Between a rock and a hard place? Investigating the international and domestic sources of Finnish forest policy
Authors:   University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, Department of Forest Sciences, Harrinkari Teemu 
Published: October 2024

Forests are essential for maintaining the living conditions on Earth, providing livelihoods and wellbeing for a significant proportion of humanity, while also having the potential to address the existential challenges we are facing. This study explored the composition of the Finnish forest policy subsystem and analyzed the type of policies it has produced under different national and international political influences within a 22-year time frame, from 1994 to 2015. The main aims were to identify the predominant coalitions involved in the policy processes and to analyze the role of international influences and discourses in the Finnish forest policy subsystem. Furthermore, the study examines the related sustainability framings and discusses the implications of the analyzed forest policies for the sustainability of forestry and social equity. The analytical approach was guided by three main policy process-related theories. Firstly, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was used to unpack and critically examine the composition and value basis of the Finnish forest policy subsystem. Secondly, the ACF was combined with the Four Pathways of International Influences framework to analyze and identify how international influences affect the Finnish policy subsystem. Finally, Critical Discourse Analysis was applied to discover how Finnish forest policies are formulated, which influences guide them, and how international sustainability discourses are reflected in them. These theories also guided the data collection and analysis. The data consisted of expert interviews and policy documents and was examined using qualitative content analysis. Based on the analysis, the Finnish forest policy subsystem consists of three coalitions: the private forestry coalition, the forestry administration coalition, and the environmental coalition. The first two derive their policy core beliefs from the forestry paradigm and promote the economic utilization of timber, whereas the environmental coalition derives its beliefs from the environmental paradigm and promotes the safeguarding of forest nature. The results of the dissertation indicate that Finnish forest policy has been inclined to favor the approach adopted by the private forestry and forestry administration coalitions by emphasizing the economic utilization of timber resources. This approach seems to stem from the importance of the export-dependent Finnish forest industry to the national economy. In addition, the results show that international influences have diffused into the Finnish forest policy development process through three different pathways, namely international rules, international norms and discourse, and markets. More specifically, legally binding international rules and non-legally binding international norms and discourse were regarded as equally important. In the 1990s, the rise of environmental consciousness and related regulation gave the environmental coalition the leverage to influence Finnish forest policy. However, the influence of the environmental coalition was only temporary. In the 2010s, the bioeconomy narrative applied by the private forestry coalition and the forestry administration coalition re-emphasized the economic utilization of forests to the detriment of environmental aspects. The future of the Finnish forest sector depends on how it will reconcile – or fail to reconcile – the contradictory paradigms of environmental protection and forest utilization. Policy changes toward a sustainable future would require changes in the discourse and the discursive space, together with more open public discussion.