Social Responsibility in Developing New Biotechnology : Interpretations of Responsibility in the Governance of Finnish Biotechnology

The object of the dissertation is to analyse the concept of social responsibility in relation to research and development of new biotechnology. This is done by examining the relevant actors – researchers, administrators, decision-makers, experts, industry, and the public – involved in the Finnish governance of biotechnology through their roles and responsibilities. Existing practises of responsibility in biotechnology governance, as well as the discourses of responsibility – the actors’ conceptions of their own and others responsibilities – are analysed. Three types of responsibility that the actors have assumed are formulated, and the implications of these conceptions to the governance of new biotechnology are analysed. From these different types of responsibility adopted and used by the actors, theoretical models called responsibility chains are constructed. The notion of responsibility is under-theorised in sociology and this research is an attempt to create a mid-range theory of responsibility in the context of biotechnology governance. The research aims to increase understanding of the governance system from a holistic viewpoint by contributing to academic debates on science and technology policy, public understanding of science, commercialisation of research, and corporate social responsibility. With a thorough analysis of the concept of responsibility that is derived from empirical data, the research brings new perspectives into these debates by challenging many normative ideas embedded in discourses. For example, multiple roles of the public are analysed to highlight the problems of consumerism and citizen participation in practise, as well as in relation to different policy strategies. The research examines also the contradictory responsibilities faced by biotechnology researchers, who balance between academic autonomy, commercialisation of research, and reflecting social consequences of their work. Industries responsibilities are also examined from the viewpoint of biotechnology. The research methodology addresses the contradictions between empirical findings, theories of biotechnology governance, and policies in a novel way, as the study concentrates on several actors and investigates both the discourses and the practises of the actors. Thus, the qualitative method of analysis is a combination of discourse and content analysis. The empirical material is comprised of 29 personal interviews as well as documents by Finnish and multinational organizations on biotechnology governance.

Tytöt, pojat ja sukupuolinen häirintä

In this research I ask what is interpreted as sex-based harassment by 15-16-year old girls and boys. By sex-based harassment I refer to one-sided, unwanted attention that is based on gender and that makes the target feel embarrassed, frightened, hurt or angry. My focus is not on the most overt cases of harassment but rather on everyday encounters. While young people differentiate between harassing and non-harassing attention, at the same time they define, assign value to and construct differences and power relations on the basis of gender, age and ethnicity, for example. My main data consists of essays (N 104, 54 girls, 54 boys) and thematic interviews (N 14; 20 girls, 3 boys) of ninth graders of a secondary school in Helsinki. In the essays and interviews, students construe the border between pleasant and unpleasant, tolerable and intolerable attention as clear in principle, but, they suggest that in practice this border is ambivalent, negotiable and contextual. The interpretations of incidents are justified by referring to features of the target, the scene or the perpetrator. Targets of harassment are most often construed as being girls who are characterized as thin-skinned, but at the same time they are expected to be understanding toward any sex-based attention they may get, particularly when it is not physical. On the other hand, girls are regarded as equal and even active participants in incidents of harassment. Such statements include considerations of how girls either reject or invite particular kinds of attention by their actions and outward appearance. Forms of harassment, ways of understanding it as well as overcoming it vary according to spatial context. By situating incidents in different spaces and places, young people contrast their experiences with ordinary and predictable non-harassment that takes place e.g. in discos and unusual and unexpected harassment that takes place e.g. in the city streets in the daytime. The behaviour of boys harassing a girls is naturalized by appealing to young masculinity and the childishness but also strong sexual drive which is seen as characteristic of teenage boys. On the other hand, sex-based harassment is racialized and pathologized in ways that separate the phenomenon from young, Finnish, normal masculinity. Both the material experiences of the young people and the definitions of the parties involved in harassing incidents are gendered. Girls encounter and deal with sexualized commenting and unwanted approaches much more often and in a more intensive way than boys. Furthermore, there is a vast cultural repertoire of acceptable accounts that can be mobilised in order to excuse male harassers, to critically evaluate the appearance or action of the female targets and to divide the responsibility between the female target and the male perpetrator.

