Puoluevastainen mieliala Suomessa

Authors

• Kyösti Pekonen

Abstract

The aim of the article is first to describe what is meant by anti-party sentiment, second to highlight the situation in Finland by means of some surveys concerning citizens’ attitudes toward parties and statistics detailing the changes in party membership, and third to scrutinise the background for voters’ dissatisfaction with the parties by means of qualitative theme interviews conducted in a declining urban milieu in the capital area. The surveys and theme interviews convey the growing dissatisfaction with the parties, especially after the turn of the 1990s. The same conclusion can be drawn on the basis of citizens’ growing reluctance to join a political party. Also voters’ voting activity has been declining steadily ever since the 1960s. Voter passivity culminated in the 1996 local elections in which voting activity declined to as low as 61%. In spite of some evident signs of growing discontentment with the political parties, so called anti-parties or new populist parties or new radical right parties have not however come into being in Finland. So far, existing dissatisfaction has, on one hand, discharged itself in voters’ support of certain anti-party candidates. On the other hand, disillusionment has mainly resulted in citizens’ apathy, passivity and indifference. Apathy, passivity and indifference must be understood in the light of the current political situation which is characterised by the crisis of traditional political identities which is in progress. So far, the crisis has not produced new “solutions” but rather disorder which confuses people.