In Finnish health care and social welfare legislation, a shift towards strengthening the individual’s right to participate has been significant during the past two decades. While the traditional presumption of citizen involvement and developing of deliberative democracy lies on normality and social activism, it is becomingapparent that the substantial amount or Finnish social and healthcare expenditure is used by one tenth of citizens who do not fit into this category and can be considered as large-scale consumers of the services. We refer to this group, identified by high service consumption and low participation, as the absent minority. In this paper, we illuminate the legislative and participative possibilities of involving and acknowledging this group in communal welfare service development.
Legal coherence and predictable decision-making are the cornerstones of Finnish administrative law. The aim of this research is to analyze the factors that make administrative decisions unpredictable in Finland today. Why is the challenge so significant for the authorities?
The factor analysis revealed six main features affecting predictability in the legal regulation of Finnish public governance: the increasing use of soft law, the devolution of government, deregulation, the changing role of the individual, the blurring of the division between the public and the private sector and the influence of international and EU-law.
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