Strategic partnerships and velvet triangles: exploring the mechanisms for Finnish
women’s substantive representation
Paper prepared for the workshop no. 16: “What is going on in political representation? The
substantive representation of women.” ECPR Joint Sessions, Helsinki 7-12 May, 2007.
Work in progress – please do not cite
Anne Maria Holli
PhD, Post-doc Researcher (Academy of
Finland)
Affiliation: Department of Political Science
Address: GENIE project
Gender Studies in Law
Department of Department of Criminal Law,
Procedural Law and General Jurisprudential Studies
P.O. Box 4
00014 University of Helsinki
tel. +358-9-191 23482
e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
The paper investigates the ‘how’ of Finnish women’s substantive representation i.e. women’s
movement co-operation mechanisms which have contributed to their policy success in achieving
their goals. It critically discusses some concepts offered by feminist analysts as explanations, such
as strategic partnerships and velvet triangles, and compares their applicability to Finnish women’s
movement strategies.
The starting-point for this paper is the empirical research which has pointed out the internationally
high substantive impact of various women’s constituencies on public policy-making in Finland
(Aalto 2003; Aalto & Holli 2007; Holli 2006, 2004, 2003, 2001; Holli & Kantola 2005; see also
Kantola 2006). However, their success was not a result of sheer numbers (see also Dahlerup 1988;
Childs 2004, 196), as suggested by the simplest versions of the critical mass theory, but of shifting
patterns of women’s collective mobilization for strategic power in a context of a relatively
democratic and favourable environment. It has been argued that the mechanism for success in
Finland involved some sort of women’s ‘strategic partnerships’,
with the women’s policy
machinery taking actively part in them, often even initiating them (Holli 2003, 2006). These
partnership structures underwent a change during the 1990s, as their political axis strengthened
while both the women’s policy machinery and gender researchers started to occupy a diminished
role (Holli 2006; Holli and Kantola 2007).
What, then, are ‘strategic partnerships’ and what kinds of alternative concepts are there available in
feminist political science for women’s co-operation mechanisms? I will concentrate in this paper
especially two feminist ’catch-phrase´ innovations (but also some other concepts) that have spread
to some degree but which do not appear to have been much reflected in feminist studies. The first
one is the idea of ‘strategic partnerships’ introduced in the 1990s by the Norwegian feminist scholar
Beatrice Halsaa (1991, 1998) to explain Norwegian women’s success in policy-making in the
context of the Social Democratic, ‘women-friendly’ welfare state. The other one is the concept of
the ‘velvet triangle’ coined a few years back by the Belgian political scientist Alison Woodward
(2003) in connection to her analysis of gender in informal governance structures of the European
Union. The concepts seem to display several differences in, for example, in their theoretical
background and the form and agency involved in the co-operation.
2
The intention of this paper is, firstly, to discuss the contents and similarities and differences of the
concepts in order to better discern whether and where they might be applicable, and what kind sof
methodological and theoretical problems can arise in their utilisation, especially in regard to
empirical materials on Finnish women’s attempts to influence policy-making. Secondly, the paper
presents some features about Finnish women’s co-operation and points out the challenges that they
pose for conceptualising co-operation.
The more ambitious aim of the larger study (of which this is a part) deals with the analysis of
Finnish women’s co-operation structures, their establishment, forms, partners involved,
effectiveness and their continuity and change over time. Can we (empirically) discern either
women’s strategic partnerships or velvet triangles or any other constellations in Finnish policymaking,? What are the triggering mechanisms for women’s co-operation, when do the partnerships
arise and when not? What about movement alliances with sympathetic males or the ‘unholy
alliances’ occurring with, e.g. extremely gender conservative parties on some issues, how do they fit
in these conceptual schemes?
And finally: Would we need some new concepts or new
subcategories to the concepts in question to be better able to differentiate between women’s cooperation structures by the quantity or quality of actors, power or degree of institutionalisationr?
The paper is structured as follows: I will start by indicating what is meant by substantive
representation in this study and describe shortly the empirical research results which inspired this
paper and the subsequent discussion. After that, I will discuss the concepts on the basis of the
(scarce) literature on them as well as my empirical data and suggest some useful pointers for further
consideration.
Background: the high substantive impact of Finnish women’s movements
Finland has for a long time occupied a prominent place on international ranking lists concerning the
proportion of female political representatives, i.e. descriptive representation in its very simplest
form. Today, after March 2007 parliamentary elections and in the wake of the right-wing victory,
the proportion of women MPs rose to an all-time high, 42% 1 , placing Finland on the third place in
the world after Rwanda (49%) and Sweden (47%). However, the high proportion of women in
Finnish politics is reached by slightly other means than in most other high-ranking countries, as
1
The proportion of women in local councils is 36,3 % (2004 municipal elections).