Politiikan paluu : Globalisaatioliike ja julkisuus

The struggle over globalization has arguably been the most important debate in world politics of the 2000 s. This study maps the origins of this debate, its most important actors and its results so far. The focus is on the Global Justice Movement which launched the globalization debate to the mass media spotlight. Particular attention is given to the World Social Forum, the movement s global gathering, analyzed as a new form of global publics. The mediation of the debates initiated by these publics to the Finnish national context is analyzed at two levels: First, through forums for policy debate such as the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy and second, through the public debate in the Finnish mass media. The study proves many common assumptions about the Global Justice Movement wrong. Rather than being a marginal actor, the movement is the initiator of the whole debate. Combining expert knowledge to carnevalistic demonstrations rarely seen in Finland, the movement gains more public attention and more members in Finland than in many other European countries. The political and economic elites are not just adversaries of the movement. Rather, the Finnish elite is divided in two. Some top politicians starting from the president and the minister for foreign affairs adopt many of the movement s claims. Later, the business elite, with support from the nation s largest newspaper, begins a counterattack to challenge the movement and its allies. The return of politics staged by the movement is, first and foremost, a phenomenon in the public sphere. Two downward trends, the decline of party politics and the traditionally strong Finnish field of politically oriented civic associations remain unchanged. This allows for the conclusion that we are witnessing a move from organizational politics towards politics in the public sphere. The study develops a theoretical perspective on social movements as actors in the public sphere. It argues that movements have, in fact, played an important role in the very development of the democratic public sphere as we know it. In the light of this observation, the study assesses the potentials and the pitfalls of social movements and their related publics to global democracy. Methodologically, the most important contribution is the development of Public Justifications Analysis, a method for analyzing political claims in media debates and the ways in which these claims are justified.

Hyvinvointivaltion optimaalisen köyhyyspolitiikan määrittelyä

The purpose of this research is to identify the optimal poverty policy for a welfare state. Poverty is defined by income. Policies for reducing poverty are considered primary, and those for reducing inequality secondary. Poverty is seen as a function of the income transfer system within a welfare state. This research presents a method for optimising this function for the purposes of reducing poverty. It is also implemented in the representative population sample within the Income Distribution Data. SOMA simulation model is used. The iterative simulation process is continued until a level of poverty is reached at which improvements can no longer be made. Expenditures and taxes are kept in balance during the process. The result consists of two programmes. The first programme (social assistance programme) was formulated using five social assistance parameters, all of which dealt with the norms of social assistance for adults (€/month). In the second programme (basic benefits programme), in which social assistance was frozen at the legislative level of 2003, the parameter with the strongest poverty reduction effect turned out to be one of the basic unemployment allowances. This was followed by the norm of the national pension for a single person, two parameters related to housing allowance, and the norm for financial aid for students of higher education institutions. The most effective financing parameter measured by gini-coefficient in all programmes was the percent of capital taxation. Furthermore, these programmes can also be examined in relation to their costs. The social assistance programme is significantly cheaper than the basic benefits programme, and therefore with regard to poverty, the social assistance programme is more cost effective than the basic benefits programme. Therefore, public demand for raising the level of basic benefits does not seem to correspond to the most cost effective poverty policy. Raising basic benefits has most effect on reducing poverty within the group of people whose basic benefits are raised. Raising social assistance, on the other hand, seems to have a strong influence on the poverty of all population groups. The most significant outcome of this research is the development of a method through which a welfare state’s income transfer-based safety net, which has severely deteriorated in recent decades, might be mended. The only way of doing so involves either social assistance or some forms of basic benefits and supplementing these by modifying social assistance.

