Arguing for Policy Shifts - The Case of Higher Education in Finland

Following up on previous work on critical policy discourse analysis (Poutanen 2018; Poutanen 2019), the mechanics of institutional and policy shift within the Finnish context is explored further. The formation of discourse and argumentation most familiar from a business context is disseminated through new, globalized logics of academic capitalism (e.g. Cantwell & Kauppinen 2014; Kauppinen & Kaidesoja 2014). It makes sense that trends stressing the utilitarian value of education as priority for the national economy, familiar in the international context (e.g. Collini 2018; Ball 2012; Deem et al. 2007; Olssen & Peters 2005), would also finally find traction also in Finland. The University Act of 2009 was a comprehensive reform of the Finnish higher education system, often quoted as a watershed moment. One reform was to enable a new administrative form that public Finnish universities could adopt: the private foundation. The foundation was seen as the realization of sorely needed potential for more private-public partnerships and strategic leadership that would integrate Finnish HE with industry and business interests. This was also framed to be in the interests of the national economy. Thus the foundation university in Finland serves as a discursive yet institutional redefinition of university autonomy and democracy. The shift in higher education policy also coincides with the broader shift of business logics becoming prioritized within Finnish society (Poutanen 2018). Finnish scholars have already noted the homogenization of higher education policy discourse regardless of political party representation (Björn et al. 2017). In some ways the line of research proposed in this paper is a return back to the critical discourse studies of Fairclough (1989), which outlined commercialization and commodification of UK higher education, but from a modern context also in terms of methodology: the utilization of framing theory together with argumentation theory (e.g. Fairclough 2016) should provide insights into the discursive shaping of Finnish institutions of higher education. The paper will argue that the foundation university has struggled since its inception between managerial administrative practice at the expense of traditional university democracy and autonomy. Autonomy has moved from the university community to the (professional) university leadership. Given that Finnish universities are by and large still a part of the public sector, this required an active shift in higher education policy and a discursive reconceptualization of the words “democracy” and “autonomy”. Actors with vested interests will strongly argue for their case by framing reforms as a necessity. This paper offers insights into the genesis of the foundation university in Finland and evaluates its stated goals and actual outcomes from the perspective of education and economy, and democracy and managerialism. The paper revolves around Aalto and Tampere University – the only two foundation universities currently in existence in Finland.