The study presents an analysis of the role of science and technological (S and T) policies in natural resource-based economies, focusing on the cases of Chile and Finland. The exploitation of natural resources has been identified by several authors as a limited-long-term factor that affects economic growth. Finland following a technology-intensive path has combined natural resource abundance (NRA) with high growth rates. On the other hand, Chile whose economy depends mainly on NRA industries such as mining and forestry has not attained the Finnish economic level in spite of the successful reforms undertaken during the last two decades. Using analytical tools I define the S and T contribution to national income per capita over the 1981-2000 period, and analyze the complementarity of the relationship between S and T expenditures and NRA in both countries. I explain the diverging S and T performances in lights of three factors: institutions, education, and decentralization

The Finnish electoral system was introduced in 1906 and elections were held the following year. Since 1906, all women and men have been eligible to vote and to be nominated in elections. The age of eligibility has been successively lowered from 24 in 1906 to 21 in 1944, to 20 in 1969 and to 18 in 1972. The Finnish parliament (Eduskunta) consists of 200 MPs elected from 15 districts. Except the Åland Island district elects a single member, the other 14 districts are all multi-member (the district magnitude is determined by the population size). Basically, the Finnish electoral system is a list system of proportional representation with multi-member constituencies. The allocation of seats to parties (including party alliance) is following the d'Hondt method. The Finnish electoral system has undergone some transformations since it was originally introduced in 1906. As it works today, general elections are held every four years (there is a provision for premature dissolutions of parliament¡Va presidential prerogative). There is no predetermined order of the candidates within each list. The names of the candidates are normally printed on large sheets of paper, where each candidate has a number, and the names may be organized within each list for example in alphabetical order. The ballot paper is a small slip of paper, where the voter has to write the number of the candidate for whom he or she is voting. The individual votes thus received by different candidates within each list (normally each list corresponds to one party or a coalition of several smaller parties) will determine their final order. In other words, the voter has the duty to vote for a single candidate, and the electoral campaign is very much oriented accordingly, as a competition between individuals, although the voters presumably are also aware of the party affiliation of the candidates and of the fact that their votes will benefit not only the individual candidate but also the party in question. When the votes have been counted and the order of the candidates within each list thus has been established, the final allocation of seats to the lists is carried out by the election board on the basis of comparison numbers, using the d'Hondt method. At the allocation stage, the individual votes of candidates are no longer relevant, as the order has already been established, and the lists compete with each other on the basis of the total votes received for each list. Therefore, the election is not exclusively a competition between parties; it is also a competition between single candidates on the party list. Because of the deadlock at present on Taiwan's electoral reformation, I personally think that Finland's electoral system will probably be a good solution to the problems of electoral system in Taiwan, and should be included in the discussion of improving our electoral system. Hence, I recommend that Finland's model will probably be suitable to Taiwan and deserve more attention in the current discussion on Taiwan's electoral reformation.

Dissertation.

Anti-oppressive practice is a commonly accepted concept in social work education that concentrates on alleviating oppression and advancing social justice. The goal of this research is to highlight the social work students’ perspectives on anti-oppressive practice and to uncover their experiences of anti-oppressive practice in the field and classroom. A comparative case study based on photovoice was conducted with social work students from Canada and Finland. Qualitative interviews were carried out with research participants in conjunction with the photovoice discussion. Research findings indicate that most social work students who participated in this study have a positive view of anti-oppressive practice. The majority of participants position themselves as anti-oppressive social work practitioners, however, some perceive the anti-oppressive practice as purely theoretical, as opposed to be a part of practical social work. Differences that were found between student responses in samples from Finland and Canada are discussed. / February 2016

This paper attempts to study the Swedish tariffs during the interwar period in order to asses the level of protectionism in Swedish tariff policy during the period. It is foremost the nominal tariffs that are studied, however an estimate of the effective rate of protection of the tariffs is also calculated for a number of goods. In order to asses the level of protectionism, the Swedish tariffs are also compared with Finnish tariff levels during the interwar period. The sample of Swedish tariffs that have been studied in this paper include the fifteen most important kinds of import goods and the fifteen most important kinds of export goods. The nominal tariff of each kind of goods have been weighted by their share of the total import value. The Swedish specific tariffs did not change much during the interwar period except for a few goods such as petroleum, coffee and automobiles. The fluctuation in nominal tariffs were in most cases the result of the steep fall in prices during the period. Compared to the Finnish tariffs, the Swedish tariffs seem to have been generally lower, especially in agricultural goods in which the Swedish tariffs are surprisingly immobile during the period. This paper finds that the Swedish tariff policy during the interwar period were inactive and relatively free-market oriented.

