The role of university faculties and departments in building up the competition state in the 1980s and early 1990s: A study of the events in Joensuu and Lappeenranta

Authors

• Mikko Kohvakka Itä-Suomen yliopisto

Abstract

In Finland, gradual state restructuring from a Nordic welfare state towards a more international competition state began in the mid-1980s. This transformation affected discourses and spatial ways of thinking about the primary scales of social action. Universities took part in this process by instituting research and teaching practices that were differentially scaled. This article aims to investigate the strategic decisions of faculties and departments of two Finnish universities, the University of Joensuu and the Lappeenranta University of Technology, and their role in the state’s transformation and scale reconstruction in the 1980s and early 1990s. The present analysis is based on the official statements and action plans of the examined universities, as well as on personal interviews with their research and teaching staff. The article concludes that the differently scaled institutional logics of faculties and departments either fostered or hindered their respective abilities to adapt to the emerging form of state space.