Corporatist Nordic welfare states are largely thought to have exemplary environmental policies. Finland, however, was labeled "a failing ecostate" by a recent study owing to its weak climate change policy. Why is Finland different? We use data from a survey of organizations belonging to the Finnish climate change policy network to investigate two alternative explanations related to policy networks. According to the Cooptation Thesis, inclusive corporatist polities, where environmental NGOs (ENGOs) have support from and access to the state, formulate less ambitious policies because environmentalists moderate their views to secure state funding and political access. Second, according to the Treadmill of Production Theory, the decisive feature of Nordic corporatism with regard to environmental policy is the tripartite system linking business interests, labor unions, and the state in a coalition that prioritizes economic over ecological values. The results indicate that the ENGO Coalition is the least influential, least resourceful, smallest, least linked to the others, and not particularly moderate. The Treadmill Coalition is the most influential, most resourceful, second largest, well linked to the state, and least ecological in its beliefs. Thus, of the two policy network explanations, the dominance of the Treadmill Coalition rather than cooptation of ENGOs gets support.

The conditions under which policy beliefs and influential actors shape collaborative behaviour in governance networks are not well understood. This article applies exponential random graph models to network data from Finland and Sweden to investigate how beliefs, reputational power and the role of public authorities structure collaboration ties in the two countries’ climate change governance networks. Results show that only in Finland's conflictual climate policy domain do actors collaborate with those with similar beliefs and with reputational power, while only in Sweden's consensual climate policy domain do public authorities play central impartial coordinating roles. These results indicate that conflict is present in a governance network when beliefs and reputational power determine collaboration and that it is absent when public authorities occupy central roles. They also suggest that relative success in climate policy action is likely to occur when public authorities take on network manager roles.

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The article discusses institutional theories in economics and sociology. The discussion adopts W. Richard Scott's classification into regulative, normative, and discursive theories. A fourth alternative, habitual institutionalism, is also presented because of the problems encountered with the other theories. Pragmatically inclined habitual institutionalism presents a consistent theory of action wherein conscious action is derived from habitual action, which is also the basis of institutionalization. In addition, habitual institutionalism portrays human rationality more extensively than economists and sociologists have traditionally done. For these reasons, the difficulties associated with other institutional theories can be avoided. *