Local Politicizations : A Comparison of Finns and French Practicing Democracy

This study examines how do the processes of politicization differ in the Finnish and the French local contexts, and what kinds of consequences do these processes have on the local civic practices, the definitions and redefinitions of democracy and citizenship, the dynamics of power and resistance, and the ways of solving controversies in the public sphere. By means of comparative anthropology of the state , focusing on how democracy actually is practiced in different contexts, politicizations the processes of opening political arenas and recognizing controversy are analyzed. The focus of the study is on local activists engaged in different struggles on various levels of the local public spheres, and local politicians and civil servants participating in these struggles from their respective positions, in two middle-size European cities, Helsinki and Lyon. The empirical analyses of the book compare different political actors and levels of practicing democracy simultaneously. The study is empirically based on four different bodies of material: Ethnographic notes taken during a fieldwork among the activities of several local activist groups; 47 interviews of local activists and politicians; images representing different levels of public portrayals from activist websites (Helsinki N=274, Lyon N=232) and from city information magazines (Helsinki-info N=208, Lyon Citoyen N= 357); and finally, newspaper articles concerning local conflict issues, and reporting on the encounters between local citizens and representatives of the cities (January-June in 2005; Helsingin Sanomat N=96 and Le Progrès N= 102). The study makes three distinctive contributions to the study of current democratic societies: (1) a conceptual one by bringing politicization at the center of a comparison of political cultures, and by considering in parallel the ethnographic group styles theory by Nina Eliasoph and Paul Lichterman, the theory on counter-democracy by Pierre Rosanvallon and the pragmatist justification theory by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot; (2) an empirical one through the triangulation of ethnographic, thematic interview, visual, and newspaper data through which the different aspects of democratic practices are examined; and (3) a methodological one by developing new ways of analyzing comparative cases an application of Frame Analysis to visual material and the creation of Public Justification Analysis for analyzing morally loaded claims in newspaper reports thus building bridges between cultural, political, and pragmatic sociology. The results of the study indicate that the cultural tools the Finnish civic actors had at their disposal were prone to hinder more than support politicization, whereas the tools the French actors mainly relied on were frequently apt for making politicization possible. This crystallization is defined and detailed in many ways in the analyses of the book. Its consequences to the understanding and future research on the current developments of democracy are multiple, as politicization, while not assuring good results as such, is central to a functioning and vibrant democracy in which injustices can be fixed and new directions and solutions sought collectively.

Gender, Politics and Democratisation in Cameroon

Gender perceptions, religious belief systems, and political thought have excluded women from politics, for ages, around the world. Combining feminist and modernisation theorists in my theoretical framework, I examine the trends in patriarchal Europe and I highlight the gender-sensitive model of the Nordic countries. Retracing local gender patterns from precolonial to postcolonial eras in sub-Saharan Africa, I explore the links between perceptions, needs, resources, education and women's political participation in Cameroon. Democratisation is supposed to open up political participation, to grant equal opportunities to all adults. One ironic feature of the liberalisation process in Cameroon has been the decrease of women in parliamentarian representation (14% in 1988, 6% in 1992, 5% in 1997 and 10% in 2002). What social, cultural and institutional mechanisms produced this paradoxical outcome, the exclusion of half the population? The gender complementarity of the indigenous context has been lost to male prevalence privileged by education, church, law, employment, economy and politics in the public sphere; most women are marginalised in the private sphere. Nation building and development have failed; ethnicism and individualism are growing. Some hope lies in the growing civil society. From two surveys and 21 focus groups across Cameroon, in 2000 and 2002, some significant results of the processed empirical data reveal low electoral registration (34.5% women and 65.9% men), contrasted by the willingness to run for municipal elections (33.3 % women and 45.2% men). The co-existence of customary and statutory laws, the corrupt political system and fraudulent practices, contribute to the marginalisation of women and men who are interested in politics. A large majority of female respondents consider female politicians more trustworthy and capable than their male counterparts; they even foresee the appointment of a female Prime Minister. The Nordic countries have institutionalised gender equality in their legislation, policies and practices. France has improved women's political inclusion with the parity laws; Rwanda is another model of women's representation, thanks to its post-conflict constitution. From my analysis, Cameroonian institutions, men and more so women, may learn and borrow from these experiences, in order to design and implement a sustainable and gender-balanced democracy. Keywords: democratisation, politics, gender equality, feminism, citizenship, Cameroon, Nordic countries, Finland, France, United Kingdom, quotas, societal social psychology.

