Cleaning rotten politics,selling exclusive liaisons: Public relations consultants as storytelling professionals between markets and politics

The dark politics of the past

The first cluster of antenarratives legitimises the consultants’ work by situating it within the context of the history of Finland. These antenarratives recollect the old political system with its corporatist forms of political advocacy in bleak terms, suggesting that the consultants belong to a new and better world which is taking its place.

Many consultants suggest that in the past, Finland was run by a small and closed circle of interconnected elites. Thus, when thinking of her work, one consultant contrasts the new democratic development with the past dark times:

We’ve had sauna evenings and hunting clubs, of which I know nothing. That culture still exists, but little by little, the power is transformed into more open forums, and I think that is only a good thing. (H26)

Many antenarratives of the bleak past borrow from the dominant petrified narratives of the past and redefine them to point to the future (Boje et al., 2015; Bülow and Boje, 2015; Connor and Phelan, 2015; Jørgensen and Boje, 2010: 32). When the consultant mentions sauna and hunting, she refers to national narratives where sauna and hunting are symbols of primordial Finnishness, and at the same time evoke the idea of the closed political culture of the 1970s with politicians going to the sauna and hunting together.

Similarly, a consultant describes this political system by comparing the long-standing president Urho Kekkonen to communist Czechoslovakia. By doing this, he links the old Finland with communist counties, which were ruled by a closed party nomenklatura: ‘For a long time, Finland was a country of a closed elite, a Kekkosslovakia, where communication was not needed, as all the decision-makers, the elite, could be thrust in one bus’ (H13).

Another consultant evokes the myth of the Finnish Winter War and the memory of national television channels to demonstrate how Finnish society no longer identifies with Finnishness:

We had one Winter War that everyone remembered, we had one television news program at half past eight every night, two television channels and only one commercial channel (…) And people identified with Finland in a way, and they do not identify anymore. (H22)

The Finnish Winter War, in which the Finns fought successfully against the invading Soviet Union from 1939 to 1940, was a culmination point of Finnish nationalism, resulting in the popular mythology of heroism. The national television network was central to creating this national imagination and sustaining a common national identity from the late 1960s onwards. When recollected now, all this seems to belong to a bygone era and, thus, effectively conveys the idea that society has been fundamentally transformed. The same consultant also redefines the nation state in a negative way. He posits that nation states are ‘machineries of violence’ as they have ‘police and armies in order to keep the populations under control’. However, luckily, ‘the legitimation of these machineries has been thinning out’ (H22).

Why recollect the past in dominantly bleak terms? Obviously, Finland was a different country in the decades after the Second World War, but it was also a democracy, and historical accounts also identify many of its positive aspects, such as the rapid economic development at that time. For the consultants, the overall negative perspective on the past thus seems to be a story, which helps to contextualise the consultant’s current role as a positive one. When the consultants describe the old political system as closed and murky, they also paint its political advocacy darkly. The past is seen as an age of trilateral corporatism where the state, corporatist interest groups, business associations and unions played major roles in political advocacy and lobbying. This paints the picture of an old-fashioned system which no longer has a place in the current world:

The times of the national bargaining circus are over. I mean, when we waited through the night for the results of income policy negotiations, the white smoke from the chimney – it does not matter anymore. That is because of the structural transformations of the economy. One cannot imagine that everyone would get a similar rise in wages in a given year. (H23)

Some describe trilateralism as an economically inefficient and morally corrupt form of political advocacy. Thus, trilateral organisations hindered free and fair competition:

In the closed Finland, various interest organisations were supposed to control the market and keep out all intruders. Everything – princes, wages, logistics and everything else – was fixed. These bargaining organisations existed in order to fix all these. Thus, one did not have to trouble oneself too much with marketing or selling. (H1)

Others see trilateral interest organisations as an inefficient and pricy way of political advocacy. As one consultant suggests, political advocacy was just a costly ‘cash machine’. As advocacy was ‘outsourced’ to corporatism, industries and companies paid dearly for political advocacy as they financed their complex advocacy organisations (H10).

