In My Paper I Will Study the Meanings Given to Local Self-Government in the Finnish Parliament

Critical Governance Studies Conference

University of Warwick

Dec 13/14, 2010

Salla Pykälämäki

Doctoral Student

University of Jyväskylä / Finland

Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy / Political Science

Tel: +358-(0)45-127 4141

P.O.Box 35 (MaB)

FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä

Finland

Draft – please do not cite

Questioning the concept of local self-government in Finland

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to approach the concept of local self-government from the perspective of its historical roots in order to understand how the concept has been developed and how this background still affects the understanding of the concept.

My interest in the concept derives from the amazement of how unanimously local self-government is talked about in Finland. The picture we are given in official documents etc is that it is a core element of local government, a defining characteristic and a basic value. In other words it is presented as an inherent characteristic of Finnish local government. If problems of local government are talked about, they are not associated with self-government. The only problem that seems to be attached to local government is the lack of it. It is presented as something that has to be defended and strengthened. Yet the discussion on what are the contents of the concept that have to be strengthened is scarce.

One would assume that the question of local self-government would be a widely conversed topic in Finland today but this is not the case. Yet the country is currently going through a major reform of municipal and service production structures. The reform was set up by the Government in order to be able to cope with the dilemma of diminishing financial resources and a broad variety of services provided for the citizens. The goal of the reform has been to trim the structures and discard the manifold and overlapping administration. As a result the reform has reduced the number of municipalities but also created new, complicated service structures, fleeing from the democratic control, as municipalities have opted for building different kinds of coalitions instead of merging with the neighboring communities. At the same time the reform has enforced the grip of the state over local authorities.

These changes have, evidently, also touched upon the concept of local self-government making the reform a moment of when the contents of the concept are under transformation. Looking at the reform from this angle the lack of public discussion is surprising since, after all, local self-government does intertwine with larger questions of citizenship, participation, democracy and the idea of local government and its responsibilities.

Following the theme of the conference, I want to question the concept of local self-government as an orthodoxy. I propose that it has formed a paradigm that is used to create a coherent idea of the Finnish local government as the venue of civil society and functioning democracy as well as an autonomous actor. As the concept is used without problematization, it is necessary to see how the concept was formed. I am especially interested in the position of citizens and democracy as well as the local community or municipality as a sphere of politics and the links of the concept of local self-government to these themes.

The structure of this paper is the following. I will first discuss the different ideas that have formed the idea of local self-government. Then I will move on to look at concept in the context of Finland and especially in the period of time Finnish state formation and reform of local government.

The development of the idea of local self-government

In general local self-government is understood through two dimensions. Firstly, it is the autonomy of the local government towards the state. The other dimension is the right of the citizens to have an influence in matters concerning them. (Niemi-Iilahti 1992, 13.) In other words the basic questions associated with local self-government are the distribution of power between the state and the local government and the role of the citizens and their possibilities to participate in decision-making.

The roots of the struggle between the priority and originality of local and the state level government can be traced back to 18th century. The idea of the priority of local government over the state originates from the ‘pouvoir municipal’ –doctrine that was created at the time of the French revolution. (Heuru 2000, 72; Kekkonen 1936, 82.) ‘Pouvoir municipal’ signified the original power of local government that the state had repossessed and that was to be restored to the local level. It included an idea of a struggle against state officials as a counterforce to legislation, judicial and executive power. (Niemi-Iilahti & Salminen 1983, 5.) Thus according to this doctrine local government was independent from the state, it was the ‘fourth estate’ besides jurisdiction, execution of laws and government. (Heuru 2000, 72.)

The doctrine did not have, though, any real influence on the organization in the relationship between the state and the local communities. It was, in the first place, rejected by Napoleon who crushed the local government in France and enforced a state-run system. Neither had it been endorsed outside France, Belgium and Denmark. (Heuru 2000, 72.)