Biovalta, toiseus ja naisten toimijuus hedelmöityshoidoissa

Biopower, Otherness and Women's Agency in Assisted Reproduction. This sociological study analyses how, why and with what kind of consequences assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have become the primary technology for governing infertility in Finland both on the level of individuals and society. The phenomenon is construed as one the strategies of the Focaultian biopower since ART are political techniques of the beginning of life par excellence, as they are used to prepare the bodies of certain types of women to create certain kind of life, i.e. certain kind of children. Moreover, ART are interpreted to be gendered control techniques with which the pure, and at the same time prevailing, social order symbolised by a female body is maintained by naming and excluding otherness, unsuitable mother candidates and children. Finally, it is considered how the agency, subjectivity, of women experiencing infertility and seeking treatment appears in the prevailing context of ART. The introduction of IVF-based reproductive technologies to Finland and the treatment practices of the early 1990s have been studied on the basis of a clinic questionnaire, medical doctor interviews and articles of the Medical Journal Duodecim from 1969 to 2000. Opinions on the method of the treatment providers were studied by conducting a theme interview with fertilisation doctors in 1993. Experiences of women who have received treatment or experienced infertility were studied by means of a survey in 1994 and by analysing the content of messages in an online discussion forum in 2000. On the basis of the medical doctor interviews, significant criterion for choosing mother candidates turned out to be her vitality and her mental and physical health, which are considered prerequisites for a vitality of the child to be born. The hierarchies concerning children became evident. While people normally make their children on their own, this is what people experiencing infertility are trying to do as well. In the era of ART, the primary child is genetically the parents' own child, a secondary option for Finnish parents is a genetically Finnish child conceived by donated Finnish gametes or embryos and the last option is an adopted child of foreign origin. Women's agency mainly appears in their way of using ART as a technology of the self for self-control on one's own nature, which helps them to prepare their bodies in order to become pregnant in co-operation with a fertilisation doctor. Women's creative free agency exceeding governance appeared as a distinctive use of language with which they created shared meaning for their infertility experience, their own individual and group identity and distinctive reality. ART are very political techniques as they have a possibility to change the methods of having children and to shape life. Therefore, further sociological research on them is important and needed. Key words: practises of assisted reproduction, women's agency, biopower, vital politics of the beginning of life, otherness

Not in all Walks of Life? : Social Differences in Suicide Mortality

In Finland, the suicide mortality trend has been decreasing during the last decade and a half, yet suicide was the fourth most common cause of death among both Finnish men and women aged 15 64 years in 2006. However, suicide does not occur equally among population sub-groups. Two notable social factors that position people at different risk of suicide are socioeconomic and employment status: those with low education, employed in manual occupations, having low income and those who are unemployed have been found to have an elevated suicide risk. The purpose of this study was to provide a systematic analysis of these social differences in suicide mortality in Finland. Besides studying socioeconomic trends and differences in suicide according to age and sex, different indicators for socioeconomic status were used simultaneously, taking account of their pathways and mutual associations while also paying attention to confounding and mediatory effects of living arrangements and employment status. Register data obtained from Statistics Finland were used in this study. In some analyses suicides were divided into two groups according to contributory causes of death: the first group consisted of suicide deaths that had alcohol intoxication as one of the contributory causes, and the other group is comprised of all other suicide deaths. Methods included Poisson and Cox regression models. Despite the decrease in suicide mortality trend, social differences still exist. Low occupation-based social class proved to be an important determinant of suicide risk among both men and women, but the strong independent effect of education on alcohol-associated suicide indicates that the roots of these differences are probably established in early adulthood when educational qualifications are obtained and health-behavioural patterns set. High relative suicide mortality among the unemployed during times of economic boom suggests that selective processes may be responsible for some of the employment status differences in suicide. However, long-term unemployment seems to have causal effects on suicide, which, especially among men, partly stem from low income. In conclusion, the results in this study suggest that education, occupation-based social class and employment status have causal effects on suicide risk, but to some extent selection into low education and unemployment are also involved in the explanations for excess suicide mortality among the socially deprived. It is also conceivable that alcohol use is to some extent behind social differences in suicide. In addition to those with low education, manual workers and the unemployed, young people, whose health-related behaviour is still to be adopted, would most probably benefit from suicide prevention programmes.