With these bleak antenarratives of the past, the consultants are able to picture themselves in a positive light. As the past system of political advocacy is seen as a time of shadowy political deals, the consultants are able to position themselves as a modern and enlightened alternative to the dark ages left behind:

In Finland, in our traditional model, business leaders and politicians go to sauna together, or whatever old boys’ clubs they are. All of this is changing and it needs to change, as it has been, in a sense, hidden corruption, and now everything is much more open, because we are of course working openly and according to regulations and so forth. This is the modern way of relating company interests to politicians or political decision-makers. (H4)

The consultancies themselves present a new kind of professionalism, which is nonpartisan and no longer takes place through suspicious dealings. One consultant evokes the old Finnish sayings of rulers ‘going berry picking’ when they make tough political deals and reminds the listener of the lucrative and famous Palace restaurant, which since the 1960s has been a site of such negotiations:

There are these societal transformations in the background, and you cannot say that rulers go berry picking anymore. They don’t even have time to go hunting together anymore. There are no long evenings and nights at the Palace anymore. They simply don’t have the time. (…) I think it is a healthy development, that politics has become professionalised. It is not like walking a sheep with a leash, and the local bank feeds you, gets you drunk, you go to the sauna and all of a sudden, things have been settled. This does not work anymore. The world has been scattered. There a vast amount of information available. Now you need people who can pinpoint the essential issue from the flood of contradictory information and serve it to the decision-makers. (H5)

All the consultants project that the future will be brighter as the closed elites give away to the transparency:

I somehow think in a practical way that we will always have this group of buddies who knows one another and will control things. Yet, however, knowledge and openness and the potential for making an impact has increased, which makes it easier to voice one’s concerns, even if one is not part of the old boys’ network. (H8)

Thus, on the whole, the antenarratives of the corrupt past serve the interests of the consultants, who use them to carve themselves a position as fair reformers of the old murky system of political advocacy and to justify their growing role in political advocacy and lobbying. At the same time, the antenarratives are bets for the future that suggest a path forward. While describing the old political system, the elites and the practices of political advocacy as closed and corrupt, the consultants place themselves in the future and justify their own work as part of an ongoing change whereby the world is becoming more open and modern.

The problem: Customers are in need of professional expertise

The second cluster of antenarratives justifies the professional expertise of the consultants. These antenarratives identify the new customer groups and point out how consultants can provide solution for these groups. These antenarratives build on the story of societal change to identify two new major customer groups in need of consulting services as the corporatist system allegedly breaks up: businesses and the old interest groups in need of change. The antenarratives on expertise clearly point out reasons why these two groups are in need of consulting services and describe through smaller narratives how the consultants can be of help.

The most identifiable customer group is of business leaders, who are separate from the political system. As the national bargaining system has weakened, and at the same time, businesses operate in global markets, business leaders have become more distanced from politics. Consultants suggest that the traditional old boys’ networks have been broken down and no longer serve as channels of political advocacy. Instead, business leaders and politicians live in separate spheres. Consultants demonstrate this gap with exemplary antenarratives from their everyday work, pointing out how business leaders have difficulty knowing the names of the ministries or lack an understanding of how the political system works. One of the consultants recalls a phone call from a Minister N.N., whom he knows well:

After he had just got to his post, N.N. called me and said that in the old times, businesses still used to have some kind of idea what to do. Their executives called the Minister and told what was reasonable to do. The contacts took place on the highest level and on a daily basis. Now, the new generation of professional business leaders no longer works like this. (…) Political actors and our business leaders have grown apart. (H20)

He further explains that politicians and business leaders do not mingle with each other, but rather only within their own respective groups. Thus, the dialogue between business and politics has thinned.

