The Centre for Sociology of Democracy

To show how these ideas work in practice, the paper presents three literature-based vignettes from Helsinki, St. Petersburg and New York.

Eranti and Zhelnina define closure as the moment when active contestation against a particular planning decision ends. The temporal and democratic nature of urban planning and development thus give possibilities of using temporal power over closure to the hands of social movements and citizens.

New publication! In their new paper at journal Urban Affairs Review CSD’s associate professor Veikko Eranti and alumna Anna Zhelnina claim that to understand temporality and power of citizens in urban planning and development processes, we need to understand how closure is achieved.

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New publication by CSD's associate professor @veikkoeranti.bsky.social and alumna Anna Zhelnina: Temporalities of Closure in Urban Planning Conflicts

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Defence will take place in Porthania lecture hall P674 (Yliopistonkatu 3, 6th floor). Professor Anders Vassenden from University of Stavanger will serve as opponen and associate professor Veikko Eranti as custos. Warm welcome!

Markkinaehtoinen asuminen pettää tasa-arvoa hakevan asukkaan | Helsingin yliopisto Kaupunkilaisten yhdenvertaista mahdollisuutta kotiin haastaa asuntofinansialisaatio eli asumisen kytkeytyminen osaksi globaaleja finanssimarkkinoita.

CSD member Jutta Juvenius will defend her doctoral dissertation "Contested homes? Housing between markets and the Nordic welfare state" on Saturday 29th of March at 12 o'clock.

Kommentti: Euroopan hetki Tiktokissa: #Eurotokissa kytee Amerikka-kriittisyys Alkuvuoden maailmanpoliittiset käänteet näkyvät myös Tiktokissa, jossa #eurotokin kaltaiset, ei-amerikkalaista sisältöä merkkaavat tunnisteet trendaavat.

Kun Tiktok lakkasi toimimasta Yhdysvalloissa 12 tunnin ajaksi tammikuussa, muualla maailmassa käyttäjät alkoivat nähdä äkisti uudenlaista sisältöä. #Eurotok -tunniste levisi, ja myöhemmin sisältö on on saanut entistä voimakkaamman poliittisen vireen. Lue Juulia Heikkisen kirjoitus aiheesta!

In this interview Eranti explains the core themes, individualism, breaking academic silos between social movements, political science, and participation research, and using tools from pragmatist and cultural sociology to understand all kinds of ways young people are doing society for an hour.

CSD's associate professor @veikkoeranti.bsky.social was interviewed by Anna Zhelnina to the wonderful New Books Network Sociology podcast about our book "Youth Participation and Democracy".

newbooksnetwork.com/youth-partic...

Users of Ylilauta construct strong social boundaries, bonds and speech norms, unofficial rules of conduct and belonging in the anonymous online culture. They resist commercialization of their culture and try to preserve its perceived originality.

They argue that users creatively build these ‘glocal’ cultures on affordances but also globally disseminated cultural toolkits of, in this case, imageboards. Siltala et.al. present such an empirical analysis of Ylilauta, a Finnish-language imageboard.

Culture in online anonymous interaction: Negotiating imageboard group style on Ylilauta - Arttu Siltala, Tuukka Ylä-Anttila, Eeva Luhtakallio, 2025 We suggest that the theory of group styles, based on the pragmatist idea of people creatively using cultural tools for meaning-making, can be a fruitful way for...

In their newly published paper CSD members Siltala, Ylä-Anttila and Luhtakallio suggest that the theory of group styles, based on the pragmatist idea of people creatively using cultural tools for meaning-making, can be a fruitful way forward to study the cultures of anonymous online communities.

The results show that issues related to secularization and differentiation of the church and the state typically produce the most contentious debates between conservative and liberal styles of building community, despite that synod groups lack formal affiliation with political parties.

Contentious Community: Politicization and Styles of Engagement in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland | Nordic Journal of Religion and Society Idunn is Scandinavian University Press’ (Universitetsforlaget) digital publishing platform for academic journals and books.

What interconnections exist between religion, political culture and the societal norms and values? This article - written and newly published by CSD member Georg Boldt - deals with contentious motions at the general synod of the evangelical Lutheran church of Finland in the years 2020 and 2021.

The results show that issues related to secularization and differentiation of the church and the state typically produce the most contentious debates between conservative and liberal styles of building community, despite that synod groups lack formal affiliation with political parties.

sosiologipaivat.fi/2025-esitelm...

The call for papers for the Annual Sociological Conference 2025 in Turku is now open! CSD members Juulia Heikkinen and Veikko Eranti are chairing the Political Sociology working group. Cool vibes and cutting-edge democracy stuff provided for sure. Do not hesitate to send an abstract, dl 31.1.2025.

Youth Participation and Democracy Youth Participation and Democracy - Cultures of Doing Society; This book introduces the concept of 'doing society' by exploring how Finnish youth engage in political action beyond traditional forms. C...

So it turns out we are doing bluesky! Who knew! I will be doing mine in English and on sociology and urbanism.

And on that note, I have a book out with bunch of good colleagues!

Youth Participation and Democracy: Cultures of Doing Society is about what it says on the label!