Beyond the Idea of the Welfare State; Sanna Marin’s Progressive Influence on Social Cleavages Addressed by the Social Democratic Party of Finland

The 21st-century marks within democratic European roam a crucial period of thematizing and dealing with important, forgotten, or tabooed social topics such as sexuality, (gender) equality, women’s and minorities’ rights, or mental health. Additionally, crucial changes in the environment and international order opened topics such as carbon neutrality, safeguarding of biodiversity, or open condemnation of war and deeds of aggression in Ukraine (with humanitarian, financial, and by some countries even military assistance included). The Scandinavian countries were no exception to this trend, however, it is very interesting to observe, that such topics were positively and actively approached by the traditional social democratic parties of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The Swedish Social Democratic Party for instance reevaluation the neutral position Sweden held (Duxbury, 2022) and simultaneously with Finland applied for NATO membership (NATO, n.d.). In terms of the rights of minorities, Jonas Gahr Støre as the leader of the social-democratic Labour Party of Norway apologized “for the past treatment of gay people” (Government.no, 2022), while the social democrats in Sweden even have a separate LBGT organization within the party to address the issues of Swedish queer people (HBT-Socialdemokrater, n.d.).

Hypothesis and Concrete Case

It seems that these above-named parties felt with time the need to adapt their social-democratic ideology accordingly to the developing public discourse. Although not giving up on their core social-democratic values, the traditional social-democratic parties in the prosperous welfare countries of Scandinavia shifted in the 21st century their agendas also to social cleavages concerning gender equality, minorities' rights, or direct denouncement of Russian authoritarianism and aggression. This hypothesis will be depicted in this paper on the example of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, where this has happened because a) Sanna Marin with her approach towards the mentioned topics actively influenced the parties’ agenda, b) the mentioned topics were frequently discussed within the European room, and c) the finish society itself showed interest in thematizing these topics.

Theoretical Model on Social Cleavages

In order to put a crucial theoretical basis for the further development of the set hypothesis, it is firstly important to take a closer look at the theory behind social cleavages. Lipset & Rokkan (n.d.) describe cleavages not just like some “conflict and controversies” in society, but especially those, who “tend to polarize the politics of any given system” (p. 65). Additionally, their hierarchical political relevance not only depends on a concrete country’s polity but is also apt to change with time, which Lipset & Rokkan see as problematic for comparative research. The scientists further locate the cleavages, as well as their political expression on a two-dimensional model distinguishing between a territorial and functional dimension. While the first one describes on one side the “local-regional oppositions” and on the other side “oppositions within national established élite”, the latter one puts on different ends the “interest specific oppositions” and the “ideological oppositions” (Lipset & Rokkan, n.d., p. 66). However, it is also emphasized, that “a concrete conflict is rarely exclusively territorial or exclusively functional” (Lipset & Rokkan, n.d., p. 67), but it will be located somewhere within this two-dimensional model. Lipset & Rokkan (n.d.) moreover concentrates on the two major revolutions—the National and Industrial—and identify four crucial cleavages (“Subject vs. Dominant Culture”; “Church(es) vs. Government”; “Primary vs. Secondary Economy”; “Workers vs. Employers, Owners”) which emerged as “direct products” of these historical events (p. 68). Also important and relevant for this paper is to mention Lipset & Rokkan’s (n.d.) argument, that a certain cleavage does not transform/translate into party opposition on an ad-hoc basis, but it is in fact a result of thought-through strategies. (p. 72)

Introduction to the Party

Moving further to the party of interest of this paper, the Social Democratic Party of Finland represents a center-left mass party, and it is the oldest, still active political party in Finland. SDP emerged in 1899 as a party organizing country’s labor movement and concentrating on “better economic and social conditions for workers and landless cultivators” (Sundberg, 1999, p. 56). Based on Lipste & Rokkan’s theory of cleavages described above, it can be assumed that SDP is an outcome of cleavage between labor and owners of production brought by the Industrial Revolution, since as Sundberg (1999) also states, “in contrast to many other West European countries, industrialization of Finland came late” (p. 56). Nowadays, the party’s agenda is based on the three core stated values (freedom, equality, solidarity) and the “Declaration of Principles”, which is a document (officially adopted by the Party Congress) closely defining the party’s values and ideas. It states SDP’s key topics of interest such as “sustainable world”, “right to a good life, education”, “equal society”, “society of solidarity”, “strong welfare state”, “democratic society", ecological sustainability, “right to work”, “democratizing working life”, “democratization of economy”, “people’s well-being” or “international cooperation” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. a), which are then accordingly translated to party’s political program.

