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Abstract
Carey and Shugart (Citation1995: 419) have noted that ‘the national celebrity enjoyed by movie stars or athletes can translate into valuable personal reputation in some electoral systems’. Indeed, in open-list voting systems, such as Brazil, Estonia and Finland, this type of ‘celebrity candidate’ has become commonplace. Focusing on Finland over the period of six general elections between 1991 and 2011, this article asks: what has been the overall value—strategic and electoral—of the celebrity candidate when viewed from a party management perspective? Why in a consolidated party-based representative democracy like Finland—unlike contemporary Brazil or Estonia in the 1990s—have parties appeared ready to reduce the ‘partyness’ of the electoral process by recruiting candidates many of whom have had little or no party ‘past’, and what implications has this development had for representative democracy?
Notes
1 ‘Brazilian election: clown wins seat in Congress' The Telegraph, 4 October 2010.
2 ‘Brazil's clown politician loses his smile’, Financial Times, 26 February 2013.
3 ‘Nämä julkkikset aikovat eduskuntaan – katso lista’, MTV, 21 March 2011.
4 ‘Nämä julkkisehdokkaat floppasivat vaaleissa’, Aamulehti, 18 April 2011.
5 ‘Takaisin isä Mitroksi?’, Iltalehti, 27 May 2014.
6 Over summer 2013 the Young Persons' Barometer interviewed 1900 young persons between 15 and 29 years. Of these, 29% stated they could not be bothered to vote and 38% saw no use in voting. ‘Nuoria kiinnostaa politiikka, äänestäminen ei’, Helsingin Sanomat, 12 February 2014.
7 ‘Vähän isompi G’, Helsingin Sanomat Kuukausiliite 3/2004, 86.
8 ‘Guzenina: SDP ei huolinut Saarelaa’, Iltaleht, 27 October 2006.
9 ‘Kike kuntoilun ja kansan asialla’, Arto Nyberg interview with Kike Elomaa, available from the state broadcasting channel’s archive Yle Elävä arkisto.
10 ‘Keskusta kosi- ja antoi sitten rukkaset Kike Elomaalle’, Ilta-Sanomat, 9 September 2006.
11 ‘Kike Elomaa lähtee ehdolle eduskuntavaaleihin’, Ilta-Sanomat, 9 September 2006.
12 Erkki Ahon blogi, 30 November 2011.
13 ‘Ex-Poliitikko Lindqvist: Ahkeria naisia ei palkita politiikassa herkasti’, Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, 9 November 2013.
14 ‘Itsenäisyyspuolue rynni nuorten vaaleissa’, Helsingin Sanomat, 21 May 2014.
Additional information
David Arter is an Emeritus Professor and currently Research Director in the School of Management at the University of Tampere, Finland. He has written extensively on the politics of the Nordic region and recently completed a third edition of his textbook Scandinavian Politics Today.