3
there are no electoral quotas nor zippered lists utilised in the open-list PR electoral system (e.g.
Hellsten, Holli & Wass 2007; Haavio-Mannila 1979).
Recent studies performed in the framework of the international comparative project RNGS (the
Research Network on Gender, Politics and the State) also point out the high substantive
representation achieved by Finnish women’s movements, at least in terms of the model utilised.
Interested especially in the links between descriptive and substantive representation (Childs 2004;
Young 2000, 1990; Phillips 1995; Jónasdóttir 1988; see also Pitkin 1967), the RNGS project set out
to chart and analyse the actual impact of second wave women's movements on public policies and
the role played by women's policy agencies in the process.
Gamson's (1975) distinction between substantive and procedural responses by the state to social
movement demands provided the basis for the study of movement impact. Substantive response (i.e.
the operationalisation of substantive representation in the model) refers to whether or not the state
changes the substance of policy in order to meet the demands of the movements. Procedural
response on the other hand refers to whether or not the state accepts the movement organisation as a
legitimate representative of movement interests in the political process. By analysing the impact of
the women's movements in the framework of these two dimensions, the model set up four possible
outcomes for movement effect on public policy: dual response (women's movement success on
both dimensions); pre-emption (demands are met, but without including movement representatives
in the process); co-optation (movement gains access but no policy satisfaction); no response (a
failure on both accounts).
The empirical data in the Finnish case study consisted of 12 Finnish policy debates from four policy
sectors during 1969-1999. They included policy debates from four policy areas: job training,
prostitution, political representation and child care policies (Holli, 2001, 2004; Holli and Kantola,
2005; Aalto and Holli, 2007; Aalto, 2003). The sectors included both those considered to have a
high feminist success rate (political representation) to those with a medium and low feminist
success rate (job training policy) (Mazur, 2002), the data being however clearly slanted to lower
success policy sectors than the RNGS average (Holli 2006, 139). 2
2
Notably, the Finnish data do not include any debates on abortion policy, which proved to be the most accessible policy
sector from the women's movement point of view in the RNGS comparison (Stetson, 2001; cf. Mazur, 2002, 184-185).
Instead, the Finnish data includes two debates on child care policy, which, according to Mazur (2002: 184-185), crossculturally has appeared as the policy sector with the lowest feminist policy success rate (cf. however Kantola 2006)..
4
Regardless, within the common RNGS framework Finnish women’s constituencies appeared quite
successful. According to my calculations (Holli 2006, with database of 12 debates on Finland), the
success rate was 58%, failure rate 42 % if we only look at policy impact results. Mazur and Stetson
(2006, with 11 cases on Finland available) in their quantified dataset came up with similar figures:
in Finland 64 % of the analysed debates reached substantive response to women’s movement
demands by the state, 36 % were failures. The respective overall average across countries was, in
my calculation 58 % (impact) and 42% (no impact), and in Stetson and Mazur’s larger, updated
dataset 61% (impact) and 39% (no impact). (Holli 2006; Stetson & Mazur 2006.)
These overall results from the RNGS project suggest a slightly more pessimistic – but quite high
nevertheless - evaluation of women’s potential to influence public policy-making than Mazur’s
(2002, 178-179) comparative cross-cultural analysis of public policies. There she, utilising a
different method for evaluating policy success and secondary sources on policy debates, found a
much higher feminist policy success rate (93 %), few low success cases (7 %) and no total policy
failures at all.
In their comparative analyses concerning the individual policy sectors, Mazur (2001), Stetson
(2001), Outshoorn (2004) and Lovenduski et al. (2005) concluded that the independent variables −
the characteristics of women's movements and the policy environment − seem to play a decisive
role on women's impact. The probability of women's policy success is higher when the policy subsystem in question is moderately closed or open 3 in character; the left is in power; and the women's
movement which is mobilised by the debate is close to the left, the issue is of high priority to the
movement, and the various strands of women's movements are unified on the issue. Moreover, the
policy success is more likely when the movement frames the issue in matching or compatible terms
with those utilised in the dominant discourse of the policy sub-system. By contrast, the likelihood of
policy failure for women's movements is highest when the policy-making sub-system is closed and
the left is out of power (Mazur, 2001; Stetson, 2001).
The RNGS studies also concluded that women's policy offices constitute effective links between
women's movements and the state. Women's movements have tended to be more successful where
3
Building from the concept of iron triangles and taking Heclo's (1978) notion of issue networks into consideration, the
RNGS model conceptualises different types of policy sub-systems along a continuum, with 'open sub-systems'
(amorphous networks, wide participation of actors, no clear chain of command), 'moderately closed sub-systems'
(organisation more clearly defined, several actors trying to dominate), and 'closed sub-systems' (participation limited,
one major set of actors controls policy space and the parameters of the arena).
