Finns and Swedes and the General Election

In praise of the upcoming Finnish general election I thought to play a little with ideas. In a normative sense, it is quite relevant question whether it does make any difference to the justification of electoral system if voters know or don’t know beforehand what kind of coalition parties would be likely to form after the election. Text is based on an exercise that was part of an MRes degree I’m currently doing at UCL. It’s not directly freedom of information- or info management-related, but you’ll just have to cope with it.

Let’s compare Finland with our dear neighbours, the Swedes. In Swedish parliamentary election 2010 the electorate was more or less aware already before the election what kind of coalition alternatives they were choosing from, whereas in the latest Finnish election 2007 political parties started negotiating and thus compromising on their pre-election programmes only after the election. This is the case this year, as well. It was only yesterday (31.3.) when party leaders gave identical answers – ”let’s not speculate with the coalition alternatives, that’s for people to decide in the election” – to a question of who would they pick as a coalition partner if given a chance to lead negotiations.

In parliamentary elections 2010 Swedish parties formed two alternative coalitions already before the election, giving voters effectively two options. Opposition parties (Social Democrats, Green Party, Left Party) formed an alliance against the then incumbent coalition government (Moderate Party, Liberal People’s Party, Centre Party and Christian Democrats). Election resulted in a narrow victory for the incumbent coalition and a minority government.

In the latest Finnish parliamentary election in 2007, no one knew before the election what kind of coalition would be formed, thus creating surprises for several voters. To mention an example, the Green Party was fundamentally against nuclear power in their election manifest. In the election they gained 8,5% of the popular vote and joined in the coalition with the Centre Party, National Coalition Party and the Swedish People’s Party. During the summer 2010 coalition government decided to give permission to build three new nuclear power plants in Finland, which lead to a wide criticism towards the Green Party, who were accused of betraying their supporters and effectively wasting their votes.

Question I play with here is whether Finnish and Swedish voters are as equal in terms of knowing how their candidate would behave if elected, and whether their vote would thus be likely to be ”wasted” or not. Thomas Christiano sees voting as a resourcist action, where vote is primarily a resource or a tool. Furthermore, the rules of voting should ensure that these resources are distributed in an equal way. (Christiano 1995) I read this equality to include – in addition to the actual possibility to vote – the understanding of possible outcomes, as well.

I base this argument on the principle of equal consideration of interests. (Dahl 1989; Christiano 2004⁾ To over-simplify: each person should be able to see that his/her interests are treated equally in the society. In both systems examined here each adult citizen has an equal right to cast a vote, but only in other one (s)he can be relatively sure how his/her candidate will behave in terms of political alignment if elected. In the other system, party may join unwanted coalition and in the process of negotiation give up that part of the pre-election manifesto why they were voted for in the first place.

Now, some voters may understand that it is intrinsic for democracy to reach for compromises and thus they vote for the most suitable party regardless of possible coalition. Also, some voters may have been able to define a few possible coalition alternatives beforehand and therefore placed their votes strategically, but not nearly all have that kind of competence, access to relevant information or sufficient level of political awareness.

There are several comprehensive studies made on the impact of political information on individuals’ political awareness and voting behaviour. (e.g. Bartels 2005; Blais et al. 2009) The general outcome of these studies is that voters are in inequal position when it comes to the amount and quality of political information they are able to receive. According to Bartels, less-informed voters are simply confused what is in their own interests. (Bartels 2005) Arguably it would be easier for less-informed voters to form a voting decision if they were aware of how their candidate will align after the election. At minimum, it would spare them from unpleasant surprises.

Arguably the fact that some people’s votes seem to be wasted because of their seeming ignorance of the procedures and rules of coalition forming is against the principle of equal consideration of interests. Since Finnish voters have inequal standing points in terms of competence to form an informed opinion, all voters are not able to see that their interests are being treated equally, which effectively decreases public trust in government and ultimately undermines the justification of such a system.

According to Christiano and principles of weak publicity and equal considerations of interest, in strictly normative and theoretical sense it appears that the Swedish system prevails. However, the question is more complex than that and would require further toying to form a more comprehensive argument. It could be argued, for example, that despite the lack of clarity on how Finnish parties will negotiate after the elections, Finnish voters are still treated as equals. They are just treated as equally poor in terms of how parties respond to their wishes about potential coalitions.

