![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
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 presents a profile of the Centre Party and argues that whilst Finland is clearly an extreme multiparty system in Sartori's terms, the Centre has been far from a negative and immobilistic agency. Rather, it has been a reformist party with a distinctive social blueprint.
Notes
Lecturer in Politics, Leeds Polytechnic. This article is an amended and updated version of a paper given in December 1977 at the first Annual Conference of the Scandinavian Group of the Political Studies Association on the theme of ‘The Centre in Scandinavian Polities’. The author wishes to acknowledge the debt this article owes to the stimulating discussion at the conference.