Immigrant Associations in the Metropolitan Area of Finland : Forms of Mobilisation, Participation and Representation

This study examines the role of immigrant associations in the societal and political integration of immigrants into Finnish society. The societal focus is on the ability of immigrant associations to mobilise their ethnic group members to participate in the socio-economic, cultural and political domains of Finnish society and in certain cases even beyond. The political integrative aims are the opportunities of immigrant associations to participate and represent the interests of their ethnic group in local and national policy making. This study focuses on associations in the Metropolitan Area of Finland, (Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa).The qualitative research consisted of 71 interviews conducted with members of immigrant associations and civil servants. These interviews were mainly semi-structured, including some additional open-ended questions. Additional data consisted of documents, planning reports and of follow-up enquiries. -- In the analysis of the data I categorised thirty-two immigrant associations according to the activity forms and the description of the goals by the members. The four categories consisted of integrative, societal, ethno-cultural and transnational immigrant associations. Most of the immigrant associations belonged to the integrative category (15 of 32 associations). On the one hand the aims of these associations are to provide access for their ethnic group members into Finnish society, while on the other to strengthen the ethnic identity of their members by organising ethno-cultural activities. The societal associations only focused on activities with the objective of including immigrants into the Finnish labour market and educational system. The goal of ethno-cultural associations was to strengthen the ethnic identity of their ethnic group members. The transnational associations aimed at improving the living conditions of women and children in the members' country of origin. The possibilities for immigrant associations to mobilise their members depends partly on external financing. Subsidies have been allocated for societal activities in particular. There remains a risk of the crowding out of ethno-cultural activities: something which has already taken place in several European countries. Immigrant associations aim to strengthen the identity of immigrants mainly by organising social and ethno-cultural activities. Another important target was to provide peer support and therapy courses. Additionally, immigrant women's associations offer assistance to women who have encountered violence by providing counselling and in some cases access to shelter. The data showed that there is an ever growing need to pay heed to the well-being of women, children and elderly immigrants. The participation of immigrant associations in the municipalities' integrative issues takes place mainly through cooperative projects. Until the end of the 1990s there had not been much cooperation. The problem with the projects was that they had mainly been managed by civil servants, whereas members from immigrant associations had remained in a more passive position. Representation of immigrant associations in councils has been fairly weak. Immigrant associations are included in the multicultural councils of Espoo and Vantaa, but only in the planning stages. The municipality of Helsinki does not include immigrant associations due to the large number of organisations which causes problems in finding fair, democratic representation. At the national level, the ‘Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations’ – ETNO didn’t chose its members based on membership of ethnic associations, but based on belongingness to one of the larger language groups spoken by the foreign population in Finland. Since ETNO’s third period (2005-2007), the representatives of immigrant associations and ethnic minority groups have been chosen from proposed candidates. Key words: immigrant associations, integration, mobilisation, participation, representation, the Metropolitan area of Finland, immigrant (women), civil servants

Yhteinen verkosto? : Tutkimus nuorten syrjäytymistä ehkäisevistä poikkihallinnollisista ryhmistä