Another question dismissed here is the possibility of empirical evidence whether ignorance of post-election alignment has in fact had much impact on voting outcome and on the general perception of politics. An enlightened guess might be that those without sufficient awareness of their candidates post-election alignment would be in aggregate level more disappointed on the coalition politics than those who were already aware beforehand how their candidate would align him/herself after the election.

Bibliography:

Bartels, Larry: Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind, Perspective on Politics, Vol. 3, No 1, March 2005, pp. 15-31

Blais, André et al.: Information, Visibility and elections: Why electoral outcomes differ when voters are better informed, European Journal of Political Research 48, 2009, pp.256-280

Christiano, Thomas: Voting and Democracy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 25, No 3, September 1995, pp. 395-414

Christiano, Thomas: The Authority of Democracy, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 12, No 3, 2004, pp.266-290

Dahl, Robert: Democracy and Its Critics, Yale University Press, 1989

FOI officers walking on Finn ice

Nordic countries have traditionally been seen as strongholds of transparency due to their long history of freedom of information laws. As readers of this blog may know, Swedish freedom of the press act (1766) is considered the oldest piece of FOI legislation in the world, with Finnish act on government publicity (1951) coming not far behind.

However, a recent article in the leading Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, suggests that the state of FOI in Finland would not be as good as it is commonly assumed. A study group from the department of political science at University of Turku made FOI requests by email to 230 random state authorities, asking salary and bonus details of responding organisation’s highest ranked official. All this information should be disclosed without delay and without any further inquiries about requester’s identity or purpose of requests.

Results are interesting, to say the least. According to the spokesman of the group, professor Matti Wiberg, only fifteen (15) authorities responded properly and without delays, with eight more responding after another request was made. All others (207) either ignored the request completely or gave inadequate responses. Several of the authorities also demanded personal details of requester or asked requester to visit office in person, which they would not have been allowed to do.

What is the moral of the story? Arguably, results of the test underline the importance of FOI watchdogs and education on FOI issues. Since Finnish authorities don’t collect comprehensive statistics on FOI requests (as I was told last year by the registry of Ministry of Justice), responsibility effectively falls to independent journalists and study groups to gather data by themselves. This surely doesn’t make it any easier for academics to conduct research.

Logically, the big question that follows is why? It is tempting to argue that the lack of statisitics derives from the deep tradition of FOI in Finnish society. Document publicity is taken as granted and therefore there wouldn’t be any accurate need for statistics. Recent test proves, however, that the impeccable state of FOI in Finland is far from given.

Without available data on authorities’ responses to FOI requests, officials can’t really be held properly accountable, which arguably undermines the initial purpose of having FOI in the first place. Evidently Finnish officials have been given great freedom and therefore great responsibility to act in accordance with FOI legislation.

However, the old question of who is policing the police is still relevant. It is highly questionable, whether the Parliamentary Ombudsman of Finland has sufficient resources to pay special attention to breaches of FOI act, if 90% of authorities fail to conform to it. Another potential watchdog, Data Protection Ombudsman, for one, concentrates only on data protection issues.

Institutional issues aside, one could also ask what is the point of having comprehensive FOI legislation if individual officials subject to it are either unwilling to work according to it, or – as it’s perhaps more likely – not aware of the obligations it sets for them? Without further education of officials on FOI and comprehensive statistics to feed academics with Finland may face a threat of noticing that their good reputation in governmental transparency is based on rather false grounds.

Briefly on SMS-messages and Historians

American Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted quite recently a request, in which they ask for disclosure of information concerning White House policies governing the creation, retention and preservation of records generated through the use of electronic communications systems by the President, Vice President and White House staff. The concern is mostly over the President’s use of his BlackBerry.

Similar request could be sent to Finnish administration, as well. Preservation of e-mail records is well under consideration but issue of wireless communication systems is far more difficult. Historians love to get their hands on unofficial records – that is information, which was created in the preparation phase of the final protocols. So far it has been possible and relatively easy, as the correspondence usually took place in paper form. SMS-messages and other forms of wireless communication tend to be deleted.

Fortunately in the ministry of Foreign Affairs the preservation of SMS-messages is taken seriously, according to head of information services, Mr. Jyrki Paloposki, a historian himself. Mr. Paloposki has expressed his concern over the loss of SMS-messages with historical importance, and the results are hopefully to be seen in the future.

