for the mainstream through an ‘unsecular politics’ strategy
With the pun intended, this article asks whether, in overwhelmingly secular societies, the four Nordic religious-niche parties created by revivalist Christians before and after the Second World War, and whose strength has been in their countries’ Bible Belt regions, have a future as broad-based, religious-mainstream parties or are destined to ‘wither on the vine’? If, as the parties’ literature suggests, niche-party ‘nicheness’ is variable, can t…
The making of an ‘unhappy marriage’? The 2023 Finnish general election
Rarely, if ever, has a Finnish general election attracted such foreign media interest. Reporters came from across the globe, not to witness Finland become NATO's thirty-first member-state on 4 April, two days after the general election, but to see if the party-loving Social Democrat prime minister Sanna Marin could secure a second term at the helm.Footnote1 In the event, Marin became only the third prime minister in recent times to increase the p…
Importing’ the personal vote to maximise the party vote? ‘Parachute personalization’ in an intraparty preference electoral system
This article seeks to contribute to the electoral and party politics debate in three main ways. The first is the claim that parachuting politicians into districts in which they have no prior connections is not a nomination practice that is the exclusive preserve of plurality electoral systems, nor does it necessarily engender the critical reaction of carpetbagging in the United States or ‘captain’s picks’ in Australia. Second, the practice of par…
Bigwig hatred’ and the emergence of the first Scandinavian agrarian‐populist party
In the genealogy of the Scandinavian populist‐party family, agrarian populism has been largely neglected and, when discussed at all, it is traced back to Finland in the late 1950s. This paper argues: (i) that agrarian populism long predated the 1950s and that it was politically salient from the decade before Finnish independence in 1917; (ii) that it is useful to distinguish between an agrarian‐class and agrarian‐populist party type; (iii) that i…
When even the prime minister sits on the municipal council. Analysing the value of ‘localness’ and Finnish MPs’ incentives to ‘cumulate’ in an open-list voting system
This article addresses a curiously neglected question, namely why do the vast majority of Finnish MPs—one of the highest levels in the world—hold a seat on the municipal council? The basic presumption is that Finnish parliamentarians are not first and foremost ‘office-seekers’; they do not seek municipal council office as a primary goal. Rather, they view municipal elections as a means of attaining localness, either as a personal vote-earning att…
Personal representation or party representation? Elections in the autonomous Åland Islands
For an electorate numbering under 21,000 persons, voters in the autonomous Åland islands are remarkably well represented. They vote in Finnish general elections, presidential elections and European Parliament elections; they vote for a 30-seat regional assembly, the Lagting; and they vote for one of the 16 municipal councils on the islands. For Lagting elections there is one MP for barely seven-hundred voters. This low MP-voter ratio, when taken …
Can a religious-niche party change – or was Kirchheimer right? Analysing the Finnish Christians’ search to become a catchall electoral party
Small-party persistence is a story in itself, especially when the party in question emerged as an entirely new party, lacked societal rootedness and did not boast any recognisable persons among its founding figures. The particular case is the Finnish Christian League SKL (from 2001 Christian Democrats KD), one of a family of post-Second World War fundamentalist Christian parties in the Nordic region which, over the six decades of its existence, h…
Digging in the ‘Secret Garden of Politics: The Institutionalisation and De‐institutionalisation of Membership Ballots in the Selection of Finnish Parliamentary Candidates
This article is the first expressly to focus on membership ballots as an instrument in the selection of parliamentary candidates in Finland, a polity in which the nomination process is inclusive and decentralised. A Finnish case study is of comparative interest for three main reasons: (i) Finland is one of the few European countries in which candidate selection is regulated by the state; (ii) challenging much of the literature, the combination of…
It’s a Long Way from Kuusamo to Kuhmo: Mapping Candidates’ Electoral Constituencies in the Finnish Open-List Single Preference Voting System
This article seeks an insight into the nature of intraparty competition in an open-list single preference voting system, and it does so by analysing the distribution of votes for Centre Party candidates in the 40 or so municipalities making up the northern Finnish constituency of Oulu in each of the five general elections between 2003 and 2019. It builds on Grofman’s distinction between a geographical constituency and a candidate’s electoral cons…
When a pariah party exploits its demonised status: The 2019 Finnish general election
The governing Centre and Conservative parties played the 'economy' card – we've got Finland 'back into shape'; the green parties, the Greens and Left Alliance, played the 'climate change' card, demanding action to go with the talk; the Social Democrats played the 'caring' card and the need for a Finland that cares for the elderly, the low-paid and young persons; the Finns Party in contrast played the 'no one likes us, we don't care' card, seeking…
