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Notes -
FINNISH MP LEFT OR RIGHT QUIZ - PART 2 AND FURTHER ANALYSIS
(Previous results/analysis post here)
The second part of my quiz for trying to guess whether Finnish MPs are left- or right-wing based on pictures got 70 answers, less than the first one (very expected) but still enough to get some more statistics. This time the average number of correct answers was 11.62 / 20, slightly better than previously but still essentially not that different from random chance.
List of MPs based on how many got them correct (ie. guessed correctly that left-wing MPs are leftwing and contrariwise)
LEFT MPs
99 %: Satu Hassi (Greens)
83 %: Eveliina Heinäluoma (Social Democrats)
81 %: Mirka Soinikoski (Greens)
70 %: Eeva-Johanna Eloranta (Social Democrats)
47 %: Tuula Väätäinen (Social Democrats)
43 %: Jari Myllykoski (Left Alliance)
29 %: Johannes Koskinen (Social Democrats)
Right MPs:
73 %: Veikko Vallin (The Finns)
73 %: Markus Lohi (Centre)
73 %: Kalle Jokinen (National Coalition)
71 %: Tuomas Kettunen (Centre)
61 %: Sari Multala (National Coalition)
61 %: Mika Lintilä (Centre)
57 %: Paula Risikko (National Coalition)
54 %: Terhi Koulumies (National Coalition)
53 %: Marko Kilpi (National Coalition)
54 %: Pekka Aittakumpu (Centre)
41 %: Jaana Pelkonen (National Coalition)
21 %: Sari Essayah (Christian Democrats)
17 %: Ruut Sjöblom (National Coalition)
General comments:
Physiognomy isn't really scoring points, as a theory. There are certainly indicators in dressing styles etc. (ie. red glasses and huge jewelry signifies left-wing allegiances, clean conservative dressing implies the right camp) that allow people to assign people to left/right camps, even across a modest cultural barrier, and some people were indeed succesful using those indicators, but faces alone don't seem to suffice for this purpose. Like someone said, when people talk about physiognomy, it probably usually just means "I can pick my political opponents from my political supporters because my opponents are ugly and my supporters are not).
The trend of people generally getting left-wing women and right-wing men correct continues. There's probably a strong association, particularly, with young women being left-wing and older men being right-wing, and indeed similar there is currently a developing tendency in Finland for this direction - but the traditional left parties (Left Alliance, Social Democrats) continue have a large amount of traditional working-class older male politicians still drawing a lot of votes, while the National Coalition has made a huge (and succesful) effort to draw in young women and offer them important roles in the party.
The American association of right with red tribe and left with blue tribe also creates a certain difference to Finland, where there are still significant (though contracting) pockets of rural left-wing support and, contrariwise, a right-wing party (National Coalition) that is both urban and urbane, getting some of their largest support from the capital region of Finland and also having worked hard to create an image of a right-wing party than educated, cultured urbanites can very well support, at least if they are wealthy enough.
This might be one of the things where MPs are less-than-optimal for making such guesses, as political parties will know their "type" and also know they have to sometimes actively work to privilege potential applicants outside of this type to expand their appeal. On the other hand, I'm not sure there are optimal constituencies for an experiment like this.
Cultural signifiers continue to play a role. For instance, while one might argue about the definitions of left and right here - many of the right-camp MPs here would probably be the sort of social liberal pro-market types who would make absolutely no bones about that in US they'd be Democrats - there are also some strong social conservatives here that were difficult for many. Sari Essayah represents Christian Democrats, probably the only party in Finland that really represents Christian conservatism (The Finns also sort of do but mostly concentrate on anti-immigration, anti-EU and anti-environmentalist agendas) and which still campaigns against permissive abortion laws or same-sex marriage.
Pekka Aittakumpu, who was put on the right by 54 %, is also a Christian conservative, one of the few ones in parties outside of Christian Democrats or The Finns. So many people putting Aittakumpu on the left was a surprise to me, he's a conservative Lutheran pastor from Northern Finland and to me he also very much looks like one.
If one wants to run such an experiment in the future, it might be interesting to use American state-level politicians - I would not expect Americans to know state-level politicians from outside their state, or inside their state, as well. And could Europeans pick Democrats from Republicans by face alone? Of course there would be the factor that most ethnic minority politicians would be Democrats, but it would also be interesting if there are different looks between, for instance, Democratic and Republican Hispanic pols.
That reminds me of a question I wanted to ask an actual Finn: as I understand it, Finnish abortion law requires (or required until recently?) medical justification for abortion. Was this strictly applied, or were medical justification given as a matter of course, or somewhere in between? Or am I completely misunderstanding Finnish abortion law?
From what I've heard, it was basically a formality and given as a matter of course. The main sticking point to pro-choicers (maybe a slightly odd term, as there's not a "separate" pro-choice movement here - the campaigning on this is done by feminist movements in general, and the clear majority of the society shares the pro-choice view anyway) was that abortion required approval (again, usually given as a matter of course) by two separate doctors.
The Finnish parliament just recently liberalized this law, moving to a general European practice of abortion on request before 12 weeks (and removing the two-doctor requirement). This was actually not a major culture war in Finland and, outside of people specifically interested in this issue politically, probably passed with little notice.
Some feminists tried to get a little bit of a thing going to present this as a response to the fall of Roe v Wade, if I remember correctly, though the citizens initiative had started collecting signatures a good while before last summer. This is actually probably pretty typical of European political efforts that are sometimes seen by Americans as overt European reactions to American internal affairs, they are usually related to European internal politics with someone then just inventing some connection to American current events as a hook for a bit of media attention.
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