Adaptation of Finnish Welfare State to a Post-Industrial Society: Practicing “The Consensus Model of Democracy” Through Formation of Diverse Coalition Governments

This chapter explains the political mechanism of the Finnish welfare state adapted to a post-industrial society as one of the Nordic welfare states (Esping-Andersen, The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Polity Press, 1990) and countries with a coordinated market economy (Katzenstein, Small states in world markets industrial policy in Europe. Cornell University Press, 1985). Steinmo (The evolution of modern states: Sweden, Japan, and the United States. Cambridge University Press, 2010) argues that Sweden has several adaptive advantages that enable the coevolution of politics, economics, and social policy. However, Finland has many differences from Sweden in its conditions, which raises the question of how Finland achieves the current position. When strong presidential power ended in the 1980s, parliamentarianism began to function. Since 1983, stable 4-year governments of majority coalitions out of a multiparty system have been in power. Diverse coalition governments with no dominant party and different parties’ combination are one of the characteristics of Finnish politics that bring resilience to its policies in a rapidly changing society. Higher education, and economic policies, especially science and technology, and information and communications technology policies developed since the 1960s, have been strongly integrated into the program of post-industrial welfare state since the 1980s. As Lijphart (Patterns of democracy. Yale University Press, 1999) argues for the possibility of a consensus model as a form of democracy in opposition to the Westminster model, the case of Finnish political mechanism provides policy flexibility in post-industrial society.