SALMINEN, Ari

Decent citizenship, justice and trust as cornerstones of legitimation : tensions between generations in Finland - Los Angeles : IIAS, Sept. 2012

The aim of this article is to analyze ethical issues related to the problem of legitimation. The article discusses the tensions of legitimation in light of three ethical topics: decent citizenship, trust, and justice and equality. Citizens’ assessments of ethics and tensions of legitimation are described and discussed in the context of Finnish society. Special attention is paid to the question of whether generational gaps matter. Are the perceptions of the three different generations (age-groups) distinctive and can these perceptions be explained by the gap between generations? The results of this study show that there are ethical considerations where the generation seems to make a difference. The youth, in particular, differ very significantly in their attitudes and opinions from the other two age-groups. Thus explanations based on the generational factor have proven relatively strong. The differences between the generations were evident in many ethical statements which are presented in more detail in the article. The empirical evidence of the study is based on two large batches of empirical data. Both are surveys implemented in Finland in 2008 and 2009. The first one is a citizen survey of 5000 Finnish citizens. The second survey is a youth survey of 1130 Finnish school students


Legitimação
Ética
Justiça
Igualdade
Cidadania
Finlândia


Finlândia