Functional Background of the Party

The party declares “almost 40,000 members” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. b) with an open possibility to join for anybody 15+ years old, of French citizenship or with residence in Finland, and sharing SDP’s stated values (Social Democratic Party, n.d. c). For decision-making and decision-implementation within the Social Democratic Party of Finland are responsible three crucial hierarchically ordered internal organs – Party Congress, Party Council, and Party Executive Body. Party Executive Body meets two times per month and is considered a “steering body of SDP’s practical political activity” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. b) – it is not only responsible for the implementation of the Party Congress and Party Council’s decisions but also decides when and where a Party Congress’s meeting will take place, or if an extraordinary meeting is necessary. All members of the Party Executive Body, as well as the 60 members and the Chair of the Party Council, are elected by Party Congress. Party Council is “the highest decision-making body in SDP” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. b) in times when the congresses are currently not taking place. The Party Congress, however, convenes every three years and holds the ultimate power over decision-making in the party. 500 democratically chosen SDP members elect all important already mentioned positions within the party’s internal organs, as well as the Chair and following positions in the leadership of the party, define the party’s policies, set the basis for the party’s election programs, as well as “objectives in government programme negotiations” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. b). Thus, even though Sanna Marin as the current leader of SDP is its well-recognized and honored representative, the full decision-making power lies in the competencies of the above-named organs.

Sanna Marin

In this manner, when Sanna Marin as an ordinary member of SDP wanted to somehow affect the party’s agenda or the topics discussed within the domestic politics of Finland, she had to first achieve a position that would give her voice enough weight to address some concrete issues. This happened in several steps when she became a leader of the City Council of Tampere in 2013, “was elected as a second deputy party leader of the Social Democratic Party” in 2014, a year later was appointed as a member of parliament and became a 1st Deputy Party Leader in 2017 (Finnish Government, n.d.). Already these important positions within the party’s structure gave Sanna Marin political strength to for example through the Party Congress actively influence SDP’s program and policies. Secondly, Marin actively influenced not only the party’s agenda but also the perception of SDP as whole when she was in 2019 appointed as the Prime Minister of Finland and took over the leadership of the party shortly after (August 2020) as well (Finnish Government, n.d.). As she held the most powerful position in the country, the interest of the (worldwide) media for her grew accordingly – it was exactly at that time that she had to start to fight off reporters’ pushing questions about her age and gender and remind them over and over again, that “the focus shouldn’t be on her identity” (Zialcita). As Prime Minister, Marin could address the issue of gender equality more effectively, just like when she for example represented Finland during the Gender Equality Forum and presented the country’s aim of “bridging the gender gap in technology education and working life” (Finnish Government, 2021). Another thing was the policies taken by Marin’s government that directly addressed gender equality, such as the “equal paid leave for both parents in a family”, which was also gender-neutral (Wamsley, 2020) and therefore targeted another issue – the equality for queer people. Marin was raised by two mothers and said that it has influenced how she sees equality (Abend, n.d.). She not only publicly addressed LGBTQ-related issues, regularly participated together with her party colleagues at Pride marches, but also actively worked within the government legislative reform on transgender rights, which she claimed to be “a very important issue to me [Sanna Marin] personally” (Yle News, 2022). Another noticeably personally important issue for Marin is the support of Ukraine in the war against Russia and Finland's position within the EU and NATO. As Prime Minister, she not only visited Ukraine twice but also “dared” to breach Finland’s position of neutrality and led the country to the application for official membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Meanwhile, in the Declaration of Principles of SDP (adopted in 2020, during Marin’s leadership within the party, as well as the country) “international cooperation” and “democratic and peaceful means” were emphasized (Social Democratic Party, n.d. a). Even though Sanna Marin naturally represents SDP’s social-democratic values herself, she also surely strengthens the party’s more progressive/liberal steps, as well as brings along her “personal” topics/agenda. Fighting for gender equality and rights of LGBTQ+, approaching abortion, and legalization of marihuana open-minded, or even the direct pro-European and anti-Russian positions make her a unique social democrat.

