Risk perceptions across the current political spectrum in Finland: a study of party members

Political party member perceptions of risk continue to attract a great deal of attention in current public discourse and media coverage, yet little research exists in terms of a comparative analysis of Finnish political parties’ views on the issue. Party members are in many ways a highly significant social group, one that exercises a great deal of decision-making power in modern civil societies. This article provides a novel and up-to-date look into the key areas of perceived risk held by the members of Finland’s political parties, in addition to a comparison of inter-party differences and similarities. The analysis is based on a unique survey data-set of the members of Finland’s six major political parties (N = 12,427). Included are the Finns Party, Centre Party, Left Alliance, Social Democratic Party, Green League and National Coalition Party. Together, these represent the political spectrum in Finland. Risk factors included primary categories dealing with various national, institutional, cultural and economic issues. Also included in the analysis was a look into whether length of party membership affects risk concern for the included issues. Findings showed that national and external risks were more of a concern for the Finns Party, while the Left and the Social Democrats considered economic issues a greater risk than did others. Furthermore, economic risk was most concerning to the left while external risks were generally viewed in line with the current centre-right administration. Some notable differences between old and new party members were also found. Findings emphasize the importance of understanding how political party members differ in their views of various societal risks while providing new points of comparison between those parties toward improved clarity of the national political landscape.     

What are wilderness areas for? Tourism and political ecologies of wilderness uses and management in the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT

In global imaginaries, wilderness areas are considered to represent the last parts of “original” nature, untouched by civilization and modernization. In most cases, this is misleading as wilderness environments have been exploited, explored and also converted into administrative units in various protected area networks. Indeed, most wilderness areas have been a part of human–environment interactions for a long time and they have been influenced and modified in that interaction. As a result, wilderness is constitutively a cultural and politically loaded idea. While the Western notion of wilderness as a place where “man himself is a visitor who doesn't remain” represents the global hegemonic conservation thinking, it does not necessarily work with different local realities, meanings and use values of “the wild”. In addition, in recent decades, the tourism industry has placed an increasing interest on nature-based and adventure tourism products creating new kinds of ideas and use needs for the remaining wilderness environments. This paper analyzes empirically how wilderness environments and their roles are seen in the context of new and traditional anthropogenic uses and meanings of wilderness areas. More specifically, the paper uses a political ecology approach to evaluate the use and management priorities in the Finnish Wilderness system.     

Intrapersonal Emotional Responses to the Inquiry and Advocacy Modes of Interaction: A Psychophysiological Study

In negotiations and group decision making we can use two characteristically different interaction modes: inquiry and advocacy. Inquiry refers to an interested and explorative interaction mode, and advocacy to an assertive and narrow mode. Although these modes have been studied in organizational behavior literature, the intrapersonal emotional responses to the inquiry and advocacy modes remain yet unexplored. We explored intrapersonal emotions by facial electromyography and skin conductance responses and by emotional empathy self-reports. The subjects were prompted to adopt the two modes in hypothetical encounters with another person. We found that Duchenne smiles were specific to the inquiry mode, that emotional arousal showed specificity to the expressions, and that emotional empathy predicts expressiveness in the inquiry treatment. We discuss the implications of these results to the use of the interaction modes and the related possibilities of influencing group interaction by influencing one’s own internal emotional state in group decisions.     

Integrating tourism to rural development and planning in the developing world

In the past few decades, rural areas have experienced major socioeconomic changes. Due to modernisation and deepening globalisation, the economic and employment potential of many traditional livelihoods has decreased. Currently tourism is increasingly seen as a relevant tool for addressing rural problems in developing countries and tourism is actively used for economic diversification and opening up new ways to generate income and employment. However, many development models, such as integrated rural tourism (IRT) with emphasis on co-planning, learning and participation, originate from the Global North. This calls for careful considerations when such models are applied to the Global South's rural contexts. This research note discusses some of the key challenges of rural tourism development, especially related to the integration of the tourism industry and rural communities in developing countries, and overviews the applicability and conditions of the IRT framework as a potential approach for rural tourism development in the developing world.     

Conflicting limits to growth in sustainable tourism

Sustainability has emerged as an important field of research with an emphasis on studying tourism impacts and defining the limits of growth in tourism. However, the conceptual foundation of sustainability and the limits to growth have been perceived as vague and their implementation in tourism operations has emerged as a difficult task. This research note aims to present two different perspectives on sustainability by utilizing an experimental pilot example (yellow-eyed penguins) to demonstrate how different theoretical conceptualizations are manifested in nature-based tourism operations.     

Policy-makers’ perceptions of the tourism–climate change nexus: Policy needs and constraints in Botswana

Tourism is a key sector for most southern African economies endowed with unique natural capital, and the industry is increasingly being used for socio-economic development and diversification of national economies in the region. However, it has become clearly evident that the natural capital upon which the sector depends is highly vulnerable to climate change. This has created urgent governmental needs to take action through policy formulation and implementation. The paper uses in-depth interviews to determine Botswana policy-makers’ perceptions of climate change and tourism with the aim of determining policy needs and constraints. The results reveal that the policy-makers do see climate change as a concern requiring urgent establishment of relevant policy. However, they foresee inadequate information as well as uncertainties surrounding the impacts of climate change on the natural capital. This may hamper the formulation and effective implementation of such a policy.