Suchergebnisse

This article investigates the cultural perceptions and the common sense held by Finnish mutual fund managers on the very wealthy and the rich in times of growing inequalities and increased wealth accumulation at the top. By studying the financial intermediaries on the shop-floor level, who embody the promises of popular finance, the article describes how fund managers working for the small investors make sense of the inequalities caused by financialization. In the research interviews analysed in the article, the mutual fund managers perceive the rich as a necessary and salutary part of the contemporary economy, whose function is to be and behave better than the financialized markets. This common sense concerning the rich helps to legitimize increasing wealth accumulation at the top, so that the fund managers' perceptions of the rich embody an ideological coalition between the working financiers and the super-rich rentiers, a coalition that contrasts starkly with the promises of popular finance.

Abstract
The article explores the attitudes and perceptions of those at the top of the income scale toward economic inequalities. Through a qualitative case study, it presents how a group of top 0.1% of earners in Finland—one of the most equal countries in the world—perceive and legitimize economic disparities in an era of rising inequalities. By drawing together studies of economic inequality with the sociology of elites, the article analyzes the cultural repertoires through which the top earners make sense of inequality. As its key finding, it introduces the concept of hyperopia of wealth to describe the discursive blindness that the wealthy respondents have toward the structural conditions of economic disparities. The results indicate that top earners have a tendency to either ignore or approve the existing inequalities while disregarding the role of the wealthy and wealth in the dynamics. This blindness is named as hyperopia of wealth, analogous to a condition in which one cannot see things that are close clearly.

In the past few decades, many sector‐specific case studies have been conducted on the use of consultants in the public sector. However, the overall picture of the qualitative changes facilitated by consultants remains fragmented, and a comprehensive framework on how "consultocracy" affects governance is lacking. This article shows how the increased use of consultants has impacted the operational logics of public administration and governance at large. Drawing from a large multisectoral case study from Finland as well as existing studies, a fourfold typology of how consultocracy shapes public administration is introduced. We argue that increased reliance on consultants contributes to the monopolization and privatization of public knowledge and ensuing dependencies, erosion of tacit knowledge, weakening of accountability, and strengthening of instrumental rationality. This research emphasizes the importance of understanding the links between these developments and the need to implement a comprehensive research agenda on consultocracy.

This article examines the moral boundary work of wealthy Finnish entrepreneurs belonging to the country's top 0.1 per cent of earners. Through 28 semi-structured interviews, we show how these members of the wealth elite construct moral boundaries to legitimise their growing distance from other income groups in a Nordic welfare society. The super-rich entrepreneurs construct self-identities based on hard work, persistence and normality, draw moral boundaries between lazy and hard-working people and create moral distance between themselves and wage earners, the unemployed and public-sector workers. At the same time, these wealthy elite entrepreneurs challenge the moralities of Nordic welfare society. We thus posit that moral boundaries and boundary work should be explored as legitimising discourses embedded in the relations of economic and political power.

The administrative systems of universities attest to a shift towards more managerial forms of leadership. This article outlines how strategic management was introduced in Finland in the 2000s and how this led to a significant de-democratisation of the university organisations, despite academic communities' resistance and explicit preference for democratic self-governance. The article illustrates how strategic management informed the reconceptualization of Finnish higher education in legislation (nationally), to de-democratise and to structurally reform the HE field, and in practice (locally), to drive through desired administrative reconfigurations. This anti-democratic transformation is embodied in a new institutional model: foundation universities, which have been presented as the flagships of Finnish higher education policy, are also vehicles of de-democratisation. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed

2000-luvun alkuvuosina suomalaisessa korkeakoulupolitiikassa yleistyi näkemys kiireellisestä tarpeesta uudistaa järjestelmää. "Rakenteelliseksi kehittämiseksi" kutsuttu kokonaisreformi tähtäsi resurssien keskittämiseen, yksiköiden karsimiseen ja yliopistojen profiloitumiseen. Tarkastelemme artikkelissa uuden säätiöyliopistomallin syntyä osana tätä kehitystä ja vuoden 2009 yliopistolakiuudistusta. Tulkintamme mukaan säätiöyliopistojen synnyn mahdollistivat valtion, elinkeinoelämän ja yliopistojen ylimmän johdon intressien kohtaaminen. Säätiöyliopistojen syntyprosessissa nämä kolme toimijaa löysivät toisensa uudella tavalla, minkä seurauksena yliopistodemokratia ja yliopistoyhteisöjen valta-asema Suomessa heikentyivät merkittävästi. Valtion, elinkeinoelämän ja yliopistojen johtoportaiden intressien yhdistyessä voitiin marginalisoida demokraattisesti järjestäytyneet yliopistoyhteisöt ja osittain myös sivuuttaa eduskunnan tavanomainen lainsäädäntötyö. Konjunktuurillisen tapausanalyysimme perusteella säätiömallin ja Aalto-yliopiston synnyssä ilmenee selvimmin korkeakoulupolitiikan 2000-luvun suhdanne ja yliopistokentän valtasuhteiden muutos. Säätiömallissa tiivistyvät pitkän linjan yliopistopolitiikan tavoitteet: päätöksenteon keskittäminen, demokratian suitsiminen, elinkeinoelämän vallan kasvattaminen, yliopistojen suurempi vastuuttaminen omasta taloudestaan ja niiden pääomittaminen perusrahoituksen vahvistamisen sijaan. Eetos käy selväksi monista lakia edeltäneistä puheenvuoroista, Aalto-säätiön perustamisprosessista, alkuperäisestä yliopistolakiesityksestä ja säätiöyliopistomallin myöhemmistä vaiheista.