Anxious politicians: Productivity imperatives in the Finnish Parliament

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper offers new perspectives on work cultures in politics by exploring the ambivalent connections among productivity imperatives and affirmative sociality within an under-researched group: Finnish members of Parliament (MPs). The study aim is to locate the MPs within the landscape of cultural sociology and theory, particularly in relation to the growing interest in the affective infrastructures of on-call work cultures. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews conducted in the Parliament House during the winter of 2018-2019, this paper contributes to the debate on the growing anxieties and pressures among the demographic group of elite professionals by analysing the Finnish MPs’ daily routines and structures of feelings. This research marks a timely attempt to illustrate that affects and productivity imperatives are not external to, but are deeply embedded in, political work.