Detta examensarbete undersöker möjligheter att bjuda in vuxna elever att medverka mera i skolans kvalitetsarbete. Många vuxna som utbildar sig mot ett yrke har lång och värdefull livs och yrkeserfarenhet som borde tas tillvara. Det har varit mycket diskussioner genom tiderna om elevinflytande och medverkan men är detta är något som passar extra bra för vuxna. Jag har med en enkät mätt hur eleverna upplever förutsättningar för medverkande i lärandet. Enkäten ger några svar på hur elever från tre nordiska länder upplever lärandet i olika arbete- och undervisningsformer. Det finns några nyckelpunkter i verksamheten där både elevinflytande och lärandet står i fokus, frågor som ställs är: Hur kan elever vara med att bestämma och utforma innehåll i olika kurser med tonvikt på inlärningsmetoder och arbetsformer och hur är verkligheten i dag i den skolan där jag arbetar. Resultaten visar att eleverna är positivt inställda till att vara med att utforma sin egen inlärning och att många använder denna möjlighet i viss mån. Jag menar att det är fullt möjligt att inludera alla, även de som inte känner så stort deltagande i dag men da är det viktigt att lärarna är med och vägledar och tar det slutliga ansvaret.

Issues of pension viability are at the forefront of gerontological debate. The uncertainty of long-term effects of the societal aging process on public pensions and the constant public policy struggle to maintain income levels among pensioners are critical points of discussion. As existing pension policies are examined and amended, policymakers increasingly rely on experts of pension research and income inequality for policy frameworks. Gosta Esping-Andersen's (1990) Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism has provided the seminal typology for nearly two decades. His typology consists of three regimes: liberal, conservative, and social-democratic. The purpose of this research was to examine and compare the outcomes of historical pension policy in a social-democratic nation (Finland) with pension-receiving cohorts in a comparison nation of each regime: liberal (the United States), conservative (Germany), and social-democratic (Sweden). Specific aims were: to investigate the continuing viability of Esping-Andersen's typology at a national (macro) level; to explore a new analytical approach by disaggregating the population and conducting micro analyses; and to examine the value of using more sensitive inequality indices (Atkinson and Theil) in lieu of the commonly used Gini Index. Finland provides a case study focus of the comparative analysis. Analysis of Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data confirms that Esping-Andersen's typology remains viable at the macro level for the liberal United States. However, conservative Germany and social-democratic Sweden and Finland may be shifting their respective classifications with possible convergence of the conservative and social-democratic regimes info a European regime.

The main purpose of this study is to examine celebrity candidates in the European Parliament election in Sweden and Finland. The theoretical background assumes that candidate voting is beneficial in the election to the European Parliament. Previous research also shows that there are some opponents towards candidate voting, claiming it personalizes politics and it might lead to celebrities getting elected simply because they are well known to the voters. This study is a comparative analysis and analyzes the differences between Sweden and Finland when it comes to celebrity candidates. Furthermore, Max Weber’s theory on leadership will be used to categorize the celebrity candidates further. Weber’s ”rational leader” and ”charismatic leader” can today be referred to as the competent politician and the celebrity. The identified celebrity candidates in Sweden and Finland will thus be categorized as whether they are also competent politicians. The result of the analysis shows that celebrity candidates are fairly common in Finland but barely exists in Sweden. However, not many of these candidates actually get elected; only one celebrity candidate from Sweden and four from Finland. All but one is considered to be both charismatic and competent. The conclusion is that celebrity candidates do not get elected based only on them being a celebrity. They also have to be considered competent leaders. However, being a charismatic and personal candidate is getting more and more important as politics are becoming more personalized, but simply being a celebrity will not get you a seat in the European Parliament.

A decision has been made that the Swedish and the Finnish Navy will expand their cooperation by creating the “Swedish-Finnish Naval Task Group” (SFNTG). Based on Michael Codner’s theory of interoperability, this essay’s aim is to investigate if the Swedish and the Finnish currently are interoperable with each other, due to their military strategic concepts. According to Codner, similarities between the cooperating nation’s military strategic concepts are required in order to reach a high degree of interoperability. This essay will analyze and compare Sweden and Finland’s military strategic concepts, based on three categories; Global Projection, Territorial Defence and Combat Capability. The conclusion is that there are differences between the Swedish and the Finnish military strategic concepts in every category, of varying degrees. By looking at the results of this investigation, it is clear in what direction the two nations have to adapt their concepts to enable a high degree of interoperability for the future of the SFNTG.

This descriptive study focuses on analyzing the factors influencing public debate on intensified Finnish-Swedish defence cooperation, using qualitative abductive content analysis (a combination of Grounded theory analysis and text/content analysis) as the research method. The study was conducted using a model adapted from Tomas Valasek’s hypothesis on pooling and sharing (Surviving Austerity - The case for a new approach to EU military collaboration, 2011), inducted from a corpus collected from Finnish and Swedish public defence debates from 1.1.2013 to 31.3.2014. The main research question is: what are the driving forces influencing debate on intensified bilateral Finnish-Swedish defence. Secondary research questions were developed from the corpus in four categories: historical, political/military, economic and attitudinal factors. Using these as the analysis model, the corpus was deductively analyzed to increase understanding of the individual factors and to find driving forces. The main result of this study is that the existence or lack of trust is seen as a key driving force influencing debate, either furthering or hindering cooperation. Other driving forces seen as influencing debate are the existence or lack of: understanding of the historical background of cooperation from both countries’ point of view commitment and clarity of political/military goals political commitment to the political/military purposes of cooperation instead of domestic economic gain a legally binding framework for cooperation.