Harassment in local political leaders’ experiences
Keywords:
Luottamushenkilöt, häirintä, poliittinen kulttuuri, kompleksinen hallinta, narratiivinen analyysiAbstract
This article examines local politicians’ harassment and intimidation experiences: What kind of harassment and intimidation have the trustees experienced and what are the effects of harassment? The study combines several data using triangulation as a research method. Interviews and survey have been used as research material. Narrative analysis is used as a research method.
The phenomenon of harassment is theoretically framed by political culture and complex management. Research shows that local politicians face different forms of harassment from several channels. Identifying the different forms of harassment faced by local politicians is important to address harassment phenomena. Harassment has a wide range of effects. At the societal level phenomena causes difficulty to get nominees to local elections. It is destructive for democracy if people do not dare to run for nominees in a fear of harassment or if they give up their position of trust because of harassment. Especially in municipal decision-making, the diversity and mutual difference of candidates has been seen as a value. In addition, harassment affects public debate. Some issues are left outside of public discussion in a fear of harassment, which could change the political debate. The last societal risk is normalization of harassment.