Another consultant recalls a story he often tells to make his point on how business leaders do not understand how political decisions are made:

I asked whether he had noticed that the council of state has decided to lower these-and-these payments and taxes? He asked me, ‘How do you know that?’ I answered him, ‘I just looked it up from the website of the Council of State’. He was puzzled and asked, ‘What is a Council of State’. Yes. Don’t laugh. (H1)

Indeed, many of the consultants note that contemporary CEOs no longer mingle with politicians, as business executives are professionals who focus on their companies and spend lots of time outside of Finland. As one consultant describes the new CEOs,

They clearly want more privacy and to spend time with their families. They are also narrow-minded in the way that they have been put to work to increase the company’s value. If they succeed, they get loads of money. If they fail, they are put aside, removed and replaced. They are like mercenaries, or a single issue movement. (H23)

Another consultant describes the mindset of the current top executives, suggesting that he knows their way of life well and, at the same time, that his services can help the executives to reach various political parties:

They (the business executives) don’t necessarily follow homeland media anymore. They don’t know who is who. This is our big delusion – we think that everyone watches A-studio (a national current affairs program in television). Well, they don’t. Really, they don’t (…) They don’t go to lunches and play golf together. The old boys’ networks have collapsed (…) And this is where we can help. We can help our customers to identify the relevant decision-makers and help them by telling them who to contact, when and how, i.e., what kind of message works with Social Democrats and what kind with Conservatives or with government officials. They are, by the way, totally different messages. If you pitch them with a similar angle, honestly, you will be pushing hard with nothing to show for it. (H10)

In this way, the antenarratives that situate the new business elites as knowing nothing about politics and being distant from decision-making demonstrate the need for communication and PR consultants and justify their expertise. With these stories, the consultants suggest that the new business executives are badly in need of knowledge about political advocacy and their best bet is to hire a professional communication or PR consultant.

Besides business leaders, many consultants also address the old interest groups of the corporatist system as potential customers in need of their services. Trade unions, industry associations and other interest groups need to update their practices and strategies. From the consultants’ point of view, they need to employ consultants who bring in fresh ideas, new practices and the latest fashions. One consultant describes his experience with a large national trade union which had been at the core of the corporatist system and needed to rethink its strategies:

They are always invited to policy preparation groups, and they are always present at the bargaining tables as they are well-respected. But otherwise, they have no strategy on policy advocacy, and they want to define strategies (…) All of these organisations are seen as inflexible and too secretive, and the conclusion is that they need to improve their images as dynamic and proactive organisations. (H11)

Another consultant tells an exemplary story of how a consultant helped to transform a business interest group by giving a human face to the organisation. With the aid of consulting professionals, an industry association decided to launch a campaign to promote themselves as ‘family businesses’. The association itself reframed public discussion by highlighting individual entrepreneurs in the media as runners of family businesses. Subsequently, the word family business became an established fact and an image that could be used to lower taxes on the process of succession, as ‘no politician can say anything bad about a family business’ (H1).

Many of these antenarratives show how the consultants themselves are at the frontline of societal development and, accordingly, their expertise is in formulating the future and always thinking ahead. One consultant describes his future-oriented, proactive approach to consulting by using an analogy from ice hockey:

The crucial thing is to be not only active but proactive. If you only follow and comment, you are always late. If you want to build up thought leadership, you have to see that you become a though leader, not just a thought defender, right? Thought forward, not thought defender, in hockey terms. You are in the front line, opening your mouth first and opening the game. (H9)

The consultant’s solution: Personal contacts

Third, many consultants tell antenarratives about their own personal contacts to justify their expertise. These antenarratives are used most often by those consultants who have come to the profession more recently from politics or journalism, and their personal liaisons have become part of the services they sell. Recently, many Finnish communication and PR consultancies have actively hired former politicians or political advisors who have links to different parts of the party spectrum. Thus, they might hire consultants with backgrounds in the Greens, Conservatives or the Social Democrats. These consultancies clearly want to establish themselves credible professionals in the field of political advocacy and point out how useful their contacts are for their customers. One consultant who has worked as a high-level policy advisor describes his market niche by summing up his experience in pitching political messages:

