A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Changing Feminist Politics in a ‘Strategic State’
Authors: Elomäki Anna, Kantola Johanna, Koivunen Anu, Ylöstalo Hanna
Editors: Keskinen Suvi, Stoltz Pauline, Mulinari Diana
Publishing place: Cham
Publication year: 2021
Book title : Feminisms in the Nordic Region - Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Decolonial Critique
Series title: Gender and Politics
First page : 67
Last page: 88
ISBN: 978-3-030-53463-9
eISBN: 978-3-030-53464-6
ISSN: 2662-5814
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_4
Web address : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_4
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/51849290
The chapter analyses the shifting relationship between feminist politics and the state in Finland in the 2010s, with the aim of providing new insights into this relationship in a changing political context. The chapter focuses on a particular form of neoliberal and managerial governance that aims to make government decision-making processes more strategic by narrowing down policy objectives and aligning them explicitly with fiscal objectives that have moved the Finnish welfare state in the direction of becoming a strategic state, in which economic imperatives overrule other political concerns. The chapter asks: (i) How do different feminist actors operate in the strategic state? and (ii) How are gender issues politicised in the strategic state by different feminist actors? The chapter approaches these questions through three different conceptualisations of feminist politics in Finland, namely, the idea of the velvet triangle, governance feminism, and intersectional feminism. The chapter shows how the network model of the velvet triangle is challenged in the context of the strategic state, while both governance feminism and intersectional feminism are strengthened.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |