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Due to the tradition of 'Nordic openness', and intensified by international trends, the norm of policy-making transparency is strong in Finland. Inspired by organizational institutionalism, the present article studies what this notion of transparency means in practice. A case study of a social security reform committee is presented. The consensus-building practices typical of Finnish corporatist policy-making significantly constrained the transparency of government communication during the lifetime of the committee. The government communicated actively in public to meet the demand for transparency; but in order to secure effective bargaining, the government communicated issues concerning the committee so vaguely that it did not inspire wide public discussion. Public discussion was instead mainly fuelled by leaks. These findings suggest that a strong norm of transparency can lead to ceremonial transparency, where government public communication is loosely coupled with policy-making practices. These ceremonies might strengthen the notion of Nordic openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies how political decision-making processes are debated in public in the consensual political system of Finland. The article asks how Finnish political institutions, political culture and media system affect the style and volume of public debate. A case study of the State Productivity Programme (2002-2011) is presented. The study shows how the consensus-seeking practices limit publicity. The core decision-makers managed the media in order to avoid publicity during policy negotiations. Elite actors went public mostly in situations where they were unable to achieve their goals through negotiations. The study shows how the coalition partners used the media to maintain distinct political profiles. However, it is shown that in multi-party governments the ministers can also keep a low public profile when making unpopular decisions. This leaves the Ministry of Finance civil servants a visible role in public. The media agenda was to a great extent dependent on political situations inside the political elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Influential actors in Finland prioritize economic competitiveness over climate change mitigation. • These actors do not actively seek media visibility or directly attack the validity of climate science. • Their influence on climate policy is based on other means, such as inside lobbying. • Opponents of climate change mitigation can be powerful despite a weak media presence. The lack of ambitious climate change policies in large anglophone countries, such as the United States, has been explained by the strong media presence of denialist arguments against climate science. Such counterarguments are less visible in the news media of most European countries. Why do many of these countries nevertheless fail to enact ambitious climate change policies? This paper suggests that influential organizations may block ambitious climate change policies in corporatist countries without an extensive media strategy or a strong denialist message. We draw from theories on the policy process, policy networks, influence strategies, and comparative politics to formulate hypotheses about the existence, influence, and strategies of organizations that oppose ambitious climate policy. We test these hypotheses using an original combination of media data and survey data on the national climate policy network in Finland, a corporatist European country that has long lacked ambitious climate policies. The findings show that a coalition that prioritizes economic competitiveness over climate change mitigation is influential and occupies a central position in the policy network. This pro-economy lobby does not question the validity of climate science or actively seek media visibility. Rather, it influences the policy process using other strategies, such as inside lobbying, and appears in the news media less often than other climate policy organizations. Our results suggest that opponents of climate change mitigation can be powerful despite a weak media presence. This implies that studies on climate politics should pay more attention to strategies of influencing beyond the media spotlight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]