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The Emergence of a “War” on Economic Crime: The Case of Finland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Anne Alvesalo  and
Steve Tombs
Anne Alvesalo*
Affiliation:
Police College of Finland
Steve Tombs*
Affiliation:
Center for Criminal Justice, Liverpool John Moores University
*
Police College of Finland, Miestentie 2-PL13, FIN-02151 Espoo, Finland. Email: anne.alvesalo@pakk.polisi.fi.
Liverpool John Moores University, Center for Criminal Justice, Josephine Butler House, 1 Myrtle Street, Liverpool L74 DN, United Kingdom. Email: s.p.tombs1@livjm.ac.uk.
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Abstract

In 1996, the Finnish government initiated an Action Plan aimed at the more effective control of economic crime and the grey economy, involving wide-scale reform in legislation, regulatory agencies, enforcement practice, and research activities. The emergence of this Action Plan forms the empirical focus of this article, which addresses two specific research questions. First, what were the economic, social and political factors that produced this Action Plan? Second, how can this initiative contribute to a critical assessment of the claims of “globalization discourses,” which seem to render such an idiosyncratic nation-state development as unlikely? The article critically examines some of the elements of globalization discourses with particular respect to the implications for the nature of contemporary states and the possibilities for the more effective regulation of corporate activity. It then outlines the processes and events that allowed the Finnish Action Plan to emerge. Finally, it asks what lessons are to be learnt from the Finnish case, before identifying some further lines of enquiry to be pursued. This Finnish initiative seems to represent one important instance of the extent to which states can develop relatively autonomous economic and social policy, even where this appears to be detrimental to the interests of “capital.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , November 2001 , pp. 239 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2001 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

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Footnotes

1. We would like to acknowledge the support for this research provided by the Finnish Ministry of Interior, the Police College of Finland and the Centre for Criminal Justice, Liverpool John Moores University. Particular thanks are due to Teuvo Arolainen, Sari Heiskanen, Anne Jokinen, Timo Korander, Joonas Naava, Frank Pearce, Joe Sim, and to Dave Whyte, as well as to Cédric Dupont and three anonymous reviewers, who have all provided advice, assistance or comments in the course of our writing this article. We remain, of course, responsible for errors and omissions herein.

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