5
state structures for women's policy have acted as insiders in the policy-making process, that is, they
have gendered policy debates in ways that have coincided with women's movement goals. By
contrast, the movements have been less successful when women's policy agencies have played
some other role in the policy debate. In conclusion, the argument is that state feminism (women’s
policy offices) play an important role in aiding women’s movement demands in public policymaking. (Mazur, 2001b; Stetson, 2001; Outshoorn, 2004; Lovenduski et al., 2005.)
Notably, the overall RNGS results also provide an interesting observation from the point of view of
feminist debates concerning the relationship between women’s descriptive and substantive
representation. That is, it illustrates that including women and women's movement involvement in
the policy process achieved a satisfactory outcome five times more often than when they were
excluded from it. (Holli 2006). Nevertheless, even when women were included as active
participants in the process, in two cases out of ten they for some reason failed to achieve policy
satisfaction.
The same variables that explain movement impact in other countries (policy environment
characteristics, women’s movement characteristics and women’s policy agency activities)
are
crucial for Finland too. However, there emerged particularly clear patterns there, which, in my
evalutaion, pointed to the pertinence of women’s movement characteristics as the crucial factor in
that country (Holli 2006; cf. also Stetson and Mazur 2006):
1) Finnish women were successful in their policy demands (dual response) when they just
managed to mobilise in a sufficient degree in a moderately closed policy sub-system
framework. The prerequisites to sufficient mobilisation included the active participation of leftwing women’s political organisations, cohesiveness of movements (different strands of
women’s movements were not openly in dissension about the proposal or issue) and a high
priority issue. Left-wing power in government contributed to favourable outcome, but from the
1990s onwards, did not seem necessary for it. (Holli 2006)
2) When right-wing women mobilised on an issue by themselves, without managing to recruit
the left-wing women actively along (because of, for example, different or conflicting priorities
or left-wing disinterest) they were bound to be disappointed at the outcome (no substantive
policy impact, outcome classified as ‘co-optation’ by RNGS definition). (Holli 2006)
6
This was to a great deal due to the fact that, by contrast to the Left-wing parties, right-wing
women found little support from their own male party comrades for their demands (cf. also
Siukola 2004, 2006).
3) Total failure (no response) in terms of the RNGS model occurred when when the policy subsystem was closed, or there were definite problems in women’s movement mobilisation (low
priority of issue and the divided character of the movement; or they just failed or did not want
for one reason or another to offer gendered analyses in the debate). In the framework of
integrationist, politically divided party feminism, the ability or willingness to gender debates
seemed to be very much dependent of the larger political situation (Holli 2006, 2003).
These results on Finland can be condensed by a claim that Finnish women’s movements are bound
to succeed in their goals if they just manage to decide what it is that they want and to mobilise in a
moderately closed (or open) policy sub-system environment, such as those involving normal,
relatively accessible policy and parliamentary processes (Holli 2006, 2003). – Corporatist, closed
tri-partite structures are another story altogether.
The results and data also seemed to suggest that the co-operation mechanisms, informal or formal,
utilised by Finnish women’s movements and women’s policy offices for reaching such ’sufficient
mobilisation levels’ were relatively successful and appropriate to the political environment.
However, their exact nature, functioning or theoretical conceptualisation was beyond the scope of
the comparative project. The Finnish subproject however provided much of the data needed for the
task, as well as plenty of food for thought on the problems involved in studying links between
women’s descriptive and substantive representation and the empirical requirements which the study
of women’s co-operative structures should meet in this specific case at least.
Strategic partnerships by Finnish women?
“Finland has been a consensus society […] we [different groups of political and
labour market actors] have learnt to discuss over boundaries. And women have been
tagging along there inside the parties, but they have not been actors themselves. But
here [in women’s issues] women have realised that: “Damn, we can make our own
consensus if […] we find an issue where we have a common interest, we will put it
through” […] and a consensus in women’s politics is being constructed here.. “
(Interview with a Finnish woman politician 31 March 2006)
7
In some earlier studies (Holli 2003, 165, 2006,) I suggested, in want of other concepts, that the
obvious alignment of Finnish representatives of women’s movements for practical co-operation
with various factions all working towards solving an issue relatively harmoniously could be
understood as ‘women’s strategic partnerships’ (Halsaa 1998).
Women’s policy offices were
partners in those alliances, often even initiated them by offering a gendered analysis of a specific
issue.
The interesting feature of those apparent alignments was that, to a a posteriori observer at least,
they seemed just to ’happen’: as if different groups of female actors at some point of the policy
process turned their gazes to the same direction, at the same practical objective set by someone
earlier in the process , and worked side by side to reach it. This could occur, at times at least, even
over the left-right and the governmental majority-opposition division.