Mini‐Symposium on The Finnish General Election of April 14, 2019
Concluding Remarks: Constituency Service or Constituency Effort
In the Introduction to this symposium, we posed three inter-related questions. First, what do Nordic parliamentarians do to serve the needs and represent the interests of their constituents? Second
The What, Why’s and How’s of Constituency Service
This Special Issue addresses the 'what', 'why's' and 'how's' of constituency service in the five Nordic states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Whilst there are some Nordic answers to the 'who?' question, there is virtually nothing on the 'how' question, namely how MPs represent the citizenry and the role constituency service may or may not play in the representation process. In this Introduction we (1) define the term and identif…
A Note from the New Editors of Scandinavian Political Studies
Neglected and Unloved: Does the Hinge Party Deserve That
This article focuses on the hinge party both as a concept and a strategy. It seeks to ‘liberate’ the hinge party from the clutches of such close conceptual relatives as the ‘pivot party’, the ‘genuine pivot party’, the ‘pivotal centre party’, the ‘pivotal middle party’ and the ‘pivotal median party’. This is a taxonomical jungle and while some use the terms ‘hinge party’ and ‘pivot party’ interchangeably, this study urges a ‘velvet divorce’. The …
When new party X has the ‘X factor: On resilient entrepreneurial parties
There is no single, correct answer to the question ‘what type of party is new party X?’ nor is there a foolproof way of gauging new-party X’s prospects of survival as a parliamentary actor. The recent literature on new parties predicts a relatively low survival rate for ‘entrepreneur parties’, defined as parties formed without a measure of support from an external ‘promoter’ organisation. Charisma alone, the argument goes, is unlikely to be suffi…
Why Do MPs Want To Be MEPs? Candidate Incentives and Party Nomination Strategies in European Parliament Elections in Finland
Twenty per cent of the Finnish MPs elected at the April 2011 general election stood as MEP-candidates at the May 2014 European Parliament election, the highest proportion in Western Europe. Why? Who do Finnish MPs – and indeed former MPs – want to be MEPs and, more particularly, why do the political parties run a distinctively high proportion of parliamentarians on their Euro-lists? This article seeks to assess the impact of the electoral system …
Extreme Right Parties in Scandinavia
Anders Widfeldt can count himself unfortunate with his timing. His book on the extreme right parties in Scandinavia was published just before one of the main parties in focus, the anti-immigrant Sw
The Breakthrough of Another West European Populist Radical Right Party? The Case of the True Finns
The True Finn Party (PS), which gained virtually 10 per cent of the national vote at the 2009 European Parliament election, lacks a place in the comparative party literature and also defies ready classification. It has been perceived by its supporters as the most left-wing of the non-socialist parties; by Finnish media commentators as a case of right-wing populism; and by researchers as a distinctive centred-based populist party when viewed in a …
Small State Influence Within the EU: The Case of Finland's ‘Northern Dimension Initiative
This article deals with regionalization in Northern Europe, focusing in particular on the Northern Dimension Initiative (NDI) which, launched in 1997, was Finland's first political initiative as an EU member. The NDI was ostensibly designed to enhance the influence of Northern Europe as a political actor by co‐ordinating the work of the various cross‐national initiatives that emerged there in the 1990s. The NDI was far from a routine initiative. …
The ‘Hows’, not the ‘Whys’ or the ‘Wherefores: The Role of Intra‐party Competition in the 2011 Breakthrough of the True Finns
From minor party status, the True Finn Party (PS) claimed nearly one‐fifth of the vote and almost the same proportion of parliamentary seats at the April 2011 Finnish general election. It registered the largest gains made by any party in postwar Finnish history, thus writing – in the eyes of foreign journalists at least – yet another chapter in the surge of populist radical right parties across contemporary Europe. This article, however, is conce…
Introduction: Comparing the legislative performance of legislatures
The problem with the central 'Mezey question' – 'how much policy-making power does a legislature have?' – is not so much the question itself, since legislatures have to do with law-making, however tenuously in some cases, as the absence of the precision tools with which to calibrate the extent of a legislature's policy power. This in turn has fed a tendency to accept rather than confront the legislative stereotypes embedded in the existing classi…
Clowns, ‘Alluring Ducks’ and ‘Miss Finland 2009: The Value of ‘Celebrity Candidates’ in an Open-List Pr Voting System
Carey and Shugart (1995 Carey, John M. and Matthew Shugart. 1995. Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: a rank ordering of electoral formulas. Electoral Studies 14 (4): 417–39. doi: 10.1016/0261-3794(94)00035-2[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 419) have noted that ‘the national celebrity enjoyed by movie stars or athletes can translate into valuable personal reputation in some electoral systems’. Indeed, in open-list voting sy…
When new party X has the ‘X factor: On resilient entrepreneurial parties
