The role of discourse in family policy reform: The case of Finland

Abstract

Since 2011 and the onset of the economic crisis, Finnish governments have pressed for structural reforms, including unpopular cuts to family benefits and services. This article analyses the government discourse used for legitimating some of these reforms: the cutbacks in the child benefit and the restriction of full-time childcare. It also assess whether this discourse bore the hallmarks of a neoliberal austerity discourse, which could suggest that the reforms were not just a matter of fiscal balancing but also a matter of neoliberal welfare state restructuring. We argue that the economic crisis was central in the powerful 'communicative' discourse used by the governments for legitimating unpopular cuts. Not only did it draw on ideas from an austerity discourse advocating financial sustainability, fiscal prudency and debt reduction, it was also impregnated by ideas from a neoliberal worldview questioning some of the main principles of the 'Nordic' family policy model.

Discarding social investment and redistribution in the name of austerity? The case of Finnish family policy reforms 2007—2015

“…A number of studies (e.g. Blum, Formánková, & Dobrotic, 2014;Chzhen, Nolan, Cantillon, & Handa, 2017;Nyby et al, 2017;O'Hara, 2015) have shown this to be the case in most European countries after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. If the NAP recognises social risks, these are more likely to be 'old' social risks, but since the main creed of NAP is for people to be self-sufficient, and welfare benefits to be directed only to the (undeserving) poorest, risk conceptualisations of this kind are rather unlikely in the first place.…”

“…Béland, 2010;Cox, 2001;Hall, 1993;Schmidt, 2008) and narrative stories (Czarniawska, 2004;Stone, 2012) with insights from the family policy literature (e.g. Nyby et al, 2018;Nyby, Nygård, Autto, Kuisma, & Blum, 2017;Thévenon, 2018;Björk Eydal et al, 2018;Van Gerven & Nygård, 2017;Kuebler, 2007). Ideas and narrative stories are essential for the social construction of the world (Berger & Luckman, 1966), but can also serve as legitimising devices when it comes to changes, such as family policy reforms (Kuebler, 2007;Nyby et al, 2017).…”

“…Nyby et al, 2018;Nyby, Nygård, Autto, Kuisma, & Blum, 2017;Thévenon, 2018;Björk Eydal et al, 2018;Van Gerven & Nygård, 2017;Kuebler, 2007). Ideas and narrative stories are essential for the social construction of the world (Berger & Luckman, 1966), but can also serve as legitimising devices when it comes to changes, such as family policy reforms (Kuebler, 2007;Nyby et al, 2017). In this view, narrative stories are central for the actual legitimisation, but they are also often attached to more general ideational perspectives, or 'policy paradigms' (Hall, 1993) that nurture them normatively and intellectually.…”

“…Based on the family policy literature (e.g. Björk Eydal et al, 2018;Forssén, Jaakola, & Ritakallio, 2008;Hiilamo, 2002;Nyby et al, 2017;Nygård & Krüger, 2012), but also literature on ideas (e.g. Blyth, 2013;Morel et al, 2012), we can identify at least three dominant ideational perspectives (see Table 1).…”

Radical Reform Or Piecemeal Adjustments? The Case of Finnish Family Policy Reforms

“…While these factors explain reasons for reform, they do very little for explaining why reforms take a certain shape . Instead, normative ideas on what the welfare state should do, and the discourse used by the governments affect the suggestions for and design of reform (e.g., Béland, ; Schmidt, ; for a discussion on discourse in the case of Finnish family policy see Nyby et al., ), can partly explain why a certain reform is pursued. Normative ideas can, in turn, be linked to political partisanship (e.g., Allan & Scruggs, ), where typically left‐wing parties tend to favor a big welfare state, and right‐wing parties tend to advocate less state regulation.…”