To be honest, the issue is more of a historians’ concern than other information specialists’. Wireless electronic devices are mostly used in quick exchange of thoughts and SMS-messages don’t usually contain any official information, which should be preserved or handled by National Archive’s regulations.

Still, a lot of unequally important information on the history of the state is found in the unofficial correspondence of presidents and other main political figures. This correspondence doesn’t take place in paper form anymore, but in SMS-messages and in other forms of wireless electronic communication. This could turn into a significant problem, although one might argue, that messages with genuine importance are bound to be preserved, which our current Prime minister and former Minister for foreign affairs must – or at least should – realise by now.

The Stasi Debate

The Finnish Vergangenheitsbewältigung is a bit like the day after an university undergraduate’s party. There’s an incoherent babbling taking place on who went to sauna with whom and what they might have done together.

Lately the main role in this debate has been given to possible connections in the 1980′s between Finnish politicians and the East German security organisation Stasi. The right-wingers are undoubtedly eager to trace the possible Stasi-connections of some mainstream Finnish socialists. While doing so, they pride themselves on being on the “right side of the history” as the capitalist system still seems to breath on its own lungs. (Although a respirator is already being warmed up).

Well, what is the role of the archives in this game? The Finnish media, Finnish security police (Supo) and the judiciary have been playing a sort of cat and mouse game for the last decade or so. There is a certain list of names kept tightly in the archive of Supo. This list was given to Supo in the early 1990′s by the West German intelligence service and it contains the names of Finnish citizens who were suspected by the West Germans of keeping contact with the East Germans .

Finnish legislation states that the material of Supo is to be kept secret for 60 years unless it is evident, that the public use of this information will not endanger the security of the state (the law on freedom of information, 621/1999 24§ 9.). Now, it has been decided that the revelation of a document concerning connections with a nowadays non-existent state does not cause any harm to the general security of the Finns. According to this, the document should be published.

On the other hand is the question of the legal protection of those individuals whose names appear on the list. Quite recently in a seminar concerning archives and the history of Finnish foreign ministry former minister of foreign affairs Dr. Erkki Tuomioja stressed the fact that no names with significant political importance are on the list. He had gotten the information from a senior civil servant who was aware of the content of the list. Tuomioja argued that individuals included on the list would have to face a devastating pressure from the media because of something they may never have been involved with. After all, the list itself doesn’t prove any wrong-doings on anyones behalf.

The score of “to publish or not to publish” is now one to one. Supo has an ace up on its sleeve, though. The already mentioned law on freedom of information states also, that “documents concerning the relationship between the state of Finland or the citizens of Finland and a public agency or citizens of a foreign state are to be kept secret if their publication would cause damage to the foreign relations of the state of Finland or to the capability to work within the international community” (621/1999 24§ 2.). There is a common law within international intelligence services, which states that all information given by intelligence service to another should be kept secret. If Supo were to reveal the content of the list it would break this common law and thus its capability to work internationally would diminish significantly. And THAT would endanger the security of the state (remember 24§ 9.).

The game is still on. A recent copy of Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat states that Supreme Administrative Court (KHO) will make a decision next summer whether the list should be published or not. Already in 2003 KHO decided in favor of Supo, that the revelation of the list might endanger the national security and thus the list should be kept secret. However, in 2008 same KHO made a new statement, according which Supo is obliged to publish the list. A new verdict is needed, as Supo decided to appeal against the verdict of 2008.

The head of Supo, mr. Ilkka Salmi has told the media that Supo will reveal the list if KHO’s upcoming verdict so states. The whole issue has swelled into such unreasonably large scale, so whatever the verdict is, some unneccessary stir will be arisen. There are more important issues in Finnish history which need clarification and are in a danger of being buried under the  fuzz about twenty people who may or may have not have met someone or someone else and may or may have not discussed about something or something else.

What is my opinion on the publication of the list, you may ask. Supo has a strong legislative power to decide on the public use of its documents and they have all the right to use that power. But I also believe in the words of secrecy studies’ grand old woman, Dr. Sissela Bok: “When a government develops secret police powers or control over censorship, the risks are even greater. Secrecy can then become an end in itself, creating subtle changes in those who exercise it, in how they see themselves, and in their willingness to manipulate and coerce in order to uphold the secrecy and thus shield themselves.” (Bok: Secrets – On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation, p.178)