Rakenteista fragmentteihin, tiedoista toimintaan - suomalaisen kansalaisaktivismin tyylien ja niiden kontekstin muutoksista

Authors

• Pertti Lappalainen

Abstract

The article concentrates on the variations of political styles of Finnish civil action. Thus the approach of the research is the concept of political style. Political style is restricted expressly to action, which makes it a more precise and specific concept than e.g. identity is. Style is explicitly a standpoint for action and this is why I categorically reject the notion that style is but a worthless facade of politics behind which the true contents of politicking can be found. In order to show the changes in Finnish civil activity in the 1990s, I compare it with the civil activism in the 1960s and its context, the 'logic of functioning' of the political system or that period's way of constructing a nation state. In the most recent civic activism, I focus on the animal rights movement, even though there are references to other recent movements, too. The actions of the animal rights movement have been exceptional because since the mid-1990s it has carried out illegal strikes of a kind never witnessed before in Finland. The strikes of the animal rights movement have made the citizens, the media and the researchers think – sometimes with apprehension – whether terrorism has made its way to Finland, too, and together a new style of civil activism has arrived in our country to stay. I’ll answer to the following questions: What is specific in the animal rights movement's style of action and what is its relation to other, more traditional styles of action? I also try to answer the question whether the animal rights movement's action is a symptom or an example of some deeper and profound trend of change, of the weakening or even collapse of an integrated nation state. Or is it just a question of an isolated phenomenon which has merely given a jolt to the traditional routinized collective action?