The Political Styles of Local Anti-Nuclear Waste Movements in Finland

This paper aims to analyse the political styles of local anti-nuclear waste movements in Finland. The main focus is on the tension between the environmental impact assessment process (EIA) and the activity of local opposing groups. According to the EIA Act the purpose of the EIA process is to provide information and opportunities for citizens to participate in planning. It therefore aims to enhance the transparency of the decision-making process. The Finnish nuclear waste company, Posiva Oy, made great efforts locally to create opportunities for participation, but was much criticised by local activists. My questions are the following: How did these local movements participate in Posiva's EIA process? What kind of local differences were there in participating and how can these differences be explained? And finally; what did the EIA process mean to the political styles of movements? EIA meant a temporary change in political style on local level. Firstly; because it brought science into local politics very clearly. Secondly EIA with the Nuclear Energy Act framed decision-making with a timetable, which Posiva emphasised when local groups wanted to make a decision immediately. Thirdly EIA enabled the problem to be defined according to local needs but on the other hand plan level EIA separated nuclear waste issue from the use of nuclear power. Fourthly dialogue in the EIA process favoured rational discourse. Although local views were heard, the process did try to teach the people how to speak with the decision-making system, in the system's language. Thus the purpose of EIA was to make the local discussion controllable. All the local groups, the Romuvaara, Kivetty and Loviisa Movements and the Friends of the Earth in Pori region, took part in EIA dialogue but the reactions were different. The Romuvaara Movement was very active in participating and succeeded in exploiting EIA locally whereas the Loviisa Movement tried to displace the whole process. The Loviisa Movement's style was most clearly effected by EIA. The impact was seen on the topics of its meetings. Groups were extremely sensitive on slights movements of Posiva in the municipalities. Thanks to good local connections and positions in political organs they were quite well aware what was going to happen next. In this sense FoE was a exception because FoE's 'general' style was so different compared to the power orientated groups and it was not attached to local decision makers as were the others. Local groups were sceptical towards the EIA process because of Posiva's central role in implementation. The Romuvaara and Loviisa Movements especially criticized the EIA Act. They demanded a more active controlling role for the authorities. Posiva's attempts to abuse EIA for building local acceptance was all too obvious etc. EIA releases were considered as advertisements. The lack of alternatives was also criticized. EIA offered a new local discussion arena, for it gave a chance to communicate with the Finnish nuclear waste management but it did leave the participants in the role of assistants. EIA did not shake the juristic-bureaucratic style, which was one of the main reasons why local groups were born. The dominant system was challenged by activists' demands for a local referendum, local election campaigns, press releases etc. Local movements had already found better ways than EIA to influence local decision-making. EIA did not remove the movements' need to arrange own action in their own style