Since the 1990s, European policy strategies have stressed the mutual responsibility and joint action of all societal branches in preventing social problems. Network policy is an integral part of the new governance that generates a new kind of dependency between the state and civil society in formulating and adhering to policy goals. Using empirical group interview data collected in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, this case study explores local multi-agency groups and their efforts to prevent the exclusion of children and young people. These groups consist mainly of professionals from the social office, youth clubs and schools. The study shows that these multi-agency groups serve as forums for professional negotiation where the intervention dilemma of liberal society can be addressed: the question of when it is justified and necessary for an authority or network to intervene in the life of children and their families, and how this is to be done. An element of tension in multi-agency prevention is introduced by the fact that its objectives and means are anchored both in the old tradition of the welfare state and in communitarian rhetoric. Thus multi-agency groups mend deficiencies in wellbeing and normalcy while at the same time try to co-ordinate the creation of the new community, which will hopefully reduce the burden on the public sector. Some of the professionals interviewed were keen to see new and even forceful interventions to guide the youth or to compel parents to assume their responsibilities. In group discussions, this approach often met resistance. The deeper the social problems that the professionals worked with, the more solidarity they showed for the families or the young people in need. Nothing seems to assure professionals and to legitimise their professional position better than advocating the under-privileged against the uncertainties of life and the structural inequalities of society. The groups that grappled with the clear, specific needs of certain children and families were the most capable of co-operation. This requires the approval of different powers and the expertise of distinct professions as well as a forum to negotiate case-specific actions in professional confidentiality. The ideals of primary prevention for everyone and value discussions alone fail to inspire sufficient multiagency co-operation. The ideal of a network seems to give word and shape to those societal goals that are difficult or even impossible to reach, but are nevertheless yearned for: mutual understanding of the good life, close social relationships, mutual trust and active agency for all citizens. Individualisation, the multiplicity of life styles and the possibility to choose have come true in such a way that the very idea of a mutual and binding network can be attained only momentarily and between restricted participants. In conclusion, uniting professional networks that negotiate intervention dilemmas with citizen networks based on changing compassions and feelings of moral superiority seems impossible. Rather, one should encourage openness to scrutiny among tangential or contradicting groups, networks and communities. Key words: network policy, prevention of exclusion, multi-agency groups, young people

Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood : Cultivating Decency and Emotion in Finnish and French Mother-talk

Discursive Matrixes of Motherhood examines women's discourse on their experiences of new motherhood in Finland and France. It sets out from two culturally prevalent turns of speech observed in different social forums: in conversations amongst mothers with tertiary education and in the print media. The pool of data includes: 30 interviews, 8 autobiographically inspired novels and 80 items from women's magazines. With instruments loaned from the toolbox of rhetorical analysis, the recurrence of certain expressions or clichés is analyzed with regard to the national, cultural, biographical, political and daily contexts and settings in which the speaking subjects are immersed. "Staying at home is such a short and special time", the first expression under scrutiny, caught the sociological eye because of its salience in Finland and because it appeared as contradictory with a core characteristic of the Finnish context:long family leave. The cliché was found to function as a discursive micromechanism which swept mothers' 'complaints' under the proverbial carpet. Proper emotions and decency in mother-talk thereby appear as collective achievements. An opposite phenomenon - that of the scaling up of rewards procured by children - was also discerned in the data. Indeed, the French expression "Profiter de mon enfant" ["making the most of my child"/"enjoying my child"] is interpreted as a crystallization of a hedonist ethos of motherhood in everyday language. Secondly, the recurrence of this utterance is analyzed in the light of a requisite located in child-rearing expert literature: that of pleasure that women should take in mothering. Hence, one of the rules found to structure the discursive matrixes of motherhood is the laudability and audibility of enjoyment and conversely the discretion and discouragement of 'complaints'. The cultivation of decent matches between certain categories of emotions and certain categories of individuals also appears as a characteristic of discursive matrixes. One of the methodological findings relates to the fact that such matches may be constituted as sociological objects through the identification of recurrent discursive crystallizations in a given culture. Ideal matches may crystallize in turns of speech and mismatches can be managed through clichés. Becoming a mother entails an immersion in such a particular economy of speech. Key words: mothers, motherhood, transition to parenthood, family, emotions, morality, bonds, rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, media analysis, France, Finland, comparative sociology

