Third Way decomposition and the rightward shift in Finnish and Swedish politics

Abstract

Recent elections in Sweden and Finland are of note for contemporary politics. They confirm that the rightward shift in Nordic politics is not confined to Norway and Denmark but forms a more general trend. This includes increased appeal of both mainstream conservatives and populist radical right forces. This article contextualises this phenomenon within broader European developments. In accounting for the shift in question, the article stresses the cumulative effects of choices made by erstwhile centre-left hegemonic agents, most notably the consequences of the so-called Third Way. This perspective has the merit of providing a way for holding politicians accountable, and it avoids the fatalism entailed in invoking ‘inevitable’ structural developments.

Keywords:

• Finland
• Sweden
• Social Democratic parties
• Conservative parties
• populist radical right parties
• the Third Way

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of the article was presented to the European Politics and Society Research Group at Oxford Brookes University. The authors would like to thank the members of the group, Mikael Nygård, Axel Rappe, Matthew Watson, Daniel Wincott, and the anonymous referees for their valuable comments and feedback on earlier versions of this article. Mikko Kuisma also gratefully acknowledges the support of the ESRC for the project ‘Welfare state practices and the constitution of the citizen: Nordic models of capitalism in an age of globalisation’ (RES-000-22-3298).

Notes

‘Opportunity’ as applied here has a particular analytical meaning and takes inspiration from social movement theory (e.g. Tarrow 1998). We follow Zaslove (2006) in adopting the concept to electoral politics. Originally, the prospective success of a social movement (or by extension an electoral protagonist) was seen as dependent on openings provided by an exogenously given social and political structure. Subsequent thinking, however, stresses the significance of agential perceptions and strategies in such socio-political contexts for generating opportunities, as well as the impact of such strategies on social and political structure. For a theoretical elaboration from structuralism to such a strategic-relational conception, see, for instance, Hay (2002a).

For a more general argument about the way that the welfare state creates its own constituencies, see Pierson (1993).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mikko Kuisma

Mikko Kuisma is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Birmingham where he also held an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. He has also worked at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and the European University Institute in Florence. His main research interests lie in the comparative political economy of European welfare states, with a special interest in the constitution of citizenship in welfare capitalism. His work has been published in, for example, Cooperation and Conflict, New Political Economy, and Citizenship Studies.

Magnus Ryner

Magnus Ryner is Reader in International Political Economy at King's College London, UK. He has written extensively on the international political economy of welfare and European social democratic responses to globalisation. His publications include Capitalist Restructuring, Globalisation and the Third Way: Lessons from the Swedish Model (Routledge, 2002) and (with Alan Cafruny) Europe at Bay: In the Shadow of US Hegemony (Lynne Rienner, 2007).