Even if the doctrine of ‘pouvoir municipal’ as such was rejected, the idea inspired for a discussion on the level of independency of local government and gave a push to the search for a liberal idea of local government. The doctrine re-emerged in a more scientific form in the 19th century German liberalism, presented by Beseler and von Gierke. Their views formed a more or less coherent doctrine that accentuated the equality of the state and the local government. According to the doctrine the difference only occurred in the extent of their tasks. The German thinkers took as a starting point the originality of local government and regarded the state as a coalition of municipalities. Therefore local government had not lost its autonomous position even if it was subordinated to the state and its laws. According to this doctrine one of the basic rights of local government was the right to an independent existence and government. This was an original right and not derived from the state. It also meant that municipalities were politically independent. (Heuru 2000, 72; Kekkonen 1936, 59-60.)[1]

The liberal doctrine was based on the requirement of freedom from the state power and sprang up from the ideas of enlightenment. These ideas were backed up by the labour movement that considered the autonomy of local government to represent democracy and the transfer of power to the people. The idea of local self-government was thus connected to the idea of democracy. (Heuru 2000, 81; Soikkanen 1966, 646.) Interestingly, local self-government started to be considered a guarantee of democracy as well. Thus it was not only a question of the distribution of power between the state and the local government but with the rise of the working class, also the distribution of power between groups of people or classes.

As earlier the doctrine of ‘pouvoir municipal’, neither did the German liberalism have remarquably concrete effects on the society of the era. Anttiroiko (1996, 19) notes that the doctrine was born in a time when nationalism, industrialization and the position of state power had started to strenghten. Partly due to these developments, the liberal view of local governement lost the support of the bourgeoisie, the ascending class. Instead of the state and its bureaucracy they began to see the working class as a counterforce and consider the apparatus of the state as an ally rather than an enemy. This unraveled the dualism between the bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy that had been experienced before and that had formed the basis for the doctrine of ‘pouvoir municipal’. This meant that the conflict originated understanding of local self-government started to turn into a concept that was closely linked to law. The state and its laws became the guarantee of order in the society and therefore a worthwhile supporting.

The liberal tendency was then displaced in the late 19th and early 20th century by a legal positivist doctrine which marked a turning point in the way the relationship between the state and local government was perceived. The new approach regarded self-government as a duty not an original right of local government. Instead it was regarded as a right that originated from the law. This placed the state in a focal position as it gave the central government the right to either broaden or restrict the level of self-government of local communities and interfere in the management of the municipalities by using jurisdiction. In other words according to this doctrine the right of the self-governing communities to use power originated from the state. (Heuru 2000, 73, 95-96.)

In the legal positivist tradition such names as Gneist, von Stein and Laband can be mentioned. For example Gneist envisioned local self-government as a sort of an intermediary structure between the state and the municipality and as such a counterforce to state bureaucracy. Influenced by the British concept of self-government, he also proposed that local self-government should be understood in a purely political meaning. von Stein took a stricter standpoint. For him local self-government was simply not possible since the right to govern was restricted to state power whose duty was to guarantee the realization of common interests. No individual or civil society could execute government for they would act solely on the basis of private interests. However von Stein did think that certain administrative power could be given to organized local communities. Laband rejected Gneist’s idea of local government as political community as well as von Stein’s idea of local government as an intermediate structure. For him it was a question of a formation that existed between the state and the individual. Following the trend of the era Laband placed the power of the state over that of local communities. (Anttiroiko 1996, 19.)

The change was rather remarquable, as it went from favouring the idea of an autonomous local government to an approach that viewed local government as an integral part of the organization of the state. The idea of citizens as the core of the concept was also left aside in the theorizations of the concept. This raised a question of the existence of local government as a political community. As local self-government was now defined from a legal perspective, it did, at the same time, reject the political dimension.

It also has to be noted that in different periods of time the actors in favour of local self-government and their reasons to defend it have varied. Local self-government has represented economic freedom (for the bourgeoisie) and freedom of speech and a possibility for political participation (for the working class). In any case it was a question of power, a question of who gets to govern.

Emergence of local self-government in Finland

In order to fully understand the emergence of the idea local self-government, historical background as well as the social context of the time has to be taken into account. It shows how the circumstances of the turn of the century affected how the relationship between the state and the local communities started to take a new shape and how local government began to emerge as a venue of citizen participation and civil society.