There is no single, correct answer to the question ‘what type of party is new party X?’ nor is there a foolproof way of gauging new-party X’s prospects of survival as a parliamentary actor. The recent literature on new parties predicts a relatively low survival rate for ‘entrepreneur parties’, defined as parties formed without a measure of support from an external ‘promoter’ organisation. Charisma alone, the argument goes, is unlikely to be suffi…
Analysing ‘Successor Parties: The Case of the True Finns
Whilst the ‘successor party’ (SP) has a well-established place in the literature on post-communist Eastern and Central Europe, occasional references to its West European counterpart have tended to use the term loosely and not separate it out from other varieties of new party. Focusing on the question, ‘where do parties come from?’ – that is, the process of party origination – this article makes a case for viewing the SP as a distinct genus in the…
The EU Referendum in Finland on 16 October 1994: A Vote for the West, not for Maastricht
Finland's ‘European policy’ prior to the sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union was based on the search for an accommodation between the economic imperative of access, along with Norway and Sweden, to crucial Western export markets and the political imperative of preserving the credibility of its ‘neutrality’ and special relationship with the Kremlin. During the Cold War the political imperative was necessarily paramount. However, within three…
Measuring the Extent of Party Institutionalisation: The Case of a Populist Entrepreneur Party
The consensus among Finnish commentators is that the True Finn Party (PS), which grew dramatically to become the second largest electoral party in 2011, is an institutionalised party – that is, it is 'here to stay'. Although led for virtually the whole of its 19-year existence by Timo Soini, the PS, unlike say Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Popolo Della Libertà, is not viewed as a 'personal party' in which its expected lifespan is dependent on the…
Taking the Gilt off the Conservatives' Gingerbread: The April 2011 Finnish General Election
When a pariah party exploits its demonised status: The 2019 Finnish general election
The governing Centre and Conservative parties played the 'economy' card – we've got Finland 'back into shape'; the green parties, the Greens and Left Alliance, played the 'climate change' card, demanding action to go with the talk; the Social Democrats played the 'caring' card and the need for a Finland that cares for the elderly, the low-paid and young persons; the Finns Party in contrast played the 'no one likes us, we don't care' card, seeking…
The Madisonian Turn: Political Parties and Parliamentary Democracy in Nordic Europe
Conclusion. Questioning the ‘mezey question’: An interrogatory framework for the comparative study of legislatures
The Conclusion broadens the notion of 'legislative performance' from various measures of legislative output to an analysis of the performance of legislatures in the totality of the legislative process. The shift is from the 'how much policy power?' question of Mezey to a broad-gauge 'how?' question, with the emphasis on process and the overall anatomy of legislative influence. The question is: 'how do legislators, both severally and collectively,…
The Michael Marsh Question: How do Finns do Constituency Service
Journal Article The Michael Marsh Question: How do Finns do Constituency Service? Get access David Arter David Arter Professor of Political ScienceDepartment of PoliticsUniversity of Tampere [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 64, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 129–152, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsq043 Published: 30 September 2010
A ‘Pivotal Centre Party’ Calls the Shots: The 2015 Finnish General Election
The Finnish general election on 19 April 2015 resulted in a resounding defeat for the blue–red, Conservative–Social Democrat core of the four-party governing coalition led by Alexander Stubb and th
The making of an ‘unhappy marriage’? The 2023 Finnish general election
Rarely, if ever, has a Finnish general election attracted such foreign media interest. Reporters came from across the globe, not to witness Finland become NATO's thirty-first member-state on 4 April, two days after the general election, but to see if the party-loving Social Democrat prime minister Sanna Marin could secure a second term at the helm.Footnote1 In the event, Marin became only the third prime minister in recent times to increase the p…
Extreme Right Parties in Scandinavia
Anders Widfeldt can count himself unfortunate with his timing. His book on the extreme right parties in Scandinavia was published just before one of the main parties in focus, the anti-immigrant Sw
The What, Why’s and How’s of Constituency Service
This Special Issue addresses the 'what', 'why's' and 'how's' of constituency service in the five Nordic states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Whilst there are some Nordic answers to the 'who?' question, there is virtually nothing on the 'how' question, namely how MPs represent the citizenry and the role constituency service may or may not play in the representation process. In this Introduction we (1) define the term and identif…
Big Bang' Elections and Party System Change in Scandinavia: Farewell to the 'Enduring Party System
