Advancing Future-Orientation in Policymaking

This book argues that, under certain societal and institutional conditions, party-, interest group- and bureaucracy-based elites can interact positively to extend political timeframes beyond short electoral terms and foster reasoned long-term planning for democratic decision-making. Focusing on Finland within a broader analytic framework and comparative context, it unearths institutions and practices that give the elites capacity to curtail democratic short-sightedness and offer long-term solutions for contemporary threats such as economic globalization, climate change and geopolitical competition. The study also reveals factors that condition the operative capacity of futureregarding institutions. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of political science, public policy and administration, elites and management and futures studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non- Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0 license

Tietääkö kansa? Kansalaisten politiikkatietämys teoreettisessa ja empiirisessä tarkastelussa

Siirretty Doriast

The impact of life events on turnout: habitual voting does not seem to be as resistant to change as often assumed

Lauri Rapeli, Mikko Mattila, and Achillefs Papageorgiou combine two panel surveys, conducted in the UK between 1991 and 2017, to examine the impact of unemployment, retirement, changes in partnership status, moving and disability on voting. They find that turnout declines with divorce; for other life events, the impacts diverge across the voter groups they identify

Interest through necessity? : The impact of personal health on the stability of political interest in the United Kingdom

Interest in politics is a key indicator of citizens’ attitudes towards politics. Scholars disagree whether interest is a stable trait developed during adolescence, or if it changes over the life course. We hypothesise that deteriorating health can destabilise the stable sense of political interest because worsening health makes individuals more dependent on public healthcare and increase their attention to politics. Furthermore, we assume that the impact of health on interest is conditional on income as people with low incomes are dependent on public healthcare. Our results show only limited support for the first hypothesis. However, we found a negative relationship between declining health and increasing interest in the lowest income group. The results are consistent with the life-cycle theory, which presumes that important events in life have consequences even for the most endurable political attitudes. Deteriorating personal health can be a source of motivation to make persons more interested in politics.Peer reviewe

Does it pay to think about the future? Future orientation, ideology, age and vote earning among political candidates

Solving societal problems often requires elected politicians to make uncertain investments, which only provide benefits in the future. However, research on future-oriented democratic policymaking has primarily focused on structural explanations and voter behaviour, paying less attention to politicians' attitudes. In this study, we examine politicians' future orientation and its potential link to electoral success. Using the latest Finnish data from the Comparative Candidate Survey, combined with voting-advice application data and register-level candidate information, we analyse how candidates' future orientation correlates with their personal vote shares and ideological positions in the 2019 parliamentary elections. Our findings indicate that future-oriented political candidates, willing to invest in the future despite costs to present wellbeing, tend to be younger, more leftist and green-alternative-liberal. However, the relationship between future orientation and vote-winning is weak, suggesting that office-seeking politicians face neither punishment nor reward for their future-regarding stances.Peer reviewe

Viranhaltijoiden suhtautuminen kuntalaisosallistumisen lisäämiseen kuntahallinnossa

Public administrators’ perceptions of public engagement in local government This article is an empirical study of the attitudes of public administrators toward public engagement. Currently there is a gap in the research on the attitudes of senior public servants who are important gate-keepers for the implementation of public engagement policies. This article contributes to filling this gap in the research by using interviews with senior public servants in a Finnish municipality. The study reveals that the administrators positively value citizens and their participation. However, there are differing views concerning the relationships between the new models of civic participation and the traditional models of planning and decision-making. The results indicate that there is an ongoing cultural change within the administration. The main factors that undermine the realization of public engagement policy can be divided into legislative, organizational, individual and cultural capacities

Can Deliberation Reduce Political Misperceptions? Findings from a Deliberative Experiment on Immigration

How can deliberative democracy contribute to our understanding of political misperceptions? Findings from the field of political sophistication suggest that misperceptions are difficult to change and corrective measures often fail. However, this field of research has paid little attention to deliberation as a mechanism to reduce political misperceptions. Using a deliberative experiment on immigration where participants engaged in either mixed or likeminded group discussions, we find some evidence of deliberation’s corrective potential, especially in mixed groups, i.e. groups where individuals with different opinions on the matter discuss these with each other. By conducting the first exploratory study on deliberative democracy’s potential for reducing misperception, we hope to advance the empirical discussion on the precise function of deliberation in the age of disinformation

Kansalaisten poliittinen osallistuminen ja tietämys Suomessa

Mitä parempi poliittinen tietämys, sitä aktiivisemmin suomalaiset osallistuvat politiikkaan. Tietämys ei kuitenkaan takaa oikeita valintoja, sillä politiikassa ei ole kyse vain vaihtoehtojen oikeellisuudesta vaan henkilökohtaisesta kokemuksesta