As the old boys’ networks have collapsed, we can help. We can help our customers to recognise the relevant decision-makers and help to get to know them by telling them who to contact and how. What kind of message works for social democrats, for the Conservative Party or for various government officials? They are, by the way, all different messages. If you have the same pitch for all of them, honestly, you will go nowhere. (H10)

Many consultants point out that governmental decision-making has become more versatile and fluid. The state committee system has been abolished in practice and replaced by a variety of more flexible forms of consultation. This change has resulted in the need for lobbying because the committee system can no longer communicate interests to officials and politicians. Often, one needs to know just the right names and understand the power dynamics within the relevant policy field. Thus, at this point, consultants are able to sell their knowledge about who is who. As another former policy advisor recollects a story from his work,

I had to write down for one customer all the people that matter in energy policies and someone asked me how many days I needed. I said, ‘Give me two hours’. In two hours, I went through 70 names and identified the most important players. It did not require that much, just jotting down what I already knew. (H20)

Another consultant sees personal relations with politicians and decision-makers as crucial and suggests that their cultivation is the most important thing:

Well, personal relations are the most important thing (…) I believe that the number one thing is to enhance personal relations and to somehow create them before your issues are at stake or on the table. They help so that your voice will be heard at the point when decisions are being made. (H26)

A similar logic applies to former journalists who have become communication and PR consultants. The media has distanced itself from the political and economic elites and, at the same time, has become more aggressive. One interviewee recollects that his experience as a journalist is crucial in his consulting. While he cannot tell the media what to do, he knows how the media works and can contact the right people. Specifically, he states,

I personally know a large number of Finnish decision-makers in the media. They have been my colleagues, worked for me or been my superiors. This means that our customers can use these relations and I can, if needed and in different situations, have conversations with them. So I sort of borrow my networks for the benefit of my clients. (H25)

Thus, on the whole, this cluster of antenarratives justifies professional expertise and know-how in the political field, and the antenarratives on having the right connections serve to establish the consultants in the field of political advocacy and media influence.

Consultants as advocates of democracy and transparency

Finally, the fourth cluster of antenarratives focuses on consultants’ professional ethics. The consultants justify the high morality of their work with antenarratives which invent new, positive ways of describing their work. Many of the consultants do not like to be called lobbyists. Instead, they prefer to use the English word public affairs or the Finnish word vaikuttajaviestintä, which literally means ‘decision-maker communication’. Both sound more neutral and respectable than the somewhat tarnished image of lobbying (Davidson, 2015: 617).

Many consultants also link their work as lobbyists with other, more favourable realms of life, suggesting that lobbying is similar to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), municipalities or dating agencies. As one consultant describes his company,

Let’s say that I am a sort of dating agency, we bring together like-minded people (…) Well, sometimes, of course, one also needs to meet people who are not like-minded to try to find a common ground and argue against wrong information or a different kind of values and world view (…) So let’s say I’m a designer and an analyst. (H5)

Another consultant borrows from the rhetoric of democracy and citizenship and situates business corporations accordingly. She denies any problems with consultant lobbying, as consultancies actually advance and enhance democracy. She lumps citizenship and NGOs with such businesses and builds a storyline in which the corporations are similar to other citizens and NGOs and, as such, deserve to be heard. Thus, the consultants only advance democracy, as they make sure that ‘our businesses citizens and NGO citizens have louder voices which are heard more effectively’ (H26).

Many consultants also redefine lobbying more broadly to include all kinds of political advocacy. They suggest that a range of more ‘innocent’ organisations with a favourable reputation are actually the major lobbyists. One consultant identifies ministries and politicians themselves as the primary lobbyists, describing a previous Minister of Traffic from the leftist party who acted as a major lobbyist for the construction industries:

Ministries are actually the toughest lobbyists. The biggest lobbying process in this country is the yearly budget meeting, where ministries lobby the Treasury (…) Ministries are the greatest lobbyists. Think of Merja Kyllönen as the Minister of Traffic. You can image the passionate interests that are linked with road and railway construction. She is the number one lobbyist in relation to Jutta Urpilainen (the Minister of Finances) and Jyrki Katainen (the Prime Minister). She lobbies massively to maximise public funding for construction firms. (H10)

