Finland Government and Politics
Parliament building, Helsinki
SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT of its present system of
government in
1919, Finland has been one of the more fortunate members
of the
Western community of democratic nations. Compared with
other
European states, the country was only moderately affected
by the
political turmoil of the interwar period; it passed
through World
War II relatively unscathed; and, although right on the
line that
divided Europe into two hostile blocs after the second
half of
the 1940s, it survived as an independent nation with its
democratic institutions intact.
This enviable record was achieved against formidable
odds.
Although the constitutional basis of their government grew
out of
long-established institutions, Finns had never been fully
free to
govern themselves until late 1917 when they achieved
national
independence. Swedish and Russian rulers had always
ultimately
determined their affairs. Finnish society was also marked
by deep
fissures that became deeper after the brief civil war
(1918),
which left scars that needed several generations to heal.
In
addition to class and political divisions, the country
also had
to contend with regional and linguistic differences. These
problems were eventually surmounted, and by the 1980s the
watchword in Finnish politics was consensus.
A skillfully constructed system of government allowed
Finns
to manage their affairs with the participation of all
social
groups (although there were some serious lapses in the
interwar
period). Checks and balances, built into a system of
modified
separation of powers, enabled the government to function
democratically and protected the basic rights of all
citizens.
The 200-member parliament, the Eduskunta, elected by
popular
vote, was sovereign by virtue of its representing the
Finnish
people. An elected president wielded supreme executive
power and
determined foreign policy. Although not responsible
politically
to the Eduskunta, the president could carry out many of
his
functions only through a cabinet government, the Council
of
State, which was dependent upon the support of the
Eduskunta. An
independent judiciary, assisted by two legal officials
with broad
independent powers--the chancellor of justice and the
parliamentary ombudsman--ensured that government
institutions
adhered to the law.
Working within this system during the 1980s were a
variety of
political parties, an average of about a dozen, ranging
from
sect-like groups to large well-established parties, the
counterparts of which were to be found all over Western
Europe.
The socialist wing consisted of a deeply split communist
movement
and a moderate Finnish Social Democratic Party that by the
late
1980s was a preeminent governing party. The center was
occupied
by an agrarian party, the Center Party, which had been in
government almost continuously until 1987; the Swedish
People's
Party; and a formerly right-wing protest party, the
Finnish Rural
Party. The right was dominated by the National Coalition
Party,
which was fairly moderate in its conservatism. In the
1970s and
the 1980s, the mainstream parties, and even a good part of
the
Communist Party of Finland, had moved toward the center,
and the
political spectrum as a whole was slightly more to the
right than
it had been in previous decades.
A constitutional system that was conservative in nature
had
allowed these parties to work together, yet within
constraints
that permitted no single group to usurp the rights of
another.
Nevertheless, the variety of parties had made it very
difficult
to put together coalitions that could attain the strict
qualified
majorities needed to effect fundamental changes. Only
since the
second half of the 1960s had it been possible, though at
times
difficult, to find a broad enough multiparty consensus.
Powerful interest groups were also involved in Finnish
politics, most noticeably in the negotiation and the
realization
of biannual income policy settlements that, since the late
1960s,
had affected most Finnish wage-earners. Interest groups
initially
negotiated the terms of a new wage agreement; then it was,
in
effect, ratified by coalitions of parties in government;
and
finally the Eduskunta passed the social and economic
legislation
that underlay it. Some observers complained that
government's
role had become overly passive in this process and that
the
preeminence of consensus actually meant that Finnish
politics
offered the populace no real alternatives. Yet most Finns,
remembering earlier years of industrial strife and
poverty,
preferred the new means of managing public affairs.
There was also broad agreement about Finnish foreign
policy.
The country was threatened with extinction as an
independent
nation after World War II, but presidents Juho Paasikivi
and Urho
Kekkonen, both masters of realpolitik, led their
countrymen to a
new relationship with the Soviet Union. The core of this
relationship was Finland's guarantee to the Soviet Union
that its
northeastern border region was militarily secure.
Controversial
as the so-called Paasikivi-Kekkonen Line was initially, by
the
1980s the vast majority of Finns approved of the way
Finland
dealt with its large neighbor and were well aware, too, of
the
trade advantages the special relationship had brought to
their
country.
Working in tandem with good Finnish-Soviet relations
was the
policy of active and peaceful neutrality, the backbone of
Finnish
foreign policy. Advocating, as a neutral state, the
settlement of
disputes through peaceful, legal means was a role Finns
adopted
willingly. A high point of this policy was the part the
country
played in planning and in hosting the 1975 Conference on
Security
and Cooperation in Europe. Another facet of active
neutrality was
a committed membership in the United Nations, most notably
in the
organization's peacekeeping forces.
Data as of December 1988
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