Kokoomus sekä SDP porvariston ja työväestön asialla

Kirjoittajat

• Paavo Niskanen

Abstrakti

It is claimed that today parties are parties for the common good and not class parties. This content analysis investigate how the National Coalition Party /Conservative Party of Finland and the Finnish Social Democratic Party further class interests of the bourgeoisie and the working class in their political programmes and in the law making of the Parliament. Empirically, the study focuses on political programmes and legislative initiatives. The analysis shows that both parties are primarily common good parties. The common interests take the largest share of the programme statements, 76 per cent for the Conservative Party and 66 per cent for the Social Democratic Party. The common good aims are less central in the legal initiatives. Class party nature seems subdued in both types of data but some differences between the parties can be seen. In the Conservative Party programme statements only three per cent is devoted to class interests of the bourgeoisie and five per cent to working class interests. In parliament, the party furthers interests of the bourgeoisie in ten per cent of the legislative initiatives. Working class interests are served in five per cent of the initiatives. The class aspect is slightly more visible among the Social Democrats who supported working class interests in 17 per cent of the programme statements (only two per cent were tilted towards the bourgeoisie). In the Parliament, the Social Democrats made initiatives for the working class in 14 per cent of the cases and for the bourgeoisie in three per cent of the cases.