It also shows how the legalistic approach, which had reached Finland through German literature, formed the dominant approach to the concept of local self-government. Even if Anttiroiko (1996, 22 -23) says that this was not an absolute dominance and that the Finnish model never fully adapted the legal approach in a pure form since influences also came to Finland from the anglo-saxon literature and from Sweden, he acknowledges that the legalistic tradition had a significant impact on how local government. It led to a model of strong state and strong central government.

The context

In Finland the late 19th and early 20th century was an era of state-formation and nation-building as well as the time of the extension of public services. The creation of local government in 1865 with the local government act can be considered part of this process and among the governmental reforms of the time, probably one of the most important. It had, as a general principle, the separation of state and civil society and it also introduced the idea of local self-government.

The emergence of the first forms of local self-government was tightly linked to the way the public sector started to expand into new fields, especially those concerning social welfare, health care and education. This expansion pushed for the reform of local government in 1865. With the reform the state transferred these tasks on the responsibility of local government and demanded that local inhabitants (mainly peasants) take charge of their execution. Even if the reform brought local government closer to the citizens’ sphere of life and can be regarded as a form of local self-government, it was first and foremost the official machinery’s attempt to develop the country than a response for the peasantry’s request for self-government. As a matter of fact the peasants opposed the reform for the major part. According to Tiihonen (1996, 405-406) it was a strategy of governing, a means to decrease the juxtaposition between the government and the people by increasing the participation of the citizens in the management of local affairs. It widened the sphere of action of local communities from merely administrative units.

In the development of the structure of the government and its hierarchical relationships, one also has to notice that this was a time of national awakening, which culminated into seceding from Russia in 1917. This process was not painless, as it intertwined with the larger European questions of industrialization, raising political activity of the working class and population growth. Together they created movements that shook the existing social order and class structure and lead to a civil war in 1918 which created profound gaps between classes. This development enhanced the creation of a strong state in Finland. Building of a unified national state and a structure that would guarantee equal services for citizens, was considered to require a strong state. Even if the approaches of the political parties after the civil war were contradictory in many other respects, they all agreed on the need for state control and strong state. The right wing adopted the argument for order and security whereas the left wing emphasized the issues social and health care and the citizens right to get equal services. (Tiihonen 1996, 527; Soikkanen 1966, 495.)

The development was further enforced in the era after the Second World War. Regardless of what the strong state meant to parties, it was established as the prevailing policy and signified the emergence of an exceptionally strong, centrally controlled state with an extensive public service system, high tax rates and a state-run industrial sector (Tiihonen 1996, 543.)

Local government as a sphere of politics

As the review of the historical context of the emergence of local self-government shows, local communities and their citizens were given a new role and position in the governmental system in the turn of the 20th century Finland. It combines interestingly with the emergence of strong state. At the same time when citizens were being connected in a more close way to the political system and also took initiatives to their own hands in popular movements especially at the local level, the central government was tightening its grip over local communities. As local government was mainly regarded as the creation of the state and its laws, it was not presented as a sphere of politics in the eyes of the central government.

This had, again, a connection to the late 19th and early 20th century scientific discussion in Germany, which was characterized by a dualistic view as for the venue of politics and political participation. It set politics as the monopoly of the state whereas local government was regarded as a non-political sphere of life. The result of this juxtaposition was the understanding that political democracy and local self-government were somehow in contradiction with each other. (Niemi-Iilahti & Salminen 1983, 6.)

Yet it is interesting how the new popular movements, like the workers’ movement, offered a counterbalance to the strong state and touched people’s lives especially at the local level. These movements emphasized the political role of the citizens but even if they did it at the local level, the target of their actions was the central government. Thus it seems that even if the stir occurred in local communities, it never touched the organs of local government. The reforms directed at local government systems were for a long time based on the old hierarchical vision of society and local government as the management of tasks that were given to the local community by the state. As a result local government remained an unpolitical sphere.

Still, one cannot exclude the fact that the period of local government reform marks a moment in time when something started to change in the society. Whereas up until the end of 19th century it was the sovereign who was in charge of the conditions of living of the people, this responsibility now started to be gradually transferred to the citizens themselves, to be executed through the instruments of democracy. (Tiihonen 1996, 394.)