Energy policy making is commonly seen as a sector dominated more by experts and technocrats than politicians. Regulation of Finnish energy policy, which was traditionally characterized by state-centeredness and detailed governmental control, was step by step annulled in the mid-1980s on, and a deregulation policy was introduced. The return of regulation can be timed to in the beginning of the twenty-first century, being the result of the global debate and measures dealing with climate change. The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which the changes of operational environment have transformed the power structure of Finnish energy policy making and whether the key actors constitute a coherent energy elite in terms of attitudinal unanimity and interaction networks. Methodologically the study was based on three sets of elite interview data collected in 1987, 1997, and 2009 and a postal survey conducted among the citizenry in 2007. The major finding was that despite fundamental changes in the operational environment the power structure of the energy sector policy making has been fairly stable from 1987 to 2009 and the old cohesive energy elite is still in power. Copyright 2010 by The Policy Studies Organization.

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Th e article compares the Nordic, i.e., Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish, elite structures based on power studies which were completed in these countries in the 2000s. Despite differences in data collection methods, all of these studies employ the positional approach, and the composition of national elites is defined identically. Moreover, the four Nordic countries are associated with largely common history and political culture. Th e Nordic elites will be compared on the grounds of three dimensions, i.e. openness of recruitment into the elites, interaction between various elite groups, and interaction between the elites and the people. We will ask in what way the Nordic elite structures have changed as far as these dimensions are concerned and how many elites exist in the Nordic countries, i.e., one power elite or several mutually competitive elites.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how certain important changes in Finnish society in the 1990s altered the national elite structures and affected democracy. We examine how the patterns of recruitment, interaction and cohesiveness among the elites changed in the period 1991–2001. The data for the study were drawn mainly from postal surveys conducted among the elites and a sample of the population in 1991 and 2001. The first research task was to establish how recruitment to various elites has altered in terms of social stratification and education. The second was to analyse changes in patterns of interaction between various elites as far as physical contacts and attitudes were concerned. The third was to study the relationship between the elites and the general population on the basis of attitudinal affinity. The conclusions were based on theoretical models characterising various elite structures and their interconnections with democracy. The concept of a responsive elite is developed on the grounds of the theory of democratic elitism. The changes in the Finnish elite structure have meant a passage towards an inclusive structure compatible with democracy rather than towards an exclusive elite configuration. Finnish elites have become more open and more diverse.