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It is often pointed out in the literature of democratisation and the breakdown of democracy that old democracies have been able to stand against the threat of totalitarian and extremist political doctrines better than young ones. This observation has usually been based on the existence of solid political institutions, certain class structures, and the legitimacy of a political system. The focus of this article is on the rhetorical role that the division between 'old' and 'young' or 'new' democracies played during the interwar crisis of democracy. By focusing on the cases of Finland and Sweden, which have been described as a young democracy and an old democracy respectively in the literature on democratisation, the study directs attention to the ways in which the age of democracy has been produced in order to defend democratic institutions against totalitarian doctrines and practices. The article thus contributes to the conceptual history of democracy and helps explaining why Finland managed to maintain its democratic political institutions as one of the few new independent states that were born during and just after the First World War.

This article investigates the formation and use of the notion of the ancient origins of Swedish democracy before the Second World War. A commonplace of the early rhetoric on the ancient origins of Swedish democracy was its reference to an anti-aristocratic tradition, despite the variety of political positions that the rhetoric served. It was the leitmotif of the first sporadic notions of a democratic past in the 18th century, it was the main topic of the romantic idealisation of a coalition between the monarch and the peasants, and it served as an argument in struggles over suffrage reforms and parliamentary government. When parliamentary democracy was institutionally established, the 'aristocracy' lost its central place in the rhetoric of a Swedish democratic tradition. At the same time, the notion of a coalition between the people and the monarch was revised to a more non-specific notion of the common interest between the people and the government. In the context of the rise of totalitarianism, a 'Swedish' and 'Nordic' democratic tradition was employed as a rhetorical means of defending existing political institutions in the country.

It is often pointed out in the literature of democratisation and the breakdown of democracy that old democracies have been able to stand against the threat of totalitarian and extremist political doctrines better than young ones. This observation has usually been based on the existence of solid political institutions, certain class structures, and the legitimacy of a political system. The focus of this article is on the rhetorical role that the division between 'old' and 'young' or 'new' democracies played during the interwar crisis of democracy. By focusing on the cases of Finland and Sweden, which have been described as a young democracy and an old democracy respectively in the literature on democratisation, the study directs attention to the ways in which the age of democracy has been produced in order to defend democratic institutions against totalitarian doctrines and practices. The article thus contributes to the conceptual history of democracy and helps explaining why Finland managed to maintain its democratic political institutions as one of the few new independent states that were born during and just after the First World War. ; Peer reviewed

Political Representation, Imperial Dependency and Political Transfer: Finland and Sweden 1809–1819 The article examines the post-revolutionary rearrangement in Europe by focusing on the separation of Finland from Sweden. In 1809, the eastern part of the Swedish kingdom became a grand duchy within the autocratically ruled Russian empire. Both Finland and Sweden experienced the constitutional moment which characterised the post-revolutionary and post-Napoleonic Europe, but in very different ways. The Swedish Diet enacted a new written constitution while the Finnish Diet gave its oath to the new emperor, who promised to maintain the laws, privileges and rights of the country. Alexander I might have used the word «constitution» in his speech to the Finnish Estates, but the political status of the grand duchy remained unclear, and it was only in 1863 that the Finnish Diet was called to convene again. In the context of imperial dependency and a lack of established forums for public debate, the article analyses how the issue of political representation was made public in Finland during the first decade of Russian rule. The analysis is based on the ways in which the official newspaper described the new political situation of Finland and reported on political circumstances and parliamentary life in other countries. It is argued that the publication of news from abroad can be seen as an important way of keeping the issue of political representation alive in Finland. It was also a channel for the reception of political concepts. The study discusses the Finnish case in relation to political circumstances in Sweden. The comparative angle draws attention to complex features of the formation of a new polity and a reformation of an old.

The article points out that the concept of democracy as used by people at large has been ignored in the research on democratisation and interwar democracy. It also shows some of the ways in which the rhetoric of democracy has been sidestepped, discussing some structuralist and other preconditionalist accounts in which the focus has been on the questions of modernisation and legitimacy as well as on political culture and ideological traditions. The article shows, furthermore, that studies of democratic transition have displayed some interest in the rhetorical aspect of politics, although this potential has not been fully played out. The article points out the difficulty of doing comparative research on the language of democracy, but nevertheless calls for a rhetorical perspective to the study of democracy.

This article examines the ways in which the Finnish liberals described themselves as national liberals and how they were labeled by their opponents as supporters of foreign doctrines and cosmopolitanism in the late nineteenth century. It will be shown that the rhetoric of liberalism was entangled in an inflamed issue between the advocates of Finnish and Swedish languages in Finland. Ultimately, this contest dealt with the concept of nation. Furthermore, the article discusses the uses of other countries' political life as exemplary cases, thus bringing a transnational perspective into the analysis. The contested character of the concept of liberalism and its compound form, national liberalism (nationell liberalism, kansallinen liberalismi), will be highlighted by paying attention to the semantic differences between Swedish-language and Finnish-language uses of the concept. The article closes with an interpretation of the weak role that the concept of liberalism has played in nineteenth-century Finnish political culture.

"Democracy is today a concept that is overwhelmingly positively evaluated almost everywhere. A lot has been written about socio-economic and cultural backgrounds of democratic regimes as well as their institutional settings. By contrast, not much is known about the political manoeuvres and speech acts by which 'democracy' has been tied to particular regions and cultures in concrete historical situations. This book discusses a series of efforts to rhetorically produce a particular Nordic version of democracy. It shows that the rhetorical figure 'Nordic democracy' was a product of the age of totalitarianism and the Cold War. It explores the ways in which 'Nordic democracy' was used, mainly by the social democrats, to provide the welfare politics with cultural and historical legitimacy and foundations. Thus, it also acknowledges the ideological and geopolitical context in which the 'Nordic welfare state' was conceptualised and canonised.

The contributors of the book are specialists on Nordic politics and history, who share a particular interest in political rhetoric and conceptual history.
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The creation of Finland as a grand duchy within the Russian Empire in 1809 opened up the question of what Finland was, in fact. Comparing Finland synchronously with other countries and diachronically with itself before and after its elevation into a grand duchy gained temporal features in which its level of development was assessed. Such temporal comparisons during the first half of the 19th century were used to shape Finland as a political unit, as they facilitated assessment of which parts of society needed to improve in order to make the country comparable with imagined or real others. Given that the Diet (the Estate Assembly) was not convened between 1809 and 1863, these comparative notions largely dealt with questions of political constitution and state institutions. The comparative mindset of the Finnish actors also developed in the process of conducting temporal comparisons. These comparisons can be analyzed through the analytical categories of descriptive synchronization, comparative synchronization, and participative synchronization, the last mentioned being possible only when Finnish actors began to think that Finland, indeed, had developed to a level of maturity. ; Peer reviewed