Pathways to the Top. Media and Party Leadership in Finland from Women’s Breakthrough to the Wave of Populism

This dissertation on party leadership and the media in Finland consists of four articles and an introduction. The first two articles analyse the leadership elections (1987–2010) of the three traditionally largest political parties and focuses on women candidates and their breakthrough into political leadership. The two latter articles scrutinise the rise of the populist newcomer party by concentrating on its leader Timo Soini’s media and communication strategies in the threshold of the party’s electoral victory in 2011.

The main research methods are qualitative content analysis combined with historical contextualising and historical analysis. The research material consists of a variety of media materials; the largest data includes newspaper reporting on party leadership elections (1987–2010) and the general elections (2011).

As this study explains, the gradual changes that took place in the media/politics relationship in Finland both speeded up women’s breakthrough into the leadership of large political parties and eased the way of the populist newcomer party to grow in size and influence.

Even in Nordic countries like Finland, generally viewed as progressive when it comes to gender equality, political leadership has traditionally been a masculine activity. By 2014 the Centre Party (Suomen Keskusta, est. 1906) had had two woman leaders, and the Social Democratic Party of Finland (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue, SDP est. 1899), one woman leader. The National Coalition Party (Kansallinen Kokoomus, est.1918) is yet to have a female leader.

The conventional route to the leadership of the large parties has been via candidacy and election in the party congress. However, in the parliamentary elections of 2011 an alternative way emerged, when the nationalist and populist True Finns Party (or: the Finns Party; Perussuomalaiset, est. 1995) gained its ground-breaking electoral victory and rose from the smallest party in Eduskunta to the third largest. As the party’s organisation was weak and the campaign budget low, the role of the party chairman Timo Soini and the media’s appetite for populist leaders were crucial for the party’s success.

The first female candidate participated in a large Finnish party’s leadership election in 1987, but it was not until 2002 before the first woman was elected. Interestingly, women’s breakthrough into party leadership happened during the same period when political importance and media visibility of party leaders in Finnish politics grew notably. Newspapers greeted the first female candidates with bewilderment: women’s ‘eagerness’ to reach top positions was described as aggressive and exaggerated. However, the interpretations soon changed, and women candidates were encouraged and even favoured by the press, yet gender stereotypes remained common in media coverage.

Both the party organisations and the media reached towards female candidates, especially when the parties faced troubles in the form of stained image and low support. Choosing a female leader was seen as a believable symbol of a new beginning, although women were also seen as too soft and more unpredictable than their male counterparts. Gender equality was rarely discussed.

Despite the women’s organisations’ and female candidates’ repeated attempts and media’s growing appetite for female politicians, the success of woman candidates remained typically low until the early 21st century. As the leadership elections became more democratic and open and the media sustained special interest in female politicians, women’s possibilities to be elected were gradually improved.

In both processes examined here, the role of the media is more complex than its traditional position as the fourth estate would lead one to expect. From the late 1980’s to early 2010, the media made a successful intervention to politics while parties adjusted their practices to serve the needs of media logic. In newspapers the growth of opinion journalism was notable: reporters’ columns and other journalistic opinion pieces started to emerge and soon flourished across coverage. The media became an arena for both the leadership elections and the power struggle of the parties. Furthermore, it also occupied a more participatory role in the leader succession processes.

By the early 21st century the political parties had absorbed the idea of the usefulness of media visibility. Hoping to gain free publicity the parties began to apply more media friendly strategies which included inviting the media to join the leadership election process. As a result of media’s growing foothold the parties inevitably lost some control over the process.