Journal Article 'Big Bang' Elections and Party System Change in Scandinavia: Farewell to the 'Enduring Party System'? Get access David Arter David Arter * University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland *Correspondence: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 65, Issue 4, October 2012, Pages 822–844, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsr050 Published: 29 November 2011
It’s a Long Way from Kuusamo to Kuhmo: Mapping Candidates’ Electoral Constituencies in the Finnish Open-List Single Preference Voting System
This article seeks an insight into the nature of intraparty competition in an open-list single preference voting system, and it does so by analysing the distribution of votes for Centre Party candidates in the 40 or so municipalities making up the northern Finnish constituency of Oulu in each of the five general elections between 2003 and 2019. It builds on Grofman’s distinction between a geographical constituency and a candidate’s electoral cons…
From a Contingent Party System to Party System Convergence? Mapping Party System Change in Postwar Finland
The current imperative in journal articles of presenting new data and new ‘theory’ has largely been at the expense of new interpretations and ‘big picture’ analyses. This article proceeds from the failure of the comparative politics literature, from Sartori to Evans and Green‐Pedersen, to grasp the essential dynamics of the Cold War Finnish party system and the curious absence of Finnish studies of the significant legislative party system change …
The Scottish committees and the goal of a ‘New Politics’: A verdict on the first four years of the devolved Scottish parliament
The launch in 1999 of a devolved Scottish Parliament with primary legislative powers was accompanied by extensive talk of the creation of a ‘new politics’ North of the Border. Eschewing the ‘yah‐boo’ adversarialism of the British House of Commons, ‘new politics’ in Scotland was to be open, consensual and participative in the style of the small Nordic democracies. It was to be predicated on a distinctive three‐way sharing of power between the gove…
On Assessing Strength and Weakness in Parliamentary Committee Systems: Some Preliminary Observations on the New Scottish Parliament
The article is in three parts. The first highlights some features of the Scottish Parliament and sketches the powers and functions of its committee system. The second presents (but does not test) a series of hypotheses relating to the legislative capacity of the Scottish committees. The third considers the limitations of existing approaches to the analysis of the Scottish committees and suggests a method of analysing strength and weakness in comm…
The End of the Social Democratic Hegemony? The March 2007 Finnish General Election
The 18 March 2007 general election marked the centenary of mass democracy in Finland.1 On 25 May 100 years earlier, when Finland was still a Grand Duchy of the Czarist Russian Empire, all men and w
When even the prime minister sits on the municipal council. Analysing the value of ‘localness’ and Finnish MPs’ incentives to ‘cumulate’ in an open-list voting system
This article addresses a curiously neglected question, namely why do the vast majority of Finnish MPs—one of the highest levels in the world—hold a seat on the municipal council? The basic presumption is that Finnish parliamentarians are not first and foremost ‘office-seekers’; they do not seek municipal council office as a primary goal. Rather, they view municipal elections as a means of attaining localness, either as a personal vote-earning att…
All-Party Government for Finland
Journal Article ALL-PARTY GOVERNMENT FOR FINLAND? Get access David Arter David Arter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume XXXI, Issue 1, Winter 1978, Pages 67–85, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a054244 Published: 01 January 1978
The finnish centre party: Profile of a ‘Hinge group
The peculiar conditions of the party system have enabled the Finnish Centre Party, unlike its better‐known counterparts in Sweden and Norway, to occupy a position at the centre of the political spectrum. Indeed, in holding the balance of power between left and right, the Centre Party has functioned as a 'hinge group', at once indispensable to the achievement of a majority coalition and decisive in determining its party composition. This article p…
European elections – Finland
The Finnish Election of 1979: The Empty-Handed “Winner
Journal Article THE FINNISH ELECTION OF 1979: THE EMPTY-HANDED “WINNER”? Get access David Arter David Arter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 32, Issue 1, 1979, Pages 422–436, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a051801 Published: 01 January 1979
The Finnish Election of 1979: "The Empty-Handed "Winner
Journal Article The Finnish Election of 1979: The Empty-Handed “WINNER”? Get access David Arter David Arter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 32, Issue 4, 1979, Pages 422–436, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/32.4.422 Published: 01 October 1979
Social Democracy in a West European Outpost: The Case of the Finnish SDP
The achievements of the Finnish Social Democratic party have been heavily tinged with paradox: the largest parliamentary group of its kind in Europe at its beginning in 1907 in one of the least industrialized nations, it has consistently remained the strongest party without becoming either the fulcrum of the party system or a regular party of government. Having become the dominant ruling party only in the last decade, the Social Democrats have st…
The Finnish Christian League: Party or ‘Anti‐Party