At this point, we should be reminded of four contextual issues. Firstly, Finnish feminism has been
very moderate and integrationist - radical feminist grass root activism and protests are rare
(Bergman, 1999, 2002). The ’autonomous’ women’s organisations have rarely been active on the
political arena. Rather, it has been party feminism – women’s party sections – that have carried the
torch to politics after they started being ’feministised’ from the late 1960s. Finland is thus a prime
example of what has been labelled ´double militancy’ (Beckwith 2000) or ’double strategy’ by
women’s movements.
Working both ’inside’ and ’outside’ of established structures has
simultaneously offered Finnish women’s movements empowering opportunities (see e.g. Beckwith
2000) and possibilities for political access but also constrained them in various ways (see e.g.
Childs 2004), as already observed above.
Secondly, by contrast to common misunderstandings about Nordic societies being a ’paradise for
women’, structurally women’s movements of various types do not probably face much more
favourable contexts there than in most other countries. Admittedly, there have traditionally been
some policy preparatory and deliberative mechanisms (state inquiry commissions, consultation
mechanisms) for example in Finland that have given possibilities for access in policy-making for
women’s movements (see Holli 2006). 4 However, on the other hand, NGOs of various types have
been evaluated as the least influential parties in, for example, Finnish policy-making in the social
and health sector (Mattila 1996; Uusikylä 1996), which leaves women’s NGOs very much as ’the
4
However, these mechanisms have been under a transformation since the early 1990s in the name of efficiency, e.g. by
replacing large inquiry commissions with one-man (literally!) inquiry ‘committees’.
8
periphery of the periphery’. By contrast, however, political parties tend to be in a central position in
the policy network in this sector, especially in their role as recipients of information (Mattila 1996),
placing consequently women’s party sections ’in the periphery of the centre’, which gives a much
better starting point for influencing policy.
Thirdly, from the late 1980s onwards an institutionalisation of women’s cross-party co-operation
and a division of labour between women’s movements and women’s policy agencies took place in
Finland (Holli & Kantola 2007). The women’s organisations and women MPs established two new
cross-party co-operative mechanisms (NYTKIS, Women MPs’ Network in Parliament 5 ) by the
early 1990s that partly took up the role formerly played by women’s policy offices in women’s cooperative alignments (Holli 2006). Moreover, the women’s organisations, including NYTKIS, also
received higher and more permanent financial subsidies from the state, enabling own permanent
staff for the NYTKIS also. As a consequence the political axis of the women’s strategic partnership
structures strengthened considerably. (Holli & Kantola 2007)
Notably, women’s cross-party co-operation in issues that are considered ‘important to women’
seems to be much more common and institutionalised in Finland than in most other countries, partly
because of the opportunities opened by the overall political opportunity structures (e.g. open list PR
system and flexible party discipline which make representatives less dependent on their party). This
can be seen in particular in the manner women MPs have made allies with each other under the
parliamentary processes, even joining several times forces to overthrow a governmental
proposition. The RNGS data included two such successful cases. The first one in 1994 concerned
achieving subjective right to day care for all children aged under 3 years (Aalto 2003; Aalto and
Holli 2007; Kantola 2006); the second one in 1995 adding gender quotas (to indirectly elected
political organs) in the Gender Equality Act (Raevaara 2005; Holli and Kantola 2005). In both
debates women MPs allied across the right-left division with each other and against the right-wing
5
NYTKIS, the Coalition of Finnish Women’s Associations for Joint Action, was established in 1988. It
consists of all the women’s party sections, the Central League of Finnish Women’s Organisations, the League of
Finnish Feminists and the academic Society for Women’s Studies. Their joint membership is more than 600,000
persons, i.e. over 20% of the female population of Finland. Initially, NYTKIS used to act as an informal network,
deciding however to formally organise in the early 2000s. It utilises rotation of leadership and consensus-oriented
decision-making procedures in its activity. The aim is to promote women’s political participation and gender equality,
lobbying political parties, the government and the parliament in specific issues. (See also Lejonqvist-Jurvanen 2004.)
In 1991 NYTKIS was followed by another women’s cross-party alliance when women MPs decided to
establish a network of their own within the parliament in the aftermath of the world-record high in women MPs and a
simultaneous shift in governmental power to a centre-right coalition. Acting as an unofficial parliamentary standing
committee, the Network investigates and lobbies for issues considered as important to all women regardless of party
affiliation within the parliament. (Ramstedt-Silén 1999.)
9
Cabinet, forming a winning coalition in parliament with the opposition left-wing male MPs. In both
policy debates, NYTKIS and the Network of Women MPs in Parliament played pivotal roles.
