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Conceptions of ‘public interest’ in the context of local governance reform in Finland

Conceptions of ‘public interest’ in the context of local governance reform in Finland. Raine Mäntysalo & Karoliina Jarenko YTK. “ Public interest ”. The state = good of the state A modernist grand narrative

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Conceptions of ‘public interest’ in the context of local governance reform in Finland

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  1. Conceptions of ‘public interest’ in the context of local governance reform in Finland Raine Mäntysalo & Karoliina Jarenko YTK

  2. “Public interest” • The state = good of the state • A modernist grand narrative • Planning and policy tool for measuring, directing and justifying the welfarist redistribution of tax revenues • Implies a oneness, one interest serving everybody

  3. Critique • Epistemological: complexity of planningproblems vs. resources in use for the identification of it -> No scientificobjectivitypossible • Cultural/postmodern: publicinterest a tool in creating the modernistmonoculture. -> Notjustifiable in the postmoderntimes of pluralism • Economical/neoliberal: publicinterest a tool in the welfaristregulationmodel. -> Inefficient and notagileenough to respond to globalmarketdemands.

  4. The persistence of public interest • ”Modernist planning emerged as a state activity precisely because of the recognition that there are important goods which are manifestly in everyone’s interest to have but in no one’s interest to provide.” • ”Often scorned at, but still remains a pivot around which debates of planning and its purposes turn” Campbell & Marshall 2002

  5. New definitions?New discourses?

  6. Analytical framework Illustrated with definitions given by planners and municipal decision makers Administrative municipality Service municipality Citizen municipality Focus of public interest: Process or outcome? Nature of public interest: Subjective/objective? Campbell & Marshall 2002 (Roivainen 2002)

  7. Three municipality models (Roivainen 2002; see also: Vigoda 2002; Hambleton 2004; Leadbeater 2004; Bäcklund 2007)

  8. The interviewees’conceptions of public interest

  9. Conclusion • the concept of public interest still holds some ground • It finds different, even contradictory discursive logics in different governance contexts. “We are free to abandon the concept but if we do so we simply have to wrestle with the problems under some other heading” Flathman 1966

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