Finland

Case notes

Finnish Rural Party

The Finnish Rural Party (Suomen maaseudun puolue, SMP) was a populist agrarian protest party founded around Veikko Vannamo that mobilised mainly on corruption, and the general context of urban industrialisation/rural decline (Sänkiaho 1971; Arter 2012, 816). SMP formed as a splinter of the Agrarian League in 1959.

The party espoused an anti-establishment populist line aimed at rallying “forgotten” rural voters, frustrated with the “urban elite” (Lahti and Palonen 2023, 130), and losing out in the rapid period of urbanisation and industrialisation (Norocel 2016, 43; Arter 2012, 813). In particular, the party took aim at the long serving government of President Urho Kekkonen, the ruling group of political parties, and Russian influence especially (Arter 2010, 486) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3, OTH_FOREIGN = 2). As Ylä-Anttila put it: “The enemy was the political and economic elite in the cities, ‘the money power’, which Vennamo famously referred to as ‘crime lords’” (Ylä-Anttila 2017, 25). This opposition to corrupt business interests – particularly its opposition to “monopoly capitalism” (Sänkiaho 1971, 40) – seems strong enough to warrant 3 on OTH_ECONOMIC. We cannot see any evidence that the party was nativist in the sense of OTH_ETHNIC or OTH_IMMIGRANT (1).

It was reliant on the leadership of Vennamo (Ylä-Anttila 2017, 25) even after his son formally took over in (it was a “family business” in this sense, (Arter 2012, 813)) (CHARISMA = 3). The party joined government after the 1983 election (INSIDER = 2 1987-) against the objections of the elder Vennamo.

The Finns Party/ True Finns

The Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset, PS), sometimes called the “True Finns”, is a nativist anti-immigration and anti-EU party, built largely on the legacy of the SMP (Raunio 2013, 133; Arter 2012) and led by Timo Soini for most of its life. Its breakout election came in 2011, when it was the only anti-EU party in parliament and therefore positioned to capitalise on the widespread anger at Finland’s participation in the bailout of southern European countries. After Jussi Halla-aho took the leadership in a “hardliner coup” in 2017, the party’s more moderate wing split off to form the Blue Reform group in the 2019 election. The Halla-aho-led Finns however maintained their vote share, receiving 17.5%.

PS self identifies as “populist” and criticises the “old parties”/“cartel parties” in its championing of “forgotten” (a term popularised by the SMP) ordinary people (Raunio 2013, 139; Norocel 2016; Arter 2010, 488–89). The “elite” also constitute the broad yolk of peripheral influences on the political system, as encompassed by Soini’s statement: “book-learned theoreticians, arrogant bureaucrats, cold-hearted technocrats, uncomprehending centralizers, big-money worshippers and smooth avant-garde thinkers do not trust the people. They do not value the people’s views because they believe the people are stupid and indifferent and that all wisdom rests with the experts and an elite that is divorced from everyday life” (cited in Arter 2010, 489). Halla-aho has maintained this anti-elite hostility towards the “old parties” (Raunio 2019, 179) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

PS is also explicitly ethno-centric in its identification of the “people”, more so than the SMP (Arter 2012, 817). While this related to touchstone issues like the teaching of Swedish in schools as a second language and opposition to American television on public airwaves, its primary manifestation was the party’s opposition to immigrants and asylum seekers, against whom the party deployed nativist and welfare chauvinist attitudes (Arter 2010, 499; 2012, 815; Pyrhönen 2013). According to several authors however (Arter 2010, 485; Raunio 2013, 146), the party’s approach to immigration and ethnocentrism is not as extreme as other far-right parties in Europe, and the political establishment and EU elites have formed a more important “other” (Niemi 2013). According to Wahlbeck, ethnocentrism in the party’s rhetoric takes the form of defense of the majority more than opposition to a minority (Wahlbeck 2016). Norocel (2016:45) suggests that the precise identity of the party on these matters is complicated by divisions between its agrarian/conservative faction (including former SMP members, and leader Soini) and a more xenophobic, anti-immigrant and far-right one led by Jussi Halla-aho and several of the more controversial members (Norocel 2017, 45; see also Kuisma 2013). There is also some evidence that the party’s stance on these issues has hardened over time (Arter 2010, 498). Under Halla-aho, the party was seen to take a more hard-line anti-immigration views (Borg 2019, 187; Raunio 2019, 176; Arter 2010). While its precise profile is therefore debatable and ambiguous, we’ve coded it 2 on OTH_IMMIGRANTS and 2 on OTH_ETHNIC Under Soini, and increased OTH_IMMIGRANTS to 3 under Halla-aho.

PS has been consistently opposed to the EU and builds this opposition into its populist approach (Lähdesmäki 2015). As the party programme once stated: “The EU is a project for filthy rich capitalists which tries to fill the pockets of major owners of capital while creating a valueless Europe where only money matters” (cited in Raunio 2013, 143). Soini dubbed the 2011 election “a referendum on the EU” (Arter 2012, 816). Given the primacy of the EU in the parties identity (especially since the post-bailout 2011 election), this warrants 3 on OTH_FOREIGN.

PS has a somewhat confusing economic ideology (Kuisma 2013, 94), in that it opposes the bureaucratic red tape of government regulation, yet calls for a strong, interventionist welfare state to safeguard the common citizen against big business and multinationals (OTH_ECONOMIC = 3) (Raunio 2013, 139; see also Arter 2010, 496; 2012, 815). While this could be debated, we have concluded that the party’s ethno-nationalism qualifies it as essentially right-wing (LRPOSITION = R) (Kestilä-Kekkonen and Söderlund 2014, 643). While they call for reforms of democracy, this entails an increase in transparency, and the party does not oppose liberal democratic norms as we are measuring them (Raunio 2013, 140; Arter 2010, 490) (LIBDEMNORMS = 1). The party has been led by Timo Soini until he left in 2017, and was quite dependent on his leadership (Kestilä-Kekkonen and Söderlund 2014; Niemi 2012; 2013). According to Arter, Soini’s presidential candidacy in 2006 was a key source of early publicity for the party, and he acted as its ‘trump card’ ever since (Arter 2010, 488). According to Raunio, Halla-aho was able to keep this leader-centrism going in the 2019 vote (Raunio 2019, 180) (CHARISMA = 3). As the party joined government in 2015, we have labelled it 2 on INSIDER for these elections.

References

Arter, David. 2010. ‘The Breakthrough of Another West European Populist Radical Right Party? The Case of the True Finns’. Government and Opposition 45 (4): 484–504. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2010.01321.x.

———. 2012. ‘Analysing ’Successor Parties’: The Case of the True Finns’. West European Politics - WEST EUR POLIT 35 (July): 803–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2012.682346.

Borg, Sami. 2019. ‘The Finnish Parliamentary Election of 2019: Results and Voting Patterns’. Scandinavian Political Studies 42 (3–4): 182–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12150.

Kestilä-Kekkonen, Elina, and Peter Söderlund. 2014. ‘Party, Leader or Candidate? Dissecting the Right-Wing Populist Vote in Finland’. European Political Science Review 6 (4): 641–62. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773913000283.

Kuisma, Mikko. 2013. ‘“Good” and “Bad” Immigrants: The Economic Nationalism of the True Finns’ Immigration Discourse’. In The Discourses and Politics of Migration in Europe, edited by Umut Korkut, Gregg Bucken-Knapp, Aidan McGarry, Jonas Hinnfors, and Helen Drake, 93–108. Europe in Transition: The NYU European Studies Series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137310903_6.

Lähdesmäki, Tuuli. 2015. ‘The Ambiguity of Europe and European Identity in Finnish Populist Political Discourse’. Identities 22 (1): 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2014.950585.

Lahti, Yannick, and Emilia Palonen. 2023. ‘The Impact of the Russia–Ukraine War on Right-Wing Populism in Finland’. In The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe, edited by Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina, 126–38. Brussels: European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS).

Niemi, Mari K. 2012. ‘Messenger and Defender – Timo Soini’s Populist Leadership and Media Strategies in Winning the Elections of 2011’. Research on Finnish Society 5: 7–17.

———. 2013. ‘The True Finns Identity Politics and Populist Leadership on the Threshold of the Party’s Electoral Triumph’. Javnost - The Public 20 (3): 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2013.11009121.

Norocel, Ov Cristian. 2016. ‘Populist Radical Right Protectors of the Folkhem: Welfare Chauvinism in Sweden’. Critical Social Policy 36 (3): 371–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018315621991.

———. 2017. ‘Finland: From Agrarian to Right Wing Populism’. In Populist Political Communication in Europe, edited by Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Carsten Reinemann, Jesper Strömbäck, and Claes Holger Vreese, 42–53. New York: Routledge.

Pyrhönen, Niko Johannes. 2013. ‘“This Welfare of Ours”: Justifying Public Advocacy for Anti-Immigration Politics in Finland during the Late 2000’s’. Migrations and Welfare States: Policies, Discourses and Institutions, 90–137.

Raunio, Tapio. 2013. ‘The Finns: Filling a Gap in the Party System’. In Exposing the Demagogues: Right Wing and National Populist Parties in Europe., edited by Karsten Grabow and Florian Hartleb, 105-131. Bruessels and Berlin, Centre for European Studies and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

———. 2019. ‘The Campaign’. Scandinavian Political Studies 42 (3–4): 175–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12149.

Sänkiaho, Risto. 1971. ‘A Model of the Rise of Populism and Support for the Finnish Rural Party’. Scandinavian Political Studies, January. https://tidsskrift.dk/scandinavian_political_studies/article/view/32082.

Wahlbeck, Östen. 2016. ‘True Finns and Non-True Finns: The Minority Rights Discourse of Populist Politics in Finland’. Journal of Intercultural Studies 37 (6): 574–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2016.1235020.

Ylä-Anttila, Tuukka. 2017. ‘The Populist Toolkit : Finnish Populism in Action 2007–2016’, October. https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/224199.