Finally, even disregarding theories of a critical mass, the presence of considerable numbers of
women in relevant societal and political arena, has been a clear advantage for women’s movement
impact in Finland. This is because women’s movements, women’s party sections then in particular,
have had sympathetic members or potential allies scattered all over the society in posts where they
have been in prime position to do ’critical acts’ if they choose to do so. This has proved helpful
especially if women’s constituencies wake to a problem in the later stages of the policy process
(parliament) when it is very difficult to change governmental bills any more (see Anckar 1990,
167).
Such ’critical acts’ have occurred in ’critical places’, such as the standing committees of the
parliament, for a long time. For example, one of the earliest pieces of Finnish legislation concerning
a gender quota of one obligatory woman in municipal unemployment committees was achieved by
a critical initiative by some Social-Democratic women MPs (and supported by other women MPs)
in the parliamentary standing committee as early as 1971. One of the male opponents commented
bitterly afterwards, that women “had used their power of numbers” to “put their signature” on the
bill – notably, only a third of the Social Affairs Committee members were female at that time (Holli
2001).
However, there are no calculations on how often such women’s strategic interventions actually
occur in the average parliamentary year. In the Finnish RNGS database consisting of 10 nationallevel policy debates (12 in all), there occurred women’s cross-party co-operation of some sort in
six of them.
Feminist conceptual reflections: Strategic partnerships, velvet triangles or
something else?
Questions concerning women’s mutual co-operation, coalition-building and joint activities for
achieving their goals seem to be a somewhat neglected area in feminist political studies, especially
on the theoretical level, since the mid-1980s, along with the abolition of such outdated concepts as
’sisterhood’ and ’women’s interests’. Without wish to resort to essentialist definitions of those
concepts, I feel that there is a need for more empirical (see however e.g. Ferree & Tripp (eds.) 2006;
10
Mazur 2002; Abrar, Lovenduski & Margetts 2000; Sawer & Groves 1994; Keck and Sikkink 1998,
on international politics; Zippel 2004) and especially theoretical work on women’s co-operation and
coalition mechanisms – precisely because they seem to be so important for women’s substantive
representation.
I will in the following sections outline some feminist scholars’ reflections on the form and nature of
women’s co-operative constellations, by focusing on the definitions of the concepts they utilise. I
will start with strategic partnerships and velvet triangles, but also point out work on, for example,
triangles of empowerment, feminist advocacy coalitions and transnational advocacy networks.
Drawing apparently partly from the idea of ‘iron triangles’ (Rokkan, Heclo 1978), the Norwegian
scholar Beatrice Halsaa (1991, 1998) introduced in the 1990s the idea of ‘strategic partnerships’ to
explain Norwegian women’s success in policy-making. For Halsaa, the concept referred to cooperation by party women (and women politicians), women bureaucrats and women in the
autonomous women’s movement on pragmatic, specific issues that were considered important for
women. Halsaa (1998, 126) pointed out the different roles played by these groups in the cooperation:
Roughly speaking, women in the movement are critics and innovators in the grassroots
channel; women in political parties work through the electoral channel to aggregate
demands and legitimate decisions; women in the public administration and women in the
corporate channel propose and implement public policy on women. These three actors
sometimes disagree but sometimes combine their influence to promote the interests of
women.
The role of women’s research for the partnerships also came up in Halsaa’s discussion, but it was a
limited to ”’provider of ’gender expertise’” (ibid.). Halsaa commented on the friendly and open
relationship between Norwegian women working inside and outside the state. She evaluated that
such ’strategic partnerships’ made up a specifically Norwegian ‘triangle of empowerment’ of
women since the rise of the second wave women’s movement until the late 1990s.
The ‘triangle of empowerment’ that Halsaa, too, referred to, was the crucial concept of the book
which tracked the emergence and existence of women’s collective mobilisation and patterns of
influence (Lycklama à Nijeholt, Vargas & Wieringa 1998). According to Vargas and Wieringa
(1998, 3), the concept was utilised as a metaphor that referred to the “interplay between three sets of
actors – the women’s movement, feminist politicians and feminist civil servants (femocrats)”.
11
Notably, here we discern a first point of conflict that has been typical to debates on women’s cooperative constellations: do the actors need to be expressly feminist or not? Does not “genderconsciousness” (Tolleson-Rinehart 1992) - or even actual co-operation in real-life situations suffice? Moreover, the women’s movement is regarded to be in a crucial position as it is seen as
informing all three corners of the triangle.
The authors point out the significance of the triangle for articulating women’s concerns, translating
them into policy issues and widening the support for their agenda. They argue that the dynamism
created between the three sets of actors mentioned accounts for the relative effectiveness with which
(what they call) women’s interests can be defended. They also draw attention to the contextual and
changing character of such triangles of empowerment, which is seen as based in interaction
between various groups of women and basically very ambivalent in its dynamics. (Vargas and
Wieringa 1998, 3-4.)