Work on the Finnish protest elections of the 1970s has concentrated on Vennamo's Rural Party. Yet at the general elections in 1979 the Finnish Christian League succeeded in surpassing not only the Rural but also the centre‐based Swedish and Liberal People's parties. This paper has two main objectives: firstly, to consider why in a monoreligious, multiparty polity an interest‐specific Christian party has emerged; and, secondly, using elite intervi…
Kekkonen's finland: Enlightened despotism or consensual democracy
This article has two main aims: to identify the sources of Presidential power under the long‐serving Urho Kekkonen and to delineate his important, if at times strictly unconstitutional, role in the domestic policy process. Stress is given to the prestige accruing from his successful handling of Fenno‐Soviet relations and how, when traditional cleavages have threatened the central task of economic management, Kekkonen has used his enhanced authori…
The 1983 Finnish election: Protest or consensus
The Nordic parliaments: Patterns of legislative influence
The ‘decline of parliaments’ thesis enjoys a wide currency in Nordic political science: it has, in fact, become routine to assert the primacy of the corporate over the electoral‐parliamentary channel in decision‐making. Against this background of a sustained challenge to traditional conceptions of representative democracy, the article undertakes a systematically comparative examination of the participation of the Nordic parliaments in the formula…
Government in Finland: A ‘Semi-Presidential System
Journal Article GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND: A ‘SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM’? Get access David Arter David Arter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 38, Issue 4, AUTUMN 1985, Pages 472–495, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052014 Published: 01 October 1985
The 1987 Finnish election: The conservatives out of the wilderness
A Tale of Two Carlssons: The Swedish General Election of 1988
Journal Article A TALE OF TWO CARLSSONS: THE SWEDISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1988 Get access David Arter David Arter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 42, Issue 1, January 1989, Pages 84–101, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052185 Published: 01 January 1989
The Swedish Riksdag: The case of a strong policy‐influencing assembly
1990). The Swedish Riksdag: The case of a strong policy‐influencing assembly. West European Politics: Vol. 13, Parliaments in Western Europe, pp. 120-142
The Finnish election of 17 March 1991: A victory for opposition
The Swedish Leftist Party: Eco-Communism’ or Communist Echo
THE SWEDISH LEFTIST PARTY: ‘ECO-COMMUNISM’ OR COMMUNIST ECHO? Get access David Arter David Arter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 44, Issue 1, January 1991, Pages 60–78, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052286 Published: 01 January 1991
Black Faces in the Blond Crowd: Populist Racialism In Scandinavia
The 1994 Finnish presidential election: Honesty was not the best policy
Estonia after the March 1995 Riigikogu election: Still an anti‐party system
The progression from democratic transition to democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe can be conceptualized in terms of three analytically distinct processes: state‐building, nation‐building and society‐building. There exists a clear connection between party‐building and society‐building and political parties face particular challenges in promoting a democratic society in post‐communist systems. A transitional ‘anti‐party system’ can be identi…
The March 1995 Finnish election: The social democrats storm back
The Folketing and Denmark's ‘European policy: The case of an ‘authorising assembly
The EU Referendum in Finland on 16 October 1994: A Vote for the West, not for Maastricht
Finland's ‘European policy’ prior to the sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union was based on the search for an accommodation between the economic imperative of access, along with Norway and Sweden, to crucial Western export markets and the political imperative of preserving the credibility of its ‘neutrality’ and special relationship with the Kremlin. During the Cold War the political imperative was necessarily paramount. However, within three…
Party system change in Scandinavia since 1970: Restricted change’ or ‘general change
This article sets out to examine the extent of party system change in Scandinavia since the ‘earthquake elections’ in the early 1970s witnessed the parliamentary breakthrough of new parties and, in particular, the rise of a populist radical right. It deploys an analytical framework derived from Berglund and Lindström's five‐party Scandinavian model and an identification of the ‘core structures’ of the frozen party system in the region. In assessi…
From Class Party to Catchall Party: The Adaptation of the Finnish Agrarian‐Center Party
This article seeks to apply Kirchheimer’s ‘catchall party thesis’ to the transformation of the Agrarian‐Center Party in Finland. On at least two counts this might seem a hopeless endeavor. First, Kirchheimer excluded most parties in the smaller West European democracies like Finland from his analysis on the curious grounds that they either had effective majorities or regular access to power and, therefore, had no need of catchall strategies. Seco…
The Swedish general election of 20th September 1998: A Victory for Values Over Policies
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