Postmaterialists

Apart from Sanna Marin’s direct influence on the topics and issues addressed by the SDP, the Finish social democrats must have also been affected by the public and political discussion within the European room. It can be for example observed that the prosperous countries of the European Union address issues related to identity and culture as never before. Ford & Jennings (2020) mention in the context of modern Western Europe that the “traditional cleavages are in long-term decline via changing class structures, secularization, and postmaterialist values underpinned by rising prosperity” (p. 296). On the note of postmaterialist values Noury & Roland (2020) bring in concrete examples such as “focus on environment and world peace, sexual liberation, gender equality, and respect for the rights of minorities” (p. 433). To begin with environmental issues, the EU had proposed and accepted numerous policies and legislations such as The European Climate Law, Paris Agreement, or European Green Deal that aim to protect natural habitats, waters and air, reduce pollution, use of toxic chemicals, and safeguard sustainability (EUR-Lex, n.d.). SDP not only agrees with these measures, but in its political program, it also pursues crucial notions such as “stopping biodiversity loss”, “reforming the Forest Act”, or “energy self-sufficiency in 2025” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. d), which actively addresses the issues of climate change and environment protection. In regard to the above-mentioned world peace, the War in Ukraine heavily affected the whole European continent, and the discussion, as well as measures taken, were registered not only in EU member states. Bosse (2022) notes in her study that “[EU] member states were able to agree on a set of unprecedented measures” but the conflict also “led member states to fundamentally redefine their security preferences” (p. 540). It seems that this was also the case in Finland, when after years of declared neutrality, also SDP stressed in their political program the “stronger and more systematic preparedness for various states of emergency”, and called for “an active and constructive role as a NATO member” as well as for active support for Ukraine (Social Democratic Party, n.d. e). Although the issue of gender equality does not belong to the newest ones, within the European context it started to be approached much more actively with the European Commission’s publishment of official gender equality strategies for the years 2010–2015, 2016–2019, and 2020–2025 (European Charter for Equality, n.d.). Additionally, gender equality has been addressed by separate European countries, organizations such as UN Women, Women for Women International, and the already mentioned Generation Equality Forum or many similar. When it comes to SDP and its approach to gender equality it mostly promotes this agenda through its social media, where the party encourages other women through the presentation of SDP’s most noticed (often members of parliament or Sanna Marin) women politicians. Additionally, 5 out of 7 ministers from SDP are women (Social Democratic Party, n.d. f). However, in the party’s Declaration of Principles, SDP states that they “believe that every human being is born equal in dignity and rights” and that “a sustainable society is equal both between members of society and across generations” (Social Democratic Party, n.d. a), which also leads to the issue of equality for queer people as a minority. The rights of LGBTQ people were also actively discussed in the European room, not only through legal issues adopted by the European Commission, but also through cultural detabooing the topic of other sexual orientations, sexuality, or gender as a whole. Based on Human Rights Watch, some of the most discussed values and topics in the European Union during the year 2022 were “discrimination and intolerance”, “poverty and inequality”, “climate change policy and impacts” and “foreign policy” (Human Rights Watch, n.d.). It is therefore understandable, that some of the more progressive and liberal topics addressed by the Social Democratic Party of Finland were influenced by the progressive debate within the European room.