Sulkeuman ja neuvottelun ehdoilla : asiantuntija-aseman rakentuminen työelämässä

Closure and negotiation constructing professional position in working life The aim of the thesis is to analyse how professional positions are constructed in working life. A professional position refers to a formal professional membership, but also to a position at a work site. Formal jurisdiction provides resources for supporting a position, but the relations, practices and processes at the work site strongly shape it as well. Professional membership includes two gates: obtaining a professional diploma and access to a professional post. The concept of a professional position is based on two sub-concepts: legitimation and authority. Legitimation is society-level jurisdiction over professioning. Legitimation can be claimed in legislation, in the public space and the media, and at the work site. Authority requires constructing professional work territories and practicing authority in work-related decision making processes. The thesis is based on five articles which deal with the following topics: gendered professional careers; organising professional work; the impact of the social and cultural backgrounds when striving for professional positions; and models of research work. The articles represent two types of sociological research: the structural approach with quantitative methodology and the approach of micro-social analysis with qualitative methodology. The first approach was suitable for analyzing professional career formation and its social and ethnic conditions. The second approach has been applied in the articles dealing with the organization of professional work and models of research work. I have combined and analysed the results of these studies under the theoretical frame of the professional position in working life. Legislation is the most powerful form of legitimation. Professional membership is strongly regulated in disciplines where a degree requirement is defined by law. In addition, closures related to social conditions still affect professional positions, but their character is loose and changing. The closures related to social conditions are based on many mutually overlapping principles: social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and gender. Despite the closures, professional experts have to negotiate their positions, particularly when the situation in the work sites and society changes. Professional authority is reinforced at the organizational level by legislation; when the institutional status of a public sector professional organization is defined by law, it reinforces the professional position of the employees. In the business line of new media, the employees need to negotiate with the management, other professional groups and clients when striving for reinforce their professional position.

Kansallisen konsensuskulttuurin jäljillä : Globalisaatioajan Suomi Helsingin Sanomissa

The dissertation analyzes Finnish consensual culture in public discussion and journalism in Helsingin Sanomat (HS). The consensual Finnish political culture has evolved and persisted over a long period of time and it has been affected by historical circumstances as well as the dynamics of political and journalistic structures and actors. A historical chronology is drawn in the study regarding the nature and development of consensus culture in 20th century Finland. This political culture is traced by looking at public discussion on globalization at the turn of the millennium. Globalization as a concept has been contested and various societal actors have given different meanings to it. This research looks at how the globalization discussion in HS during the years 1992-2004 constructs consensus. Helsingin Sanomat (and its predecessor Päivälehti) has been an important actor in Finnish journalism and the public sphere almost since its founding 120 years ago. The history of the paper is tightly connected to Finland s general political history and history of the public sphere. Moreover, the paper s connections to the societal elite have always been close. The central question in this research was to see how the globalization discussion in HS evolved in relation to consensus as well as legitimate controversies. As a result it is stated that the globalization question has clearly divided the Finnish societal actors. The most powerful societal elites (government, most civil servants, corporate sector) had a profile of being pro globalization. They communicated their globalization strategy as a national, unified way of thinking. Other elites which have been losing their influence (the president, labor union, part of members of parliament), as well as civil society actors tried to bring forward conflicting views in relation to globalization. The paper did give some room to these elements, but on the other hand it also tried to keep up the consensual discussion culture especially in the editorial section. In line with its traditions Helsingin Sanomat strived to create national unity. At the same time it did not give adequate attention to the changes brought about by globalization to the positions and roles of various elites and civil society actors. In this discussion HS seemed more like a medium of the state than as a critical and independent actor. Journalism has an important role in upholding and also reviving the Finnish political culture and public discussion. From this point of view it is problematic if the area of so called legitimate controversy in broad societal questions like globalization becomes very limited. As the Finnish elites are small and there is no considerable competition between them, journalism should actively bring up controversial issues. This task becomes complicated, however, if the elite circles are closed up and no initiatives come from their ranks. Political decision making as well as democracy can suffer, if issues are not brought to the public agenda.

