Citizens, Politicians and Experts in Energy Policy-Making: The Case of Finland
2010
Ruostetsaari, Ilkka
Theoretically, this study debates the issue of technocracy, with the role of representative democracy and expert knowledge in the Finnish energy policy-making as a focus. Policy-making is characterized by several characteristics making it special in international comparison. The study is based on a postal survey conducted among a random sample (N = 4000) representing 18–75-year old Finns in May – October 2007. Given the expert-centred tradition of Finnish science and technology policy, as well as the characteristics of Finnish political culture, we argued that Finns consider experts and producers of research knowledge to be more legitimate decision-makers than politicians in the energy policy arena. The proposition was tested using three hypotheses. Firstly, we hypothesized that the citizenry do not trust in their chances to influence energy policy-making through political institutions and general elections, and secondly, that people trust more in experts, that is research institutes and authorities as sources of energy-related information than political institutions. According to the third hypothesis, citizens stress more the normative role of experts than that of political decision-makers in the processes of planning and decision-making of energy policy The hypotheses were mainly verified. Our major finding was that even if people considered political institutions the most powerful actors in energy policy-making they did not trust their own chances to influence energy policy through political institutions. Experts were seen as the more legitimate decision-makers than politicians in energy policy.
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