Later, Halsaa’s concept ‘strategic partnerships’ was adopted by Amy Mazur (2002, 190-191) in her
comparative study of feminist policy-making,
although now limited to ‘feminist’ strategic
partnerships. Mazur’s use of the concept referred to partnerships “between women’s movement
activists, femocrats in women’s policy offices, and women in public office” (ibid. 190). The
concept was also utilised synonymously with terms like ‘triangles of empowerment’ ‘feminist
advocacy coalitions’ and ‘“feminist policy coalitions’. Mazur’s definition thus is narrower than
Halsaa’s or Vargas and Wieringa’s, as ‘femocrats’ in her study are limited to the role of civil
servants working in state women’s policy offices, whereas Vargas and Weiringa (1998, 20, note 1)
explicitly point out that any feminists in public administration are included in their definition of
‘femocrat’ 6 . Here we discern the second point of dissension between feminist scholars: who are
the real partners among the civil servants? Feminist women working in state gender equality
offices; feminists at large in public administration; or, any female civil servants (at times at least)?
Mazur’s study seems to be one of the few empirical analyses to explore empirically the prevalence
of strategic partnerships for feminist policy success. In her analysis of 27 debates in 13 Western
democracies Mazur pointed out that feminist strategic partnerships were very important for policy
outcome. “Full” strategic partnerships (involving all three sets of the activist groups mentioned)
played key roles in seven out of 13 cases Mazur had evaluated as high-success ones. Strategic
partnerships contributed also to policy success in seven cases out of 13 in “moderate feminist
12
successes” (Mazur 2002, 190). Mazur also pointed out that the lowest success-level policy sector
emerging in her study, that is, reconciliation policy, was marked by the absence of strategic
partnerships.
In addition, Mazur remarked that there appeared feminist partnerships in her data that did not
include all three groups mentioned, but rather merely two, namely, women parliamentarians and
women’s movement activists. She concludes her short but extremely thought-provoking analysis
by pointing out that strategic partnerships must be actively forged by and between feminists. They
do not arise by themselves even if there are high levels of women in political office and strong
women’s movement mobilisation (cf. also Outshoorn 1998).
As with Halsaa, the influential figure of the iron triangle from 1960s American studies of power
(Lowi 1969), was in the background of the concept ‘velvet triangle’ that Alison Woodward (2003,
84, 93, note 2) introduced into the discussion of movement interaction and policy impact in the
context of formulating gender mainstreaming policy in the European Union. However, in the
framework of women’s perceived marginalised position in European policy-making, the image of
the triangle was combined with Ghiloni’s (1988) metaphor of a ‘velvet ghetto’, which, according to
Woodward, referred to “horizontal segregation in business organizations where women are
relegated to the margins, fighting for the spoils among themselves and having little effect on major
policy decisions” (ibid.). The symbolism of a soft fabric also indicated the fact that almost all of the
players in the triage are female in a predominantly male environment, as well as the vagueness
about inputs and loyalties, Woodward (ibid. 84) explains her choice of metaphors.
As with the other concepts, Woodward’s ‘velvet triangle’ also includes three sets of actors, but it
categorises them slightly differently. The actors come from “the organizations of the state, of civil
society and -- universities and consultancies” (Woodward 2003, 84). In the European level, in
practice, the constellation consists of, first, Commission officials, i.e. femocrats (in the widest
sense), and Europarlamentarians with feminist agendas; second, of gender experts in academia or
consultancies; and, third, of the established organized women’s movement. (Ibid. 85.) Here two
categories (civil servants and politicians) are conflated together to make one corner of the (needed?)
triangle, and gender researchers are added to fill up the now empty corner of the figure. Notably, the
6
On various types of femocrats, see e.g. van der Ros 1996.
13
author (ibid. 90) point out that this particular reconfiguration of actors in this particular EU-context
“has included the most established and advanced of feminist actors in Europe” (emphasis added). 7
The idea of ‘velvet triangle’ is theoretically based on literature on patronage, clientelism and
informal governance although Woodward also points out that informal and personalised networks
are just a variety of the more comprehensive concept of policy networks at large (ibid. 77-84).
Within the framework of clientelism, several aspects concerning, on the one hand, policy-making
and women’s position in the European Union policy-making came to the fore to affect the concept
of the velvet triangle. In her chosen framework, Woodward (ibid.) emphasised personal ties,
common biographies and career mobility between both individuals and representatives of
movements and institutions in the area of European gender policy.
