Latest addition to the CEACG-team

Veera_kuva_CEACG

Veera Kankainen, M.Soc.Sci., is the latest addition to the CEACG-team. Kankainen is funded by the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies for the doctoral dissertation ‘The Finn Always Wins? A Qualitative Analysis of the Public Good That Gambling Policies Create’. Kankainen will inquire into the Finnish gambling policies from the perspective of welfare policy and civil society.

In Finland, gambling revenues are, through the state-licensed operators, channeled to civil society organizations as advocates of ‘the public good’. The legitimacy of gambling policies has owed more to its charitable contributions than perhaps in any other European country.

Kankainen’s thesis project will critically investigate and evaluate the role of gambling profits in the realization of various public policy and citizen activity goals. It will specifically focus on the role of the Finnish civil society organizations (CSOs) as the beneficiaries of gambling profits, fleshing out the kind of civil society action that the gambling policies have actually stimulated in Finland.

Today, the governmentally planned fusion of the gambling operators makes this topic especially timely. The moment of transition is an excellent opportunity to look at previous and prevailing gambling policies. The question is topical, both for practical and moral reasons concerning whether the Finnish gambling policies have been adapted to their purpose.

The PhD project is actively connected to the ongoing research in the Academy funded project Gambling Policy in European Welfare Regimes (GPE) 2015–2018, led by Professor Pekka Sulkunen.