Search results for "ta517"
showing 10 items of 59 documents
Understanding the scaling-up of community energy niches through Strategic Niche Management Theory: insights from Finland
2018
The growing phenomenon of civil society involvement in renewable energy generation has attracted researchers’ interest. However, rather little is known of how a diverse and relatively small sector such as community energy could scale up and promote a change in energy production. We examine this issue through the lens of Strategic Niche Management (SNM) and conceptualize community energy as a socio-technical niche that holds the potential to promote a transition to renewable energy. Drawing on interview data with members of community energy projects and experts in Finland, we identify different types of community energy projects and the factors that may prevent them from scaling up. The stud…
Framing issues in the public debate: the case of human rights
2013
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand how issues may be framed in public debate. The outcomes of this debate affect organizations. The study is based on the seven types of framing identified by Hallahan and scrutinizes which of these types is utilized, and how this is done, in the case of human rights issues.Design/methodology/approachFor this study a secondary analysis of academic papers on human rights issues was conducted. After a literature search, 40 papers originating from 23 different journals were further analyzed. Where the researchers described the framing of human rights issues, the type of framing was identified according to the typology and mode of utilizatio…
Rethinking Political Representation from the Perspective of Rhetorical Genres
2019
This article is a thought experiment. It constructs ideal types of political representation in the sense of Max Weber. Inspired by Quentin Skinner and others, the aim is to give a rhetorical turn to contemporary debates on representation. The core idea is to claim an ‘elective affinity’ (Wahlverwandschaft, as Weber says following Goethe) between forms of representation and rhetorical genres of their justification. The four ideal types of political representation are designated as plebiscitary, diplomatic, advocatory, and parliamentary, corresponding to the epideictic, negotiating, forensic, and deliberative genres of rhetoric as the respective ways to plausibly appeal to the audience. I dis…
Political Action Beyond Resistance: Arendt and "Revolutionary Spirit" in Egypt
2016
The article examines what it calls the "politics-as-resistance" frame in contemporary political theory, originating in the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. This way of organizing political experience is contrasted with Hannah Arendt's political thought, particularly her writings on revolutionary action. Arendt's often overlooked – and partly unpublished – passages on virtù and fortuna are further suggested as important additions to her thinking on action. I argue that Arendt's "world-centric" approach can illuminate certain aspects of political experience that remain dimmed in the more subject-oriented politics-as-resistance frame. Particular focus is paid to the austere notion o…
A Functional Analysis of the Finnish 2012 Presidential Elections
2016
This study applied the functional theory of political campaign discourse, developed for political campaigns in the United States to two televised presidential debates in the 2012 presidential elections in Finland. Acclaims were the most preferred statement by the candidates, with agreements being the least preferred. Policy was discussed more than character during the debates. General goals and ideals were used more frequently to acclaim than to attack. Results are generally consistent with the results of previous studies of presidential elections in the US and other countries. However, differences did emerge: the classical functional categories were supplemented by a new category, the role…
The Role of Professors in the Formation of Finnish Parliamentary Life: The Struggle between Two Conceptions of Parliament
2017
The Frankfurt Parliament (1848–49) was subsequently dismissively referred to as the “Professors’ Parliament” due to its heavy representation of scholars and the academic style of its lengthy discussions. Professors have played a prominent role in the deliberations and development of other European assemblies, too. This article examines the role of professors in the formation of Finnish parliamentary life. It moreover underlines the close relationship between the academia and national politics in late nineteenth-century Finland, starting from the European revolutions of 1848. The article highlights how politically active professors, together with the newspaper press, were crucial in transfe…
Latest reforms in Finnish doctoral education in light of recent European developments
2017
Doctoral education as a policy field is an important link between educational, research and innovation policies. It is gaining importance in European and national policy discussions. Doctoral education policies are increasingly formulated at the supranational level, even though the European Commission does not possess formal competence in terms of authority over the educational policies. Consequently, policy steering is mostly performed at the national level. In this article, we examine Finnish doctoral education from the steering perspective in a European context. We describe the development and steering of Finnish doctoral education, as well as the current doctoral education policies and …
Recruitments in Finnish universities: practicing strategic or pathetic HRM?
2016
Recruitment is a core instrument in the academic labour market. This article takes the perspective of the organisation − here, the university − on recruitment. Universities’ personnel policies and practises are shifting from legally oriented personnel administration to more strategic human resource management (HRM). In Nordic countries, this shift is partly driven by the changing status of higher education institutions from state-governed bureaus to more autonomous institutions. This article provides insight into this transition, using Finland as a case example of higher education systems that have undergone drastic reform, moving from a civil servant model to autonomous personnel policy. D…
Populism as a pathological form of politics of recognition
2018
This article combines the neo-Hegelian theory of recognition with an analysis of social pathologies to show how the populist formulations of political goals in struggles for recognition are – despite their potential positive motivating force – socially pathological. The concept of recognition, combined with the idea of social pathologies, can thus be used to introduce normative considerations into the populism analysis. In this article it is argued that, although populism is useful in the sense that it aims to ameliorate real experienced lack of recognition through fostering political movements, it is also harmful. The simplified populist representations of collective identities are often g…