Strengthening Political Participation as a Policy Issue in Finland

The article is an effort to analyse one particular policy-making process. The case deals with the policy of strengthening political participation in Finland. The data is based on two recent policy programs on developing democracy, the first between the years 1997-2002 and the second between 2003 and 2007. The data consists of policy documents, reports, and the parliamentary documents connected to these policies. In the first part of the article the author discusses alternative delineation of the policy-making, in other words, how policy processes usually look like. The second part is devoted to the question of policy-making and information. Policy-makers use different types of knowledge, political, economical, research and so forth when designing the policies. The third part is a study of the policy-making concerning political participation in Finland between the years 19982007. During this time period there have been three different policies and a number of measures. However, the concrete steps seem modest. The fourth part sums up the findings and connects the case study to the conceptual debate on policy-making.