Regulating Food Consumption : Studies of change and variation in Europe

The role of people as buyers and eaters of food has changed significantly. From being protected by a paternalistic welfare state, people appear to be accorded more freedom and responsibility as individuals, where attention is redirected from the state towards market relations. Many have asserted that these changes are accompanied by fragmentation, individualisation, and privatisation, leading to individual uncertainty and lack of confidence. But empirical observations do not always confirm this, distrust is not necessarily growing and while responsibilities may change, the state still plays an active role. This dissertation explores changing relationships between states and markets, on the one hand, and ordinary people in their capacities as consumers and citizens, on the other. Do we see the emergence of new forms of regulation of food consumption? If so, what is the scope and what are the characteristics? Theories of regulation addressing questions about individualisation and self-governance are combined with a conceptualisation of consumption as processes of institutionalisation, involving daily routines, the division of labour between production and consumption, and the institutional field in which consumption is embedded. The analyses focus on the involvement of the state, food producers and scientific, first of all nutritional, expertise in regulating consumption, and on popular responses. Two periods come out as important, first when the ideas of “designing the good life” emerged, giving the state a very particular role in regulating food consumption, and, second, when this “designing” is replaced by ideas of choice and individual responsibility. One might say that “consumer choice” has become a mode of regulation. I use mainly historical studies from Norway to analyse the shifting role of the state in regulating food consumption, complemented with population surveys from six European countries to study how modernisation processes are associated with trust. The studies find that changing regulation is not only a question of societal or state vs individual responsibilities. Degrees of organisation and formalisation are important as well. While increasing organisation may represent discipline and abuses of power (including exploitation of consumer loyalty), organisation can also, to the consumer, provide higher predictability, systems to deal with malfeasance, and efficiency which may provide conditions for acting. The welfare state and the neo-liberal state have very different types of solutions. The welfare state solution is based on (national) egalitarianism, paternalism and discipline (of the market as well as households). Such solutions are still prominent in Norway. Individualisation and self-regulation may represent a regulatory response not only to a declining legitimacy of this kind of interventionism, but also increasing organisational complexity. This is reflected in large-scale re-regulation of markets as well as in relationships with households and consumers. Individualisation of responsibility is to the consumer not a matter of the number of choices that are presented on the shelves, but how choice as a form of consumer based involvement is institutionalised. It is recognition of people as “end-consumers”, as social actors, with systems of empowerment politically as well as via the provisioning system. ‘Consumer choice’ as a regulatory strategy includes not only communicative efforts to make people into “choosing consumers”, but also the provision of institutions which recognise consumer interests and agency. When this is lacking we find distrust as representing powerlessness. Individual responsibility-taking represents agency and is not always a matter of loyal support to shared goals, but involves protest and creativity. More informal (‘communitarian’) innovations may be an indication of that, where self-realisation is intimately combined with responsibility for social problems. But as solutions to counteract existing imbalances of power in the food market the impacts of such initiatives are probably more as part of consumer mobilisation and politicisation than as alternative provisioning.

Trust and Safe Choices: Coping with health-related risks in food consumption in St. Petersburg

This dissertation considers the problem of trust in the context of food consumption. The research perspectives refer to institutional conditions for consumer trust, personal practices of food consumption, and strategies consumers employ for controlling the safety of their food. The main concern of the study is to investigate consumer trust as an adequate response to food risks, i.e. a strategy helping the consumer to make safe choices in an uncertain food situation. "Risky" perspective serves as a frame of reference for understanding and explaining trust relations. The original aim of the study was to reveal the meanings applied to the concepts of trust, safety and risks in the perspective of market choices, the assessments of food risks and the ways of handling them. Supplementary research tasks presumed descriptions of institutional conditions for consumer trust, including descriptions of the food market, and the presentation of food consumption patterns in St. Petersburg. The main empirical material is based on qualitative interviews with consumers and interviews and group discussions with professional experts (market actors, representatives of inspection bodies and consumer organizations). Secondary material is used for describing institutional conditions for consumer trust and the market situation. The results suggest that the idea of consumer trust is associated with the reputation of suppliers, stable quality and taste of their products, and reliable food information. Being a subjectively constructed state connected to the act of acceptance, consumer trust results in positive buying decisions and stable preferences in the food market. The consumers' strategies that aim at safe food choices refer to repetitive interactions with reliable market actors that free them from constant consideration in the marketplace. Trust in food is highly mediated by trust in institutions involved in the food system. The analysis reveals a clear pattern of disbelief in the efficiency of institutional food control. The study analyses this as a reflection of "total distrust" that appears to be a dominant mood in many contexts of modern Russia. However, the interviewees emphasize the state's decisive role in suppressing risks in the food market. Also, the findings are discussed with reference to the consumers' possibilities of personal control over food risks. Three main responses to a risky food situation are identified: the reflexive approach, the traditional approach, and the fatalistic approach.