A century of partisanship in Finnish political speech

Salla Simola, Jeremias Nieminen and Janne Tukiainen
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Salla Simola: Storytel

No 160, Discussion Papers from Aboa Centre for Economics

Abstract: We use novel data to describe the evolution of party differences in parliamentary speech in Finland during 1907–2018. We find a peak in left-right polarization in the 1970s, driven by the extreme left party, and co-occuring with a high prevalance of Soviet Union related phrases, perhaps resulting from Soviet information influencing. The period was also marked with short-lived coalition governments and inefficient policymaking. Moreover, as we find that left-right partisanship fluctuates during the majority of the 20th century, our results show that the levels of polarization currently perceived as high in many countries may not be that exceptional.

Keywords: text analysis; parliamentary speech; polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 76
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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