It Happens There, Why Not Here? Efforts Towards Better Coordination in the Finnish National Central Government

It Happens There, Why not Here? Efforts towards Better Coordination in the Finnish National Central Government Pertti Ahonen, Political Science, University of Helsinki, pertti.ahonen@helsinki.fi This paper seeks resolution to the research problem about why better coordination in the national central government comprises a chronic challenge with variably successful solutions in Finland despite the country’s relatively small population, the unitary structures of its government system, and the internationally recognized high quality of its governance institutions. The research questions are: (1) To what extent may it arise from a combination of a proportional electoral system, a tradition of majority governments which are coalitions between parties, and the strong position of each minister in his or her ministry that coordination is tedious? (2) Why have some institutional and organizational solutions with international counterparts worked Finland towards better coordination, whereas other solutions have been tried without comparable success? (3) Despite efforts towards stronger “primacy of the political” and the stronger subordination of career civil servants to politics, why is the coordination within the Finnish national government still tedious? Mainstream including traditional political science theory and empirical research are used to seek answers to RQ1. To answer RQ2, neo-institutional theory and research on national emulation, transfer, modification and implementation of international institutional models and scripts is utilized. Suitable more recent political science research and theory is drawn upon to seek answers to RQ3. Empirically, the paper develops answers to its research questions by means of examining four cases, which represent variably successful efforts towards better coordination in the Finnish national government. Let us present the cases in a temporal order. The first case is comprised of the reasonably successful early 2000s reform of the central financial public administration of the Finnish national government. The second case comprises the less successful multi-year policy of successive Finnish governments to accomplish a substantially more unified he State Council, meaning the 11 ministries, their equivalent comprised of the Prime Minister’s Office, and the more than 3 000 civil servants therein. The third, mid-2010s case deals with the government efforts to improve upon the Finnish ex ante vigilance towards European Commission policy initiatives and the Commission’s directive proposals, with special reference to strengthening coordination between the 12 ministry-level units. The topic of the most recent case deals government efforts to relieving regulatory burdens yet without losing the positive impacts of regulation, and introducing a version of the international “one-in, one-out” method for freezing certain costs from regulation to business companies. Selected references Bouckaert, G., Peters, B. G. , and Verhoest, K. eds. 2015. The Coordination of Public Sector Organizations: Shifting Patterns of Public Management. Berlin: Springer. Meyer, M.W. and Zucker, L.G. 1989. Permanently Failing Organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Radaelli, C.M. 2005. Diffusion without Convergence: How Political Context Shapes the Adoption of Regulatory Impact Assessment. Journal of Public Policy, 12 (5): 924–943. Strang, D. and Macy, M.W. 2001. In Search of Excellence: Fads, Success Stories, and Adaptive Emulation. American Journal of Sociology, 107 (1): 147–182.