Schedule 9th International Degrowth Conference

Climate change and other socioecological disasters threaten the wellbeing of humans and the planet. Root cause for this is economic growth, which has been the hegemonic policy paradigm for decades. Recently there have been proposals for alternative economic models, such as Doughnut Economics or Economy of Wellbeing (EW). The purpose of EW is to place human wellbeing, along with ecological wellbeing, at the center of policy making instead of mere economic growth. Finland, one of the forerunners in climate politics and action, has promoted EW in the European Union and adopted it as one of the main themes of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Our ongoing study sheds light on how Finnish members of the parliament (MPs) see wellbeing at the present and in the near future, and their perceptions of the role of economic growth in relation to wellbeing. The material consists of over 300 speeches held in parliamentary budget hearings in autumn 2022, and besides debate on resources, the speeches contain references to the future and views on what should be done to ensure the wellbeing of Finland and its citizens. The study utilizes qualitative frame analysis. According to our initial analysis, we expect to find out, inter alia, that the Finnish MPs seldom consider ecological wellbeing as a basis of human wellbeing, and economic growth is something to be pursued also in the future.

Info

Day: 2023-08-31
Start time: 17:00
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-8-1
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Degrowth as a political project?

Links:

• iCalendar