The starting-point is the idea that the more resource-poor and marginal a policy area is (such as
gender policy), or the less power resources and positions of influence an interest group (such as
women’s advocates) have, the more they have to resort to personal communication and goodwill or
other informal channels of influence, both between each other and with the hierarchically superior
‘patron’ to make a point or to have their demands taken into account. By contrast to networks
operating in corporatist environments, such co-operative networking is characterised as flat, nonhierarchical and open in character (in the framework of a great power imbalance between the patron
and the client), but also relatively inefficient at times, at least when compared to traditional power
constellations. (Woodward 2003.)
Woodward’s concept brings to the fore several points of difference between the conceptions
discussed above that are worth our attention. Are women’s co-operative alignments basically about
goal attainment or, rather, information of exchange? Are they fundamentally personal and informal
networks comprised of individuals sympathetic with each others’ ideas and values – and what about
Finnish-type institutionalised cross-party co-operation such as the NYTKIS? Is the network stable
or does it change according to issue and context? Maybe most importantly: the idea of a velvet
triangle conceptualises women as a resource-poor and institutionally marginalised group within the
7
Woodward’s terminology has gained followers e.g. in the study of LGB-politics (Dewaele & Motmans 2003;
Godemont & Motmans 2006) in Belgium. Godemont and Motmans (2006) emphasise that the representatives of the
media should be included as the fourth corner of the ‘velvet triangle’ in that arena, making it thus a quadrangle.
14
EU context that the concept was developed for. In the Finnish domestic scene this marginalisation
thesis poses sometimes a few problems.
This short discussion suffices to show that the conceptual understanding of women’s co-operation
mechanisms displays differences in, for example, the number, quality and status of importance
given to the actors involved, the emphasis placed on their feminist nature,
the character and basis of
the activity (institutions/personal relations, traditional coalition-
building/exchange of information, macro/micro-level) and the temporal stability of the cooperation. The women’s movements and women politicians seem to occupy quite a similar role in
the constellations of co-operation, which may suggest either their crucial role more generally, or, a
bias brought by empirical research concentrating on pure women’s NGO (as separated from e.g.
women’s party section) activity. It is the third corner of the constellation that is under debate: does
it consist of civil servants (and how feminist or in what exact position in the public administration
must they be) or gender researchers and gender experts (and whether they are outside helpers or an
integral part of the triangle)
Also, the repetition of the figure of the triangle (and its implicit connection to and drawing of
strength from ideas about ‘iron triangles’) in the conceptualisations is remarkable. The need to
’keep within the triangle’ has probably guided research and thinking too much, since it also has
made necessary to conflate various groups of actors into the same category and led attention away
from the fact that the quality and number of partners may vary considerably. Notably, it is precisely
the latter factor (number of actors) that has been regarded as one of the most crucial ones when
deciding whether a policy network or a policy subsystem should be labelled as a ’iron triangle’ type
network or a less effective, but of a more open and fragmented ’issue network’ variety (see e.g.
Heclo 1978; Jordan & Schubert 1992)
For example, Jordan and Schubert (1992) show in their analysis of policy network labels that there
is a considerable overlap between them. For example, labels such as ‘group subgovernment’,
‘corporate pluralism’, ‘iron triangle’, ‘policy community’ and ‘negotiated economy’ have been
utilised to describe sectoral, stable state/interest group relations with a restricted number of groups
participating in the policy network. The authors argue that three groups of characteristics – number
of actors, nature of activity (sectoral/transsectoral) and stability – are fundamental to discerning
between different types of network. Frans van Waarden (1992) on his part sees three dimensions as
important for distinguishing between various types of networks: the number and type of societal
15
actors involved; the major function of the networks (in an ascending order from channeling access
and exchange of infiormation to co-operation in policy formation); and the balance of power
(whether state agencies or societal organizations are dominant in the relationship).
More usefully, especially the operationalisation of ‘transnational advocacy networks’ by Margaret
E.Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) for the purpose of analysing pressure group activity in
international politics succeeds in avoiding many of the feminist pitfalls discussed above and
answering to the demands of distinguishing between types of networks set by the network analysts
mentioned. The authors define networks as “forms of organization characterized by voluntary,
reciprocal and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange” (ibid. 8). Their characterisation
of advocacy networks reminds at places Heclo’s term ‘issue networks’ (and Woodward’s velvet
triangle) with its emphasis on open and fluid communications and the expertise and commitment of
the individual actors (ibid. 8-9). However, the authors also point out the variety of groups of actors
(ibid. 9) involved in the activities (no triangle there!); types of tactics utilised by the networks
(information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics, accountability politics) and influence
gained (issue creation and agenda setting; discursive impact; influence on institutional procedures;
influence on policy change; and influence on state behaviour) (ibid. 8-32). Writing in the context
of IR theory with h theoretical and empirical aims, Keck and Sikkink succeed avoiding the trap of
debating who exactly are (or should be) the agents of change and what they should be like. Their
concept is much more comprehensive and open-ended as the other concepts discussed above.