Another consultant lists municipalities as main lobbyists, who sit in the lobby of the Treasury as ‘fur hat delegations’, lending a term normally in Finland for any kind of citizen delegation that makes a political plea with policy makers. Moreover, she mentions sports clubs:

And sports clubs are lobbying! Goddammit – Finnish sports clubs! They are the crème-de-la-crème of lobbying. And they succeed better than anyone else. Forget all the big campaigns for nuclear power when you think about who has really succeeded in communicating their views to decision-makers. There is no one who has bypassed sports organisations (…) Public funding for sports and top sports has grown faster and with a steeper curve than the state budget. (H5)

In addition, the old corporatist interest organisations, as well as environmental and human rights NGOs, were mentioned several times as lobbyists.

Greenpeace, WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and the Finnish Nature League – their task is to impact public opinion, political decisions and the decisions of government officials. All of these organisations – they are the real ones, full-time lobbyists. This point has been forgotten in the public discussions. (H15)

Moreover, many consultants claim to favour openness and transparency in lobbying. They note that it is in their interest for everything to be as open and transparent as possible. Many of them suggest that they were ready to open up the lobbying of the political process. Some also say that politics was already open to everyone. One former policy advisor suggests that secret information in the government does not really exist and that government openness is already ideal:

As a matter of fact, we are a shockingly open society. With a little trouble, you will get almost all the information in this country. Some details will be left out, of course, but still, you will be able to get pretty far. (H10)

Many consultants also point out that they work for law-abiding organisations that do not do anything illegal and follow statutes to the letter. Yet, at the same time, they are often critical of any official control or law-making that would make political advocacy more transparent. As one consultant suggests, the discussion on transparency is trendy and, as such, he fears that people would get self-important if they were registered as lobbyists:

Of course, it would be trendy and stylish to say that I would like to see everyone registering and telling openly whose cause they are advancing. There would be a list of lobbyists and name card on the chest, with which you can only enter the Parliament, and then you would have your customers filed, whether it’s the breweries, pharmacist association, the construction industry or SAK (The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions). I can that it would be justified in Brussels and at the EU-level. But I think it would be somewhat exaggerated here in Finland (…) If we get tightly regulated, people will get self-important, thinking that now have a really important thing here, as it is regulated. (H9)

Another consultant draws a picture of the Prime Minister sitting alone in his office without contact with the outside world:

I think it is only fair that the decision-maker has the opportunity to hear the different views and facts to support decision-making. It would be horrid if they had something like a concierge, and the Prime Minister or a high government official sits alone in his room with a little mailbox. I don’t think would serve the society (laughs). (H13)

Some also provide the example of stricter regulation in the United States but suggest that Finland is a different case:

The practice in the US is really strict. All meetings with the senators and others need to registered (…) True, it is a way of protecting democracy if there are big interests who can affect the system with means that other don’t have at their disposal (…) But I don’t think that we need that in Finland (…) I have not noticed any twisted practices. (H14)

Similarly, another consultant suggests that in Finland, everyone has similar means. NGOs and even individuals can set up social media campaigns. He then suggests that there is a clear difference between small Finland and the outer world:

I would not see this (lobbying) as a dangerous or negative thing – instead, I would trust that anyone could do it, and it does not depend on money. But then, at the other extreme, let’s say in Brussels, in Europe, it is a little different. The largest companies in the world, the billions they use (…) that makes you think. (H16)

All in all, the fourth antenarrative cluster demonstrates that lobbying as such is not an immoral undertaking. Consultants use little antenarratives which extend the meaning of the word lobbying by comparing it to NGOs or redefining lobbying more positively as a democratic undertaking which is open, transparent and law abiding. At the same time, however, they point out that there is no need to create laws and regulations which would increase its transparency or to control lobbying in any ways.