**Shift in social cleavages **

Last but not least, it can be argued that the Social Democratic Party shifted its agenda to the mentioned, more progressive topics because the Finnish society itself showed interest in thematizing these topics. In his comprehensive study, Westinen (2015) notes that “in the last few decades, there has been a clear reduction in the significance of cleavages” (p. 1) due to the kind of populist tendencies of the parties, as well as change in the behavior of the electorate. However, Finland, according to Westinen (2015), was historically “characterized by…strong and diverse cleavage structure” (p. 1). Westinen (2015) tries to analyze some of the initial cleavages in the country and mentions among others the cleavage “between Finnish-speaking Finns and Swedish-speaking Finns” (p. 79), a class cleavage, in times when Finland was still (autonomous) part of Russia a cleavage related to “relationship to Russia” (p. 80), and “cleavage between landed interests and urban-industrial interests” (p. 81). Moreover, the Finish scientist claims, that “group-based identities” and the cleavages connected to them seem to prevail throughout time – “linguistic identity”, “class identity”, “rural-urban identity”, and denomination or “anti-religiousness” are supposed to polarize the Finish society until these days (Westinen, 2015, p. 120). Westinen (2015) not only identifies “new cleavage bases in social structure” (p. 120), where he includes a “gender-based conflict” (p. 121) in the context of gender (in)equality, “age cohorts” (p. 122), and education as “a conflict between educational groups” (p. 127) but also examines the “values and attitudes of the voters” (p. 130), which represents a great overview of topics discussed within the Finish society. Based on his analysis, Westinen (2015) identifies four major dimensions, these being “1. Economic right and authority dimension 2. Regional and socioeconomic equality dimension 3. Sociocultural dimension 4. European Union dimension” (p. 152). Although this study is already 8 years old and therefore cannot answer today’s situation with absolute accuracy, it contains at least two important topics which have been already discussed in regard to progressive agenda of the Social Democratic Party of Finland. First is the gender-equality, which was mentioned by Westinen (2015) as a “gender-based conflict” (p. 121). Secondly, it is the issue regarding LGBTQ rights and equality, which is included in Westinen’s point on the prevalence of denomination cleavage – Westinen (2015) reminds the “fierce debate on same sex [sic!] marriages and the right for the same sex [sic!] couples to adopt” (p. 117). Naturally, the debate in Finland has already involved from these topics over time, however, Westinen’s findings are as a basis for the localization of relevant topics discussed in the public and politics nowadays still sufficient. Interesting to observe is also the fact that even though Westinen indicates a positive/negative approach to Russia as a social cleavage related to history, in the current times of disinformation and conspiracy theories, it is once again a cleavage relevant for, in fact, worldwide politics. To conclude, it is possible to claim, that some rather progressive topics approached by SDP’s current agenda are also mirroring the society’s/electorate’s interest in them.

**Conclusion and Further Discussion **

Two months ago, the Social Democratic Party of Finland lost the national elections, however, how it seems, not due to the progressive, rather liberal policies, social cleavages, and topics that it started to address during past years (Bland, 2023). The party broadened its agenda and instead of being just “glued” to its social-democratic values, in the 21st century, it started to progressively engage in important talks about gender equality, queer people’s rights, climate change, or anti-authoritarianism. This paper has shown based on the stated hypothesis, that such a shift in the party’s agenda was caused by the influence of the European public and political discourses related to such issues, the direct interest of the Finish prosperous society in such issues, as well as Sanna Marin’s impact on the party’s agenda during her functional time as a member, leader, and Prime Minister of SDP. Due to the similar nature of social-democratic parties of Scandinavia, these findings are expected to be appliable also to Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, with the highest possibility of almost identic results in the case of Sweden – considering the geographical, historical, and cultural closeness of these two countries, as well as similarities between Finland and Sweden’s social-democratic parties. However, such are the results in the most prosperous European countries based on the latest Legatum Prosperity Index (Legatum Institute Foundation, n.d.). For future research or analysis, it would be interesting to take a look at not-that-prosperous countries with similar demographical characteristics, such as Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary, and examine the changes in the agendas of the social-democratic parties in the 21st century there. The comparison between the results could reveal interesting findings for even further research in terms of the diversity of European social-democratic parties.

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