Keck and Sikkink’s empirical research very much concentrates on transnational and domestic
NGOs and their influence on international organisations and states. The authors also point out that
transnational networking is more costly and difficult than domestic networking – thus, by inference,
women’s domestic networking and co-operation should, by all means, be both easier and more
effective. However, at least in the Finnish framework of party feminism, it is precisely at the
domestic level that various deep-lying conflict dimensions also become more operational. For
example, in Finland the NYTKIS was originally established in 1988 to aid women’s co-operation in
international, not domestic-level, affairs. The latter has been much more difficult to achieve (cf.
also Lejonqvist-Jurvanen 2004.)
16
Conclusion
In this paper, I have outlined some features concerning women’s co-operation for success in
Finland, as well as explored concepts developed by feminist scholars to conceptualise such
interaction. The latter endeavour showed that the concepts quite often include (partly implicit)
problematic assumptions, that make them difficult if not impossible to apply in the Finnish context
or in light of the RNGS data gathered.
The assumption of the centrality of the autonomous women’s movement or the crucial place of
gender research(ers) in women’s co-operation is quite misfired the context of strong – and even
strengthening since the beginning of the 1990s - party feminism in Finland (Holli & Kantola 2007).
The ‘feminist’ nature of the actors is also at times quite dubious a concept to apply in a society
which has marked itself by supporting ‘gender equality’ as opposed to ‘man-hating feminism’ (see
e.g. Raevaara 2005; Holli 2003; Lempiäinen 2002). The idea of women’s marginalisation or
exclusion from political structures which, for example, the concept ‘velvet triangle’ is based on,
makes it sometimes problematic to fit to the Finnish context where both women and feminists often
occupy prominent places in prominent numbers in formal politics.
This is not to say that we can not find empirically several velvet triangles, strategic partnerships and
feminist advocacy coalitions (not to mention advocacy networks as it is a much more inclusive
concept) in the background of thepolicy successes achieved by Finnish women movements as
testified by the RNGS study on Finland. However, as I have attempted to point out in this paper,
most of the concepts discussed here seem to go a little ‘astray’when applied to the Finnish context.
Moreover, women politicians and women’s cross-party co-operation play a decisive role there.
Strategic partnerships, in their indefiniteness but culturally close enough, still seem a good initial
choice of concept to describe Finnish women’s co-operative structures at a general level. However,
neither it nor the others – except Keck and Sikkink’s term ‘advocacy networks’, - do not
sufficiently catch transformation and change. In Finland there seems to have occurred a more indepth transformation in women’s co-operation mechanisms from more open-ended ‘issue network’
type of activity towards stable institutionalised networks with a more limited groups of participating
actors in the political field , with clear tendencies for representational monopoly and exclusion
mechanisms – that is, the development is going towards more ‘iron triangle’ type networks by
women (see Heclo 1978; Jordan & Schubert 1992; van Waarden 1992).
17
For example, the cross-party co-operative organ NYTKIS does not seek or accept new members. By
contrast, it has several times refused to take on new women’s organisations as members (for
example, in the early 2000s, the association representing immigrant women in Finland). The
ground rule expressed by it is that only new political parties which gain parliamentary
representation in elections can have membership for their women’s party section. The other groups
– women’s professional and other organisations of pure NGO type - should seek representation via
the Central League of Women’s Organisations (NKL) which is a member of the NYTKIS.
Membership in the new formal organisation structure of the NYTKIS includes one equal vote for
each member (although the decisions are principally made by the consensus rule, which is very well
followed) as well as a turn of leadership (if the organisation is willing and has resources for it) in
the annual system of rotation.
Interestingly, the field of gender equality policy - which has been the core area of Finnish women’s
co-operation - has been re-formed and re-organised during the last five years. By contrast to the
1990s, today it has a much strengthened organisational structure as there has been added a
ministerial unit for policy preparation and implementation as well as with a parliamentary standing
committee explicitly in charge of gender equality policy bills in the Parliament. (Holli & Kantola
2007; cf. Heclo 1978.) Simultaneously, the contacts of this field to women’s NGOs (excepting the
NYTKIS) and gender researchers seem to have diminished (Holli & Kantola 2007). The policy
community around gender equality affairs and ‘women’s issues’ has thus been in the process
reforming itself in the model of many other policy subsystems in the Finnish corporatist society and
it has gained more power and influence but also more of the problems experienced by them.
Many of the features mentioned above in connection to Finnish developments remind of classic
power condensation and development towards more closed ‘iron triangle ‘type networks. So yes:
maybe we would need new concepts or subcategories of them in feminist political science to catch
such developments in women’s co-operation - unless we are satisfied with the old concepts of
mainstream political science.
18
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