The Impact of Three Crises on the Hegemony of Finland's Nuclear Power Elite

ABSTRACT Finland is a homogenous corporatist country characterised by a tight‐knit, consensus‐seeking nuclear power elite that has had a close relationship with Russia for decades. The Finnish nuclear power elite comprises state and governmental actors, political parties, large private companies, labour unions, energy producers and large‐scale industries. Using a neo‐Gramscian theorisation of power, we explore the Finnish nuclear power elite's discursive strategies in response to three external crises related to nuclear energy—the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011, the occupation of Crimea in spring 2014, and Russia's attack on Ukraine in February 2022—by scrutinising the Fennovoima project, for which the Russian state‐owned company Rosatom was the technology supplier. The three crises destabilised hegemony, leading to efforts to restore the legitimacy of Finnish nuclear energy policy arrangements. This entailed the nuclear power elite's use of the discursive strategies of Finnish exceptionalism, counter‐accusation and depoliticisation. In the cases of Fukushima and Crimea, the nuclear power elite managed to safeguard its hegemony and position. By contrast, Russia's attack on Ukraine represented a turning point: this external crisis was sufficiently intense to override the legitimacy of nuclear energy policy and established institutional arrangements, leading Finland to reject cooperation with Russia.