Parliament as an arena for politicisation: The Finnish Eduskunta and crisis management operations
| Author | Tapio Raunio |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117745682 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
research-article2018
Special Issue Article
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
Parliament as an arena for
2018, Vol. 20(1) 158 –174
© The Author(s) 2018
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politicisation: The Finnish
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117745682
DOI: 10.1177/1369148117745682
Eduskunta and crisis
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
management operations
Tapio Raunio
Abstract
The literature on parliamentary war powers has focused on the veto rights of legislatures.
This case study on the Finnish Eduskunta adopts a more comprehensive approach. Based on
parliamentary documents and statistics, it reconstructs parliamentary involvement in decision-
making on individual crisis management operations, laws on crisis management, and ‘grand
strategy’ documents since the mid-1990s. The findings underscore the importance of politicisation,
with conflicts over legislation and the Government Security and Defence Policy Reports enabling
political parties and the Eduskunta to set parameters for subsequent decisions on individual
operations. The politicisation of crisis management facilitated stronger participation rights for the
Eduskunta and created ‘ownership’ of troop deployments among members of parliament (MPs).
Debates have nonetheless become less intense, with broader cross-party support for participation
in crisis management and for European Union (EU)-led operations in particular.
Keywords
crisis management, Finland, parliament, political parties, politicisation, security policy
Introduction
During the Cold War, United Nations (UN)-led peacekeeping operations were important
for Finland and the other Nordic countries. The Nordic countries contributed 25% of the
personnel in UN operations, with institutionalised cooperation between them in peace-
keeping issues. The Nordic nations developed a reputation as peace-builders, with peace-
keeping a key component of ‘Nordicness’ or the ‘Nordic model’. Peacekeeping mattered
also in terms of self-perception and national identity. As Finland was not able to partici-
pate in European integration or in security cooperation with the ‘west’, peacekeeping
offered it an avenue for participation in international politics. Peacekeeping was widely
reported in national media, emphasised in schoolbooks, and it enjoyed broad support
Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Corresponding author:
Tapio Raunio, Faculty of Management, 33014 University of Tampere, Finland.
Email: tapio.raunio@uta.fi
Raunio
159
among the political elites and the public. The first Finnish peacekeepers were dispatched
to the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in Suez in 1956, and since then, around
45,000 Finns have served abroad in peacekeeping duties.1
However, in the post-Cold War era, the situation is vastly different: peacekeeping has
been replaced with crisis management, the number and diversity of operations has
increased significantly, and the UN is no longer the only actor in the scene, with particu-
larly the European Union (EU) and also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
carrying out missions. The Nordic countries responded by amending their peacekeeping
laws so that their troops could both use force beyond self-defence and participate in mis-
sions led by NATO, EU, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE). Out of the Nordic countries, this adaptation was arguably hardest for Finland, a
militarily non-aligned country for whom good relations with Russia have understandably
been a top priority (Jakobsen, 2006; Stamnes, 2007; Vesa, 2007).
This changing security context forms the starting point of this article, which examines
the role of the Eduskunta, the unicameral legislature, in national decision-making on
crisis management. As outlined in the introductory article to this Special Issue (Mello and
Peters, 2018), previous literature on parliaments and security policy has for the most part
focused on executive-legislative relations and on tracing the impact of parliamentary
involvement. Scholars have paid less attention to the debating function of parliaments in
security matters and how such politicisation is related to government scrutiny. In the post-
Cold War era, there are good reasons to expect more debate and ideological contestation
about crisis management and ‘wars of choice’, both regarding what operations countries
participate in and in what capacity (Raunio and Wagner, 2017b). Hence, this article
addresses the question outlined in the introductory article: ‘when parliaments become
involved in security policy—does this foster transparency and contribute to the politicisa-
tion of security policy so that security policy becomes a “normal” political issue?’ (Mello
and Peters, 2018).
The article emphasises legislatures as a site for politicisation of security policy, show-
ing that party-political conflicts over crisis management facilitated stronger opportunity
structures for parliamentary engagement in troop deployments in Finland. Analysing the
parliamentary processing of all individual operations, laws on crisis management, and
national ‘grand strategy’ documents from 1995 to 2016, it shows that there is clearly a
sense of ‘ownership’ of crisis management among Finnish members of parliament (MPs),
with troop deployments and the operations subject to close parliamentary scrutiny. The
main causal argument of this article is thus that politicisation of crisis management brings
about stronger parliamentary accountability of the government. Essentially, crisis man-
agement has become part of normal parliamentary politics, with the Eduskunta receiving
information from the government and organising committee hearings and plenary debates
exactly as it does in salient domestic issues.
Analytical framework: Parliaments as sites of politicisation,
the changing security context, and ideological conflict
Parliaments and politicisation
Referring to a recent Special Issue on politicisation of EU affairs, we ‘posit that politicisa-
tion can be empirically observed in (a) the growing salience of European [crisis manage-
ment] governance, involving (b) a polarisation of opinion, and (c) an expansion of actors
160
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1)
and audiences engaged in monitoring EU affairs [crisis management]’ (De Wilde et al.,
2016: 4). As is shown below, these requirements were fulfilled in the case of crisis man-
agement in Finland. Parliaments and particularly plenary debates provide a fertile ground
for politicisation. Unlike committees that often meet behind closed doors, plenary debates
are held in public, broadcast (at least online) live, with full verbatim accounts available.
The presence of government ministers in the chamber facilitates media coverage, with
opposition parties thus having stronger incentives to criticise the cabinet. Moreover,
debates offer backbenchers, particularly those who need to signal their positions to the
electorate, the chance to express their views and discomfort with the initiatives, even
against the position of their own parties. While MPs may be ‘whipped’ into following the
party line in voting, ‘rebels’ can still often take the floor to disagree with their party lead-
ers (Bäck and Debus, 2016; Proksch and Slapin, 2015).
From a normative perspective, debates can even be considered the most important way
in which legislatures contribute to security policy. The plenary provides a public forum
for debate where the security policy choices are justified and explained (Lord, 2011),
especially when there are political parties offering alternatives and a healthy media cover-
ing the debates (Baum and Potter, 2015). As argued in the introduction to this Special
Issue, ‘having parliaments debate security may well lead to a politicisation of security
which extends partisan politics beyond the water’s edge. It can put the executive under
pressure to justify its policies publicly and provide room for the opposition to test the
government’s arguments and seek public support for its own position’ (Mello and Peters,
2018). But politicians themselves may have good reasons to favour less transparent, con-
sensual modes of policy-making. MPs may defend meeting in camera with the need to
ensure confidential exchange of information with the government, which in turn facili-
tates stronger parliamentary scrutiny of security policy. MPs may also believe that unity
at home improves the bargaining position of the government or the morale of troops
abroad. Overall, in security policy, decision-makers often evoke notions of national unity
and demand that the major political parties at least try to build consensus on these issues
so that disunity at home does not undermine success abroad.
Importantly, parliamentary politicisation can trigger stronger accountability of the
government, especially if the issue divides opinion also inside cabinet parties. When
faced with an assertive legislature, the government can buy its support through agreeing
to procedures—such as reporting requirements or ex ante veto—that enhance oversight of
the cabinet and parliamentary participation rights. Naturally, the government itself may
also benefit from such procedures, as ex ante parliamentary approval should